Month: June 2026

Our days at Hampton Inns start with the “free” breakfast. This one has been pretty good, but nothing compares with the Dublin Hampton breakfast. We’ve been spoiling ourselves all trip by having cappuccino with our breakfast. I might have to get us a machine to make cappuccino. Christine hasn’t been drinking coffee for a few years, but I think cappuccinos are now back on her menu.

Yesterday when on the bus, we drove down Princes Street and I saw some great views of the castle and other amazing buildings. I thought we could start there this morning, so we caught a bus and got off near the Scott Monument. Walking along Princes Street does give some pretty fantastic views. And, Princes Street Gardens has the most incredible rose gardens.

The Scott Monument is one of the most iconic monuments in the city. It is also the second largest monument to a writer in the world. Of course, I’m talking about Sir Walter Scott. It is over 200 feet tall. And for the privilege of paying $20, you can climb 287 stairs to a viewing platform at the top. No thanks! It’s quite an elaborate structure with all sorts of carvings in the sandstone. I think Scott is the most famous Edinburgh son.

Once again, I was trying to find the bus stop for a bus to the Botanic Gardens. In doing so we came across the Royal Scottish Academy building, which looks like a Greek temple, and the National Galleries.

Christine suggested a visit to the National Galleries. It was a beautiful gallery.

I thought it funny that one of the first paintings we saw was of Niagara Falls painted by Fredric Church.

The gallery also had a Van Gogh, Orchard with Apricot Trees in Blossom.

Here’s Christine checking our the Poussin’s Seven Sacraments.

After our gallery visit, we found our bus stop and set off for the Botanic Gardens. It turned into a nice day for a garden visit, not too cold, not too hot. The garden had lots of good shade to help with sun control, which we saw quite a bit of today.

It was a lovely garden and we enjoyed our time there. It’s sort of a “between” time in the garden, with lots of the spring flowers and shrubs spent and not a lot of summer blooms open yet. Nevertheless, it was great strolling around enjoying the scenery. Christine naturally gravitates to children running around and since it’s Sunday, there were lots of families present with young children. The most surprising thing was finding a stand of sequoias in the garden. Of course, they weren’t as big as those in California, but no doubt they will get very big. I won’t bore you with lots of pictures, just a few to give you a sense of the garden.

We had a nice lunch in one of the cafes at the garden. It was good to sit down and rest a spell. Seems like we’ve been walking a lot today. I’m getting really good at deciding to take an Uber or taxi. Just as we were contemplating looking for the bus stop, a taxi pulled up to let people off and we piled in afterwards.

So now we’re back in the hotel room. As you can see, I’ve caught up with my blogging, which is good since if I don’t do it fairly quickly, I forget what we did and lose details that I want to include.

I hope you’ve enjoyed coming along on our trip. I probably won’t write again unless something weird or noteworthy happens on our trip home. We fly to JFK tomorrow afternoon. Because we won’t arrive in time for the last bus to Binghamton from Port Authority, we have to spend the night in Manhattan. We’ll then get ourselves to Port Authority Tuesday late morning and be home Tuesday afternoon. I am so looking forward to being home!

Since Christine is such a Queen Elizabeth lover, I bought tickets to tour the Royal Yacht Britannia which is docked permanently in Leith. Leith is where our cruise was supposed to have docked, but apparently there are wind turbines being built in the channel near the port entrance, so the cruise ship couldn’t enter the channel. I figured out a way to get to Leith by public transport. The bus stop we needed was right outside our hotel. It was just a little over 40 minutes to get to Ocean Terminal where we could start our Britannia tour.

I must say that the public transit system in Edinburgh is fantastic. Most of the busses are double decker busses and they are plentiful. There is also a great tram system in addition to busses. You can pay your fare by phone app, exact change,prepurchased bus passes, or credit card, so it’s really easy. But have something other than American Express. We’re learning that Amex is not widely accepted, unfortunately.

We enjoyed the bus ride through the city and into the suburbs. Nearly all the buildings are sandstone and the neighborhoods look so stately with rows of sandstone townhouses. We arrived at our destination of Ocean Terminal, but we had a little trouble figuring out where to go. To make matters worse, the cellular connection wasn’t working so I couldn’t use Google maps or get our e-tickets ready. After a little wandering around, we located the entrance into a very large mall and saw signs for the Britannia.

The initial displays about Britannia were really interesting. There were lots of photos of the royal family on the yacht.

