Haggis and Bagpipes

[Labster]

It's almost that time again, where I get my employer to pay to send me to a programming conference in a distant land, and thus pay for my vacation travel.  This year, The Perl Conference in Europe will be in Glasgow, which is technically still part of Europe (for now).  So I'm leaving tomorrow, and then I have two weeks before the conference to explore Scotland, on my own.

Anyone have any suggestions for where I should go?  I'm planning to go to the big tourist sites: Edinburgh Castle, Loch Ness, and Hogwarts.  I'm interested in seeing Skye and Iona, too.  But if anyone else has a suggestion, I'd love to hear it.

[classicdrogn]

I've only seen it on the internet, but Sterling Castle looks pretty cool too. And Loch Lomond I guess? It's famous from the song, at least, though if you've seen one lake... There's a number of interesting real locations related to Macbeth, if you're up for even more castles and ruins. Willie Wigglespike was not in it for the historical accuracy, but they're still pretty cool.

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united...13-places/

[Jinx999]

If you like wild scenery, I'd suggest the west coast or the Cairngorms.

As an Englishman, I find scottish museums hard to take. I once answered "what if the highland clearances hadn't happened?" with "There'd be a museum in Scotland attacking the English for preventing rural development."

[Dartz]

In fairness, you's sort of have that reputation as being sort of internationmal daleks.

[Labster]

In that Macbeth article, why is Sueno's Stone inside an Apple Store?

[classicdrogn]

What, you think they can open an iPhone case without witchcraft?

[Labster]

I was not prepared for the sheer number of Harry Potter shops in Edinburgh.  My first day there, I was in Haymarket, but then I moved to a hotel in Grassmarket (is there a theme here?).  The latter one is on the corner of Victoria Street, which is supposedly the inspiration for Diagon Alley.  At least that's what they said when I took the Literary Pub Tour, though they talked a good deal more about Robert Burns than Jo Rowling.  That tour(/play/pub crawl) is highly recommended and not just by me.

Moved up the coast now.  Driving on the left is fun, I guess.  It's not all that hard really, but you have to really pay attention to driving again, as if you were still learning.  Lane-keeping is the hard part -- and the narrow, winding, rainy roads don't help.  But it's very pretty.  I'll throw up a couple photos when I have some better internets.

[Inquisitive Raven]

IMHO, the real problem with Americans driving on the left side of the road is that it takes time to train out the tendency to take right turns tight and left turns wide. I expect that Brits and Japanese driving in places where one drives on the right have similar issues. I say this as an American who learned to drive stick in England.