One of the main reasons we went to Scotland was to see the hairy coos! As well as the breathtaking landscapes that Scotland has to offer, of course.
What the hell's a hairy coo you ask?
Only the cutest animal ever.. It's a highland cow!
We started our search for the hairy coo by picking up our hire car in Sheffield and getting on the M1 to Edinburgh. It was a really nice drive, as we got to see a lot of the northeast coast of England and eventually arrived at the amazing border crossing. Okay, it was just a sign and a couple of flags, but it was still exciting. We arrived in Edinburgh around 1pm and only had a few hours before we had to go to our accommodation in Glasgow.
car hire
If you've read our last blog post/s you'll know that we love our car hire. It may not be for everyone, but for us it's perfect. We get to travel at our own pace, it's usually cheaper than taking the train or flying, and we get to make it our own for the weekend. We hired a small, 5-door hatch through Europcar, and when we went to pick it up, they had a small SUV for us. We were more than happy to accept this upgrade free of charge. This is very rare and doesn't happen often, but when it does, take it and run! Or drive..
For the 5 days, it only cost us about £80. The beauty of taking the car this trip was that we got to go to Edinburgh and Glasgow in the same day, we got to take our suitcase, which we don't normally do when traveling (we normally just take our packs). We also had the freedom to take small luxuries from our apartment in Sheffield, such as a kettle, tea, coffee, sugar, mugs, etc. because we knew the hotel room had no such amenities. We'd never normally think of doing this when travelling, but it was a brilliant idea.
edinburgh
tours/activities
Harry Potter Walking Tour
We don't have much content for Edinburgh, as we only had a few hours there in the afternoon. But, the main reason we went to Edinburgh first, before heading across to Glasgow, was that we wanted to do the free Harry Potter walking tour that departs at 2pm everyday! There are a lot of "free" walking tours around the UK and Europe, the catch is they ask you for a donation for any amount that you think the tour was worth at the end. Some tour guides guilt trip you into spending money you never intended to spend, but most are super friendly and don't mind if you just give them a polite thank you before you leave. On this occasion, our tour guide was really nice, so we gave her £5 each. This tour is really interesting, and starts off in one of the most famous cemeteries in Scotland, where JK Rowling drew most of her characters' names from in the books. The tour guide takes you to all the important graves and headstones, and she is full of interesting facts and theories! Of course, most of them are just theories, but it gives you some new perspectives on the books. The tour takes about 1.5 hours and you get to learn heaps about JK Rowling and the Harry Potter series, including seeing where JK Rowling wrote some of the books and where the Scots believe "Diagon Alley" was based. They pack a lot into a short amount of time, but it is well worth it.
The Potter Trail - www.pottertrail.com
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle is right in the city of Edinburgh and is easily accessible on foot. It's definitely worth a walk up to the esplanade of the castle grounds to see the amazing view over the city and the monuments and memorials lining the courtyard. This is also the courtyard where the Military Tattoo takes place annually which is pretty cool to see. We didn't buy a ticket inside the castle as we were short on time, but the tickets were £18, which allowed you inside the castle to see the Crown Jewels of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny. See the official website below for more info! Edinburgh Castle - www.edinburghcastle.scot/visit
glasgow
accommodation
We spent 4 nights in Glasgow at EasyHotel. This is very much a budget hotel and the price more than suited our budget for the weekend. We paid about £40 per night. The bed only just fit in the room, but it was comfortable enough and it was clean. We had no where to put our bags and there was no ventilation in the rooms. In other words, by the morning the clothes we wore snowboarding the day before were well and truly ripe. The bathroom looked like they'd just pulled it from an out-of-service EasyJet plane and plonked it in our hotel room, to give you an idea of the size, but we did get our own private ensuite, which is an upgrade from a mixed dorm, shared bathroom in a hostel. We were happy enough considering what we paid and the staff were really nice. They also have a 24/7 reception which is handy. Next time we might opt for a hostel so that we had somewhere to cook ourselves dinner and stretch our legs, but all-in-all, we're budget travellers and we paid a small fee for a comfy, warm bed in a really good location.
Comfort: 5/10
Staff: 7/10
Restaurant/Bar: N/A
Vibe: 3/10
Overall: 5/10
tours/activities
SnowFactor
One of the many reasons we went to Scotland was to go snowboarding. There are limited ski resorts in the UK to go snowboarding, and we weren't really prepared to dip into our savings deep enough to go all the way to the French/Swiss Alps. So, we did some research, checked the forecast and booked our trip to Glasgow! Glenshee Ski Centre had 8 lifts open and their snow-cams were showing a fair bit of powder. Unfortunately for us, it didn't snow the whole time we were there, and there ended up only being 1 lift open on the day we had planned to go. Fortunately for us, we didn't give up! We found SnowFactor. An indoor ski resort in Glasgow. This place is HUGE. Not only do they have an artificial mountain, there are restaurants, shops, bars, an IMAX, high ropes course, rock climbing, and so much more. We spent all day here and we still didn't get to do everything. We bought a one-day lift pass for about £15 each (a lot cheaper than any lift pass you'll find at a real ski resort). It was quite a slow run, but it was a good chance to just to practice. We are very much rookie snowboarders, but we love it, so we loved the chance to strap our board on and have some fun. Also, if you want to hang around, they open the freestyle park at 6pm to try out some rails.