The order to build the royal yacht came one day before George VI died in 1952. It then fell to Elizabeth to oversee the building of the yacht. It became very special to her. She had a hand in everything and she wanted the yacht’s interior to look like a country house. I was amazed that it only took a year to build the ship. It was really interesting to note that half the yacht was the royal end, and the other half was the working end. There was a flag pole midship marking the two halves.

Britannia was christened by the Queen in 1953. She sailed over one million miles and visited 135 countries.

The tour of the yacht was self-guided with an audio player. I thought the layout of the tour and the audio description of each of about 30 stops was really good.

The Admiral’s suite and the officer quarters were nearly as nice as the royal’s residence.

We moved through the levels of working crew, from the Admiral’s quarters, officers’ rooms, petty officers lounge, to working crew areas. No question there was a hierarchy of comfort.

Then on to the royal residence. Surprisingly, the bedrooms were kind of small. The Queen and Prince Phillip had separate bedrooms with only a twin bed in each.

The only double bed on the yacht was in the bedroom that Charles and Diana slept. Charles requested the double bed after he married Diana.

The state dining room was what you’d expect. It was really beautiful and you could visualize a state dinner with all sorts of dignitaries around the table. The Reagans and the Clintons both were guests on the royal yacht.

The Queen’s sitting room was where she worked while on the yacht.

The drawing room was where the royals entertained guests or spent time together when not entertaining. This room was the Queen’s wish to look like a country home.

There were some photos of the Queen’s Rolls Royce being lifted onto the yacht. Not only did they take a vehicle, but they also took what they called the barge, the small boat used to ferry the Queen from the yacht to the shore when anchored and not docked.

In December, 1997, the royal yacht was decommissioned. The reason for decommissioning was money. In 1994, the government refused to foot the bill for the needed retrofitting of the yacht. The next government refused to pay for a new royal yacht at all. Queen Elizabeth last stepped off the yacht at 3:01 on December 11, 1997. All the clocks on Britannia are stopped at 3:01, memorializing the Queen’s last departure. The decommissioning ceremony was very sad for the royal family and crew. Queen Elizabeth even shed a tear.

Britannia is now under the care of the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust. It will preserve the royal yacht and maintain it as a tourist attraction. It really is quite educational, no matter how you feel about the royals. And it was really touching to learn how much Queen Elizabeth loved Britannia.

After our tour, we got a bite to eat in the big mall nearby. I had intended to then retrace our steps on the bus back to the hotel. That didn’t go as planned and I got frustrated in not being able to find the bus stop we needed. I use Google maps all the time for driving, but I find it very hard to use for walking. At any rate, after wandering around trying to find the bus stop, I finally ordered an Uber. It took quite a while for it to show up. But, all’s well that ends well. We rode back in comfort to our hotel.

For dinner, we went down to the Lebanese restaurant downstairs, Sofia’s, and had a delicious dinner. We ordered mezze for 2 and some lamb borek. It was so good! The hummus was the best we’ve ever had. And then it was back to the room for the remainder of the evening. One more day in Edinburgh and then Monday we fly to NYC. Tomorrow, we’re going to. . . . wait for it. . . . the Royal Botanic Gardens.

The weather today is for showers, so not a great day to be wandering around the city. We decided to go to the National Museum of Scotland as that would keep us out of the rain.

From the street, you see a very old building housing the museum. You enter below ground and it is dark and kind of like a dungeon.

Unexpectedly, you go up a level and walk into the beautiful Grand Gallery, a magnificent, vaulted glass atrium with sweeping cast-iron balconies and staircases.

The National Museum of Scotland is, as you might expect, a museum of Scottish history and culture. All during our cruise excursions we learned a great deal about Scottish history, so we spent less time in those sections of the museum. Although, I really like old wood carvings, and there were some beautiful things in one of the history galleries. There was a painted wooden ceiling taken out of a castle that I thought was stunning.

Here is a carving I liked and some carved chess pieces that were very old.

There were several items related to Mary Queen of Scots including a copy of her tomb.

We wandered around several exhibits and saw lots of beautiful things.

But one of the best places in the museum was the 7th floor rooftop terrace where you got a great panorama of the Old Town. The rain had pretty much subsided, but as you can see, it was cloudy and drab so the photos are so great.

That ugly stadium to the right of the castle is a temporary stadium that goes up and comes down for the Royal Military Tattoo performances and other musical events. It is on the esplanade of the castle and an eyesore in my opinion.

