This Easter holiday we are spending in Scotland.

I like analogies — in fact, my brain often goes on a frolic and begins generating them unprompted. When it comes to travelling your own country, the analogy is a relationship which is past its initial infatuation stage (for which a specific term exists in the Russian language: the “cholocalate-flowers period”) and, slowly but surely and more often than not,  partners start taking each other for granted. Similar with travelling: you know how much there is  to see and experience in your “neck of the woods” but somehow keep putting that trip to the Lake District off, because “it will always be there”.

This Easter, we have decided to be “a good husband” and spend 5 days in Scotland (and not in Tuscany… sigh!). I have tried to use my very basic IT skills to reproduce our itinerary below: basically, 2 nights in Edinburgh, a night in Ullapool and a night in Portree, moderate levels of driving and extensive exploration (fingers crossed for the weather).

The Scotland trip got me all nostalgic about the first time I visited Edinburgh, which was back in 2006. I have even dug out a picture from that “era” below (please don’t ask me why I was wearing what I was wearing); a true rara avis that is! At the time, I was a poor A Level student, so, as a money saving measure (the tickets cost under £10, if my memory serves me well), I convinced my friend to go to Edinburgh from London on Megabus. It was an overnight trip; I think my logic was that we would sleep on the bus and arrive in Edinburgh fresh and rested. But when the bus broke down in the middle of the Scottish countryside in the early hours of a cold December morning and we had to wait for the next Megabus bus to pick us up (that bus had its own passengers, so we spent the rest of the journey standing), I understood very well the meaning of the proverb “A cheapskate pays twice as much”. Still, an invaluable experience and part of being young, broke and travel-hungry!