Timberbush Day Tour
There are so many day tours out of Glasgow! We usually use Viator for our day tours, and we had to narrow it down to a few things that we wanted to see - Loch Ness, Glencoe, Inverness and Ben Nevis. We found a day tour that went to all these places and more! We paid about £40 each for the day tour and we got much more than we bargained for! The tour had five scheduled stops, but our driver managed to double that and fitted in ten stops. The small sacrifice we had to make was spending, for example, 25 minutes at our first stop rather than 45 minutes. The reward was that we got to have an experience that we think is one of the best experiences we've had on our travels! Our driver, Stephen, pulled over to the side of the highway, got us all off the bus out into the rain and started coo-ing*! We had no idea what was going on, but over the hills came 7 wild deer! It was incredible. We got to hand feed them. They were so placid and beautiful.
Then, we piled back into the bus, saw some waterfalls, took some photos and moved onto the next additional stop. Stephen jumps out of the bus with a childish grin on his face and starts coo-ing again. Across the paddock came a pair of hairy coos! Mother and daughter. We got to feed them as well. It was so incredible and both of us being animal lovers, this was definitely the highlight of the highlands. In fact the first thing Kate asked when we got on the bus at the start of the day was "are we going to see any highland cows today?"
*coo-ing as in the Aussie "COOEE!" to get someone's attention, not the soft cooing of a pigeon.
After the deers and cows, we hit the road towards Loch Ness, Urquhart Castle and Inverness. At Urquhart Castle we got to hear some incredible stories on a free tour of the castle. We learnt so much about the amazing history of the castle and of the surrounding area. There was a cool gift shop that had a cinema room showing an 8-minute movie about the history of the castle. Even if history isn't your thing, the castle sits right on the edge of Loch Ness, so you can take in some amazing views while you look for Nessie. We then hopped on a ferry to travel up Loch Ness to Inverness (looking for Nessie the whole time, of course). Don't worry if you didn't see her, though, because there is a statue of her out the front of the gift shop at the top of the wharf to get a piccy with.
Timberbush Tour - https://www.timberbush-tours.co.uk/our-tours/from-glasgow/one-day/loch-ness-glencoe-the-highlands/
Clydeside Distillery
A tour of a scotch distillery and a scotch tasting? It would be rude not to!
Especially in the motherland of the beautiful, brown nectar. Did we mention we're now officially rookie scotch connoisseurs as well?
This tour was so interesting. We learnt about the history of scotch in Scotland and more specifically in Glasgow and it's origins. We learnt how the scotch was made from start to finish, we got to see parts of the process, and at the end of it all we had a lesson in scotch tasting. It was a very important lesson and it is one you should all partake in! The tour cost about £15 per person and is highly recommended, even if you're not much of a scotch drinker.
food and drinks
We used local supermarkets to buy lunches and snacks everyday in Scotland. Especially for the day tour, as we saved time and money by bringing our own food on the bus. We were able to eat on the bus, then look around at each stop, whereas most of the people in our group spent 10-minutes lining up to wait for their coffee. We also saved about £4 each per day by taking our own tea and coffee in a thermos. In total we worked out that we saved roughly £20 per day by not eating out or buying coffees. Also, we try to avoid getting take-away coffees as we don't own keep cups (yet) and we don't like using throw-away cups.
Our one recommendation for a nice dinner out in Glasgow is Stereo (22 Renfield Lane). Yes, one night we were wet, cold and tired and all we wanted to do was treat ourselves to a delicious, hot meal. We couldn't of picked a better spot. It's a vegan restaurant with an awesome menu for food and drinks (they have vegan Bailey's!). It's in a dark alleyway, right in the heart of the city, but you feel like you're miles away from the hustle and bustle. A very cool, laid-back vibe.
other tips/advice
- Prepare for the worst weather and you won't be disappointed. It's Scotland - it's going to be cold and it's probably going to rain. If not, you can take your jacket off, but believe us, you'll want that jacket when you're exploring the Scottish Highlands and out in the rain feeding wild deer and hairy coos.
- We recommend spending more nights in Edinburgh if you have the chance. Glasgow was nice, but it was just another city, whereas Edinburgh was a lot richer in history and it had a certain charm to it.
Show us some love and ask any questions or leave a comment below!
jorgiandkate
This was a great read! “What the hell’s a hairy coo?” Hahah that’s what I was thinking 😂 those cows are soooo beautiful!!