We had lunch in the balcony cafe at the museum, which was nice. A couple of women sat at the table next to us and I recognized them from the cruise, so we had a nice chat with them.

After our visit to the museum, we wandered around for a bit. We happened upon the Royal Mile, the main thoroughfare through Old Town. It is a Scots mile long, 1.81km (1.12 miles) and runs from the castle down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the monarchy in Scotland. Truth be told, the Royal Mile is just a whole lot of souvenir shops and lots of tourists milling about.

We came to St. Giles Cathedral, also know as the High Kirk of Scotland. A High Kirk is a term used primarily in Scotland to describe a Church of Scotland (which is Presbyterian) congregation that worships in a building which was a cathedral prior to the Scottish Reformation. The original building was started in 1127, but most of the present building was built between the 14th and 16th centuries. Every church has a different feel and this one felt heavy and rather dark to me. But it was interesting to look around at all the carvings and stained glass windows. There was also a stunning chapel, known as the Thistle Chapel.

There are piper buskers all around. Christine always dances when we hear one.

After that, we were ready to go back to the hotel. We ordered an Uber and before we knew it, we were back at the Hampton. We stayed in for the evening. The museum shuffle takes its toll on us old ladies, so we were pooped after being out for several hours.

We were up early as our luggage needed to be ready for pickup outside our cabin by 6:00am. This disembarkation process was so well managed. We were able to have a good breakfast in the Veranda dining area and then we needed to be in the lounge by 7:45. Our disembarkation group departed at 8:00 for our bus to St. Andrews and then on to Edinburgh. Surprisingly, there were only 6 of us who opted for the extra excursion to St. Andrews. We met up with our driver Carl and guide Fiona and off we went. It was sad to leave the ship.

Fiona was a great guide and she talked in detail about everything we passed between Dundee and St. Andrews. Christine was especially excited about going to St. Andrews as she lived there as a child. We visited St. Andrews in 2014.

The other 4 women in our group were especially interested in the St. Andrews Golf Links and their goal was to purchase something saying St. Andrews Golf Links. Golfers from all over the world come here because it is the home of golf and the Old Course is the oldest in the world.

Nearby is the beach where the opening scene of Chariots of Fire was filmed.

Fiona walked us around several streets of St. Andrews. I love the sandstone block buildings.

We stopped in the St. Andrews University Chapel.

Walking down one street we passed by St. James Roman Catholic Church, the church Christine’s family attended when she lived here.

WE walked by the ruins of St. Andrew’s Castle, which really was the Bishop’s Palace.

The fog was beginning to roll in from the sea as we made our way over to the ruins of the St. Andrews Cathedral. This is an incredible ruin. It was built starting in 1158. It fell into disuse in the 16th century when the Catholic mass was outlawed during the Scottish Reformation. When built, it was massive, 390 feet long, and was the largest church ever built in Scotland.

On our walk back to the bus, we walked into the courtyard of St. Mary’s College.

While the 4 others went off to buy their golfing swag, Fiona walked us over to Madras College where Christine attended a primary school. Unfortunately, the buildings were all covered in scaffolding and a covering as it was undergoing a big renovation. That was disappointing.

Back on the bus, we traveled to Edinburgh through beautiful countryside.

Coming in to Edinburgh, we crossed over the Firth of Forth where we saw the famous old railroad bridge. It is a cantilevered bridge built in 1890.

We drove by a beautiful old building that was originally built as a school for the deaf in 1840, the Donaldson School. It was in use until 2008 when the school moved to a new facility.

We got a nice look at the suburbs of Edinburgh, and before we knew it, we arrived at Haymarket Station where we were to leave the bus. From there we got a cab and got to our hotel.

We dumped our stuff in the room and went in search of a late lunch. Adjoining the hotel lobby was a Lebanese restaurant, so that’s where we had a nice lunch. After what seemed like a long day, we decided to stay in for the evening and start our Edinburgh visit tomorrow.

Today is Christine’s 78th birthday and today is a day at sea. We are traveling from Invergordon to our disembarkation port, Dundee.

It was a very low key day, but Christine had a bit of a celebration. Our cabin was decorated with balloons and a Happy Birthday .sign. We also had a nice video call with Eve, which was special.

One of our favorite crew members wished Christine a very happy birthday. Her name is Nicole, and tomorrow Nicole starts a 4-month leave after having worked 10-hour days, 7-days per week for 10 months. The crew is amazing and boy do they work hard scurrying around taking care of everything.

I think Christine had an enjoyable birthday.

Today, however, is also a sad day, because we have to pack and get ready for disembarkation. We attended the disembarkation talk. Because our disembarkation port was changed, all new arrangements needed to be made to get everyone to Edinburgh, so it was quite a complicated process. I think there were 12 different ways the ship was getting people to where we are to go, and we all will be off the ship between 6:30am and 9:00am Thursday morning. We opted for an excursion that included a walking tour around St. Andrews and then on to Edinburgh.

So, we spent the afternoon packing and getting ready for an early departure in the morning.

The final Olivia show was Vickie Shaw, a comedian. We’ve seen her several times before, and she is always funny. She did a whole big thing on the difference in how children are raised and play now as when we were all kids. She compared the playgrounds we all played in with the safety-conscious playgrounds of today. The entire audience knew what she meant describing going down a hot metal slide when we were kids. At any rate, she was funny and the audience had plenty of laughs.

So our cruise comes to an end. We’ve had a great time, have seen some beautiful places, and met some interesting women. We’re off to St. Andrews and Edinburgh tomorrow and will stay in Edinburgh from Thursday until our flight to JFK on Monday.

Our port today is Invergordon, so-called gateway to the Highlands. We’re not far from Inverness, which is the more popular town in this part of Scotland. Invergordon lies on the Cromarty Firth. A firth is an elongated sea arm. There is a very deep harbor here in Invergordon. The British Navy had a naval base here during the World Wars. It is also a place where North Sea oil rigs come for repair.

The area around Invergordon is sort of a cross between the landscapes of Orkney and Skye. We see both rolling hills with barley farms and mountains in the distance. We docked at Saltburn Pier, which is a pier extending a mile into the firth.

Our excursion today was to Loch Ness and the Urquhart Castle. We had an hour bus ride through several small villages and lovely farmland. Barley is the cash crop, but we saw potato fields and lots of livestock.

Of course, Loch Ness is a very famous, popular tourist area. The loch is beautiful. It is about 23 miles long and has a depth of over 700 feet at its deepest point. And no, we didn’t see Nessie, the Loch Ness monster.

One of the big attractions is the Urquhart Castle. Once one of Scotland’s largest castles, Urquhart saw great conflict during its 500 years as a medieval fortress. Control of the castle passed back and forth between the Scots and English during the Wars of Independence. The power struggles continued, as the Lords of the Isles regularly raided both castle and glen up until the 1500s. The last of the government troops garrisoned here during the Jacobite Risings blew up the castle when they left in 1692.

After our walk around the castle ruins, we boarded a boat for a tour of Loch Ness. It was a lovely day weather-wise as we’ve apparently brought warmer temperatures and sunny skies for most of our trip. The tour guide told quite a story of the Wellington Bomber that made a ditch landing on the loch after experiencing engine trouble during a training mission on New Year’s Eve 1939. The plane sank to the bottom of the loch and stayed there for nearly 50 years. It was recovered from the bottom in 1985. The plane was largely intact. The composition of the loch water essentially protected it from rust. Personal effects of the crew were still in the plane. The pilot had ordered the 6 crew members to parachute out. All the crew, except for the gunner whose parachute did not deploy, survived. Both pilots survived after landing the plane on the loch. The plane is now in a museum near Surrey, England.

After our boat ride around the loch, we were bussed back to the ship. There was some hold up because only one vehicle at a time can drive the Saltburn Pier since it’s only one lane wide, so we had to wait for a shuttle bus to come back out. It takes some skill for the bus drivers to turn their bus around at the end of the pier.

We enjoyed dinner from the Star Grill and sat in the Yacht Club to eat, which has been a great spot. It’s quiet and we get great views around both sides of the ship.

After dinner, a local group came on board to entertain us. There were 4 young dancers, a bagpiper, an accordion player and a singer. It was great fun watching and listening to Scottish music and dance.

Then it was an Olivia classic, the Newlywed/Oldywed game. It’s a takeoff of the game show that was on TV in the 60s and 70s. There were 2 couples who were new in their relationship and 2 who had been together a long time. Vickie Shaw was the emcee.She’s a hoot! Some of the questions were a bit embarrassing, and of course, the audience roared with laughter at some of the answers and the discomfort of the contestants. But it was all in good fun.

Tomorrow is our last day on ship. It is a day at sea, so there won’t be anything to report. We’re docking in Dundee Wednesday night. Early Thursday we disembark. We signed up for a short trip to St. Andrews for a walking tour of the old city. Then we’ll be bussed to Edinburgh where we’ll get a taxi to our hotel. We’re in Edinburgh from Thursday to Monday when we’ll fly to NYC.

Orkney is an island group of about 70 islands, 20 of which are inhabited. The population of the islands is about 22,000. The area has been inhabited for 10,000 years. We are in Norse territory and there is a Viking history here. Kirkwall is the main town, which is on the largest Orkney island, referred to as Mainland, which gets confusing because you could be talking about either mainland Scotland, or Mainland, Orkney.

We are really far north, but surprisingly, due to the Gulf Stream, the climate is very temperate, rarely going below freezing. We are on the same latitude as Juneau, Alaska.

Norse people began inhabiting Orkney in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. The Kingdom of Norway annexed Orkney and it remained in Norse control until 1492 when absorbed into Scotland, but there were many, many battles between Scots and Norsemen along the way with religion being a main fighting issue.

Kirkwall, the administrative center of Orkney, has a protected harbor and it greets visitors with about 25 national flags fluttering in the breeze.

What we saw of Orkney couldn’t be more different from Skye’s mountains. The landscape around Kirkwall is nearly flat with undulating hills, virtually no trees, and lots of agricultural land.

Tourism, fishing and agriculture are the main industries. Barley is the main crop. If I didn’t mention it, every town in Scotland has its own distinctive distillery, so barley is grown everywhere. There were two other cruise ships in port as we arrived at our anchorage, a Viking ship and a National Geographic ship.

Our excursion was a walking tour of Kirkwall with a local guide. Kirkwall has a number of 17th and 18th century buildings. We also learned that the British Navy had headquarters in Kirkwall during both World Wars due to Orkney’s location in the North Sea. The people of Orkney are called Orcadians. And boy do they have a heavy Scottish accent.

The photo above showing the white building with the tree in front is where locals will say, “I’ll meet you under the big tree.”

Within the town of Kirkwall, the big attraction is St. Magnus Cathedral, the Bishop’s Palace and the Earl’s Palace. The cathedral is the oldest cathedral in Scotland and was started in 1137, taking 300 years to complete. The story of St. Magnus, once the Earl of Orkney, is about the eventual feud with his cousin Hakon. Hakon ultimately captured Magnus and Magnus was killed by being struck in the forehead with an axe. At his burial site, miracles were reported and Magnus was eventually canonized and became a saint. Bones believed to be Magnus’s are in the cathedral.

The cathedral is built of red and yellow sandstone and is quite striking.

Across the street is the remains of the Bishop’s palace.

And across another street is the remains of the Earl’s Palace.

After the tour, Christine and I wandered around the main street looking in shops. We strolled back to the harbor to await our tender. Two tenders run back and forth to the ship, so you never have to wait long for a ride back to the ship.

We rested for a bit. I went to play trivia and was on a team tied for first place. I then went to the port talk about our next port, Invergordon. I picked up Christine and we went to the main dining room for dinner. We were seated at a table with 2 other women, Laurie and Margie. They both were from NYC, but are now living outside of D.C. in Maryland. We had a really nice conversation.

We went to the show, which was Sandra Valls. She made her Broadway debut at age 59 in the show Real Women Have Curves. She’s a comedian and singer. She did a very funny story about an Olivia excursion in Costa Rica. She had everyone in stitches as she made fun of all the awful things the excursion encountered during a jungle walk.

After the show, I took my dancing queen up to the nightclub for dancing.

The end of the day gave us a nice sunset. Because we are so far north, the sun doesn’t disappear until after about 10:30 p.m.

So tomorrow is our last port of call in Invergordon. Wednesday we’ll be a sea until docking in Dundee for the night.

Today we are on the Isle of Skye. It is the largest island of the Inner Hebrides It is 50 miles long and some 10,000 people live on Skye, with about 25% living in the largest town of Portree. Most of the land radiates out from the hub of the Cuillin Mountains, which provide some of the most dramatic scenery in all of Scotland. Not only does it have dramatic scenery, it also has a dramatic history.

The island has been inhabited for 12,000 years – Celts, Gaels, Vikings, and most notably the clans of the MacLeods and the MacDonalds. The whole conflict between the Scots and the English played out significantly here on Skye and the clans still run deep here, even though clans were abolished a long time ago. After the breakup of the clans, there was a period called the Clearances when over 30,000 people were kicked off the island so that sheep farming could take over the land starting in the 1840s. That was pretty shocking to learn. The population has never recovered.

The main industries of Skye are tourism,agriculture, fishing, and forestry. It’s a place visitors come for hiking and camping. Everywhere we went today on our tour we saw camper vans and campgrounds. About one-third of the population speaks Gaelic (here in Scotland pronounced GAL-ic) as opposed to Gaelic (pronounced Gay-lic in Ireland). The weather here is mild, wet, and windy. Skye is referred to as the Misty Isle due to the abundance of rain and fog. We were lucky today to have reasonably good weather – no rain. I was surprised to learn that it rarely snows on Skye.

Portree looks a little bit like Portrush on Mull. There is a small natural harbor. The harbor area is lined with brightly painted storefronts and the town center is up the hill.

Our ship was anchored outside the harbor, so we were tendered into Portree to meet up with our guide for a bus trip to Dunvegan Castle. The drive was 45 minutes and we got a fantastic look at the Cuillin Mountains and the Scottish Highlands. Stunningly beautiful!

As were were driving along, we saw a beautiful 3-masted ship coming up the loch. Our guide was so excited that she made the bus driver stop so we could all get out and take pictures of the scene.

There are two separate Cuillin ridges, one called the Black Cuillin, the other the Red Cuillin. The rock is different in these two ridges. The Black Cuillin is made up of igneous rock from lava while the Red Cuillin started out as igneous but over time, the conditions turned the stone to granite. The Cuillin ridges are divided by a glen called Sligachan. The Cuillins are owned by two estates. We headed to the Black Cuillin estate owned by the MacLeods.

The Chief of the Clan MacLeod lives in the castle. To date, there have been 30 chiefs. Interestingly, 2 have been women, the most recent was Flora, the grandmother of the current chief. There was another female chief, but she isn’t really counted because she was just a child when she became chief and so an appointed person ruled for her. The rooms of the castle open to the public are full of artifacts and memorabilia of the clan.

We walked through the self-guided tour rooms and learned a little bit about the MacLeods.

Dunvegan Castle also has one of Scotland’s best gardens. The castle brochure describes the garden this way – Dunvegan Castle’s five acres of formal award-winning gardens began life in the 18^th century. In stark contrast to the barren moorland and mountains which dominate Skye’s landscape, the castle’s Water Garden, Rose Garden, Walled Garden and woodland walks provide a hidden oasis for an eclectic mix of flowers, exotic plants, specimen trees and shimmering pools fed by waterfalls and streams flowing down to the sea. All the various sections are just beautiful.

One of the most interesting things in the garden was a tree I’d never heard of – a monkey puzzle tree. It comes from Chile and is the national tree of Chile. It had the most interesting leaves, very tough, thick and scale-like. The edges and tips are sharp. This is an evergreen and these weird leaves stay attached for years.

The other very interesting tree we saw is the Korean fir. It also is an evergreen and its leaves are a beautiful color green. But the coolest thing is that the cones are purplish dark blue before they fully mature. The color combination of the leaves and cones was striking.

It was a lovely garden set below the castle and going down to the loch. While Christine enjoyed sitting on a bench near a little waterfall, I explored the garden and took a zillion photos of many beautiful flowers that you see above.

And all too soon it was time to get back in the bus for the 45-minute drive back to Portree. But again, what spectacular scenery!

Back in Portree, we wandered around the town for a bit and then made our way down to the harbor to catch the tender back to the ship.

There was one view from the ship that really intrigued me. The mountainous terrain was on both sides of the ship. Off one side was an area where sheep were grazing high up among rocks and green pasture. The whole steep hillside had no trees except for one beautiful, full canopy tree halfway up the hillside. I would have loved to hear the story of how that one tree came to be in the spot. Look in the middle of the picture below to see that one tree.

Back on board, we had a late lunch and then rested for most of the afternoon. At 5:00 p.m. we went to see Angie K, an indie artist who leans country, do a short set. She performed last night, but we were too tired to see her then. It was nice to get a sense of her singing.

We then went to the port talk about Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands where we’ll be tomorrow. Our excursion is a walking tour of the town.

We had dinner in our private spot in the Yacht Club with food from the Star Grill, and now we’re back in our cabin and will stay in this evening. This trip is tiring!

I must say the Scottish Highlands are simply stunning and we’re loving see this amazing part of the world.

Last night, Christine was looking out our porthole. It was almost 10:00 pm and still light. She said, “there’s fish jumping.” She said it a couple of times. I couldn’t image what she was seeing, so I got up and looked out the porthole. Sure enough, there was a dolphin jumping through the wake of the ship. It seemed to be having a wonderful time. It kept up with the ship for several minutes and then disappeared. It was so much fun watching our dolphin friend.

Today we anchored near the little village of Tobermory, the capital of the Isle of Mull, Scotland. Mull is the island that is circled below.

It’s the 4th largest island in Scotland, covering about 330 square miles. Population is just a little over 3,000. Most of the population lives around the capital of Tobermory so the rest of the island is nearly unpopulated. Tobermory is a stunning village.

Our excursion today was called Aros Coastal Walk. I don’t know why I signed us up because Christine doesn’t do too well walking out in challenging terrain. And after we started the hike, it became apparent that she shouldn’t be doing the walk. She was pretty frightened at the start because the trail was narrow, muddy and very close to a steep drop off. She nearly had a panic attack, but the women in our group gave her a lot of verbal support and offered hands and foot placement cues. The Olivia escort, Erica, was really nice, shepherding us along as we brought up the rear of the group. Eventually, Christine’s anxiety lessened. Every time the terrain changed, though, she kept saying, “oh, God.” I had to eventually laugh every time she said that. But, I was proud of her for doing this challenging 3.5 mile hike, up and down muddy trails. And she survived relatively unscathed, except for a very muddy shoe that sank in a big puddle.

Aros park is a beautiful woodland and temperate rainforest area. It is a very popular park for both tourists and locals. It even has a disc golf range within the park, which we saw several of the baskets in the woods. In addition to great vegetation, wonderful old growth cedar trees, and lots of small streams, the park has a few waterfalls. Our guide gave a lot of information about the flora and fauna. Unfortunately, we missed a lot of her talk because we lagged behind the group while dealing with the terrain. But what we did hear was valuable information. She pointed out wild garlic, showed us a peat bog and talked about how these bogs are significant carbon catchment areas. She talked about the native trees and the invasive plants that are doing damage. I really enjoyed the hike, but I am sorry that it was so stressful for Christine.

At one point, we came across this lovely cottage.

Tobermory is basically a one street village. All the shops are along Main Street. It’s a busy area as it is a tourism draw because it is picture postcard perfect. I was very surprised to see a whole bunch of sailboats. I guess sailing around the Hebrides is a popular activity. We saw lots of sailboats out on the ocean and moored in the harbor.

Tobermory was built as a fishing port in the late 1700s by the British to bring fish into primarily London and other major cities, but the area has been inhabited for thousands of years. Archeologists have found standing stones, kind of like Stonehenge, in the area. Before the creation of the village, there were only tall cliffs, so builders had to blast away some of the cliffs in order to have flat land on which to build the town. As such, there really is only one street running through the town where the harbor lies and where all the shops, hotels and restaurants are. There is also a distillery, founded in 1798, located on the main street. You might notice that there are houses and a big, old hotel up on the cliff edge over the main street. Getting up to that level involves quite a climb, even for cars.

It really is a lovely, picturesque town with its brightly colored storefronts along the main street. After our Aros park walk, Christine sat in town and listened to some local musicians while I walked from one end of Main Street to the other and back again.

We went back to the ship by tender and had lunch. Then we rested for a bit. Then we went to the Olivia presentation on all the trips they are doing for 2026-2027. This is a popular presentation because they always raffle off a couple of trips, 2 fares for the price of 1. Wouldn’t you know it, I won a Caribbean trip next February, a Valentine’s trip. I’m not sure we’ll take it because we were thinking of going to Australia in January and part of February. This cruise starts February 13 and departs from Fort Lauderdale. We’ll try to figure something out. We have to buy the trip before we leave this ship in order to get the 2 for the price of 1 deal. We’ll think it over for a bit and make a decision.

We then attend the port talk about our next stop, Portree, on the Isle of Skye. Our excursion tomorrow is to a castle and a drive through the Highlands.

Then on to dinner. Since we had a late lunch, we didn’t want to have a big dinner. We checked out the Star Grill, which is on deck. It was a bit brisk sitting outside, so we had the brilliant idea of getting a plate of food and going to the nearby Yacht Club. We found a lovely seating area right next to a sunny window and enjoyed a light dinner in a beautiful spot.

We’re forgoing the show tonight. It’s a singer named Angie K. I think after the traumatic day Christine had, it’s best to have an early, restful night. It’ really tiring to be on the go so much! We did a lot of walking today.

This area is so incredibly beautiful. Since we were at anchor, we had 360 degree views of gorgeous scenery.

Today’s excursion is the one I most wanted to do. For whatever reason, the Giants Causeway has been on my bucket list. Ever since I saw pictures of this amazing geological formation, I’ve wanted to see it for myself.

We are in Portrush, Northern Island. We’re anchored out at sea, so we have to go by ship’s tender into the village. Each tender takes 80 people and so getting 80 old ladies from the ship into the tender is no small feat.

Portrush is a big summer holiday location. The village of 3,000 residents swells to 20,000 in the summer. There’s been a housing boom as people buy second homes for holidays. It seems to be a nice little village and it is clearly a summer tourist town. One of the big draws is long, golden sand beaches, although the Irish sea is very cold for swimming.

It was a very picturesque drive to the Giant’s Causeway. As you can tell from some of the photos above, the weather wasn’t so great for a day outside. It didn’t take long to get from Portrush along the Antrim coastline to the causeway. The road in places is right at the edge of the cliff, though, so it was a little scary to be going along the winding, narrow road right at cliff’s edge. We did catch a glimpse of the castle we’ll be visiting after the causeway, Dunluce.

The Giant’s Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its geological significance. It is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns that were created through explosion of lava through chalk beds. As the lava cooled, it fractured similar to what mud does in dry lake beds. As the cooling descended, pillars were formed. These pillars fractured both vertically and horizontally into what’s known as biscuits. These horizontal fractures were often concave on the top side and convex on the bottom side. The vertical fractures caused mostly octagonal pillars.

How it got its name Giant’s Causeway is a folk tale about two giants on opposite sides of the Irish Sea, one in Ireland and one in Scotland. The giants challenged each other to a duel. The Scottish giant built a causeway so he could cross the sea to fight the Irish giant. One giant fakes out the other and ultimately races back across the causeway, destroying it so the other giant can’t chase him. It’s kind of a weird story. At any rate, I was excited to see the basalt pillars and biscuits.

Because it was raining and the walk of about 25 minutes was downhill, Christine stayed in the visitor center while I set out. The coastal scenery was gorgeous, even in the rain.

The basalt pillars and biscuits were very interesting. We were warned that the basalt would be very slippery, especially in the rain, so it was with caution that I ventured out a bit onto some of the biscuits. I heard one woman say that she wished the stones in her garden look as good as these formations. It was amazing to see all these octagonal stones interlocking so nicely.

In addition to the more eroded biscuits that were quite flat, thicker biscuits of basalt were stacked up.

You can easily see the pillars of basalt and how they area fractured vertically and horizontally.

It’s hard to take in the full spectrum of the basalt. The pillars and biscuits stretch for a long way. It’s difficult to get good pictures because it’s slippery and walking to where a good photo can be taken is life threatening.

By now, it was raining pretty hard, and I had a 25-minute uphill walk to tackle. By the time I got back to the visitor center, I was soaked. I met up with Christine and we looked at some of the displays in the visitor center. Then it was time to get back on the bus for a short ride to Dunluce Castle.

The first Dunluce Castle was built in the 13th century. In the 1500s, there was a succession of clans living in the castle, but by the late 1600s, the castle fell into disrepair and the inhabitants were not able to afford the upkeep. By the early 1700s, the castle was raided for its stones and that was pretty much the end of the castle. An archeological dig in 2011 found that there was an entire village near the castle and so the area was really a thriving community in its heyday.

I thought the castle remnants were really cool and I enjoyed walking around the site.

One view from the castle along the coast was beautiful because you could make out an arch of stone with a window through it.

And that brought us to the end of our excursion. We bussed back to the harbor and boarded our tender. Back on the ship, we had a nice lunch and then retired to our cabin for a rest and some blogging. We went to the port talk and learned about Tobermory, Scotland, where we’ll be tomorrow. Then we went to dinner in the big dining room. The food has been really good.

After dinner, it was back to the cabin. There’s no show tonight, so we’re happy about that so we can get to bed at a decent hour and I can catch up blogging. If I don’t do it right away, I forget things, and since this blog has become such a good memory book for us, I want to keep it up. So, I’m now all caught up.