Scotland!!

As part of my last summer vacation ever (as a student), which will not be "all in one day," Sam and I are going to Scotland for 10 days in August! As the time is getting closer, we are just about finished with the back-bone plans of the trip, and can't wait!

1. Plane tickets - check
2. General itinerary - check
3. Rental car - check
4. Lodging in 2 of the 3 cities - check

Here is our schedule and the places we are going
View Scotland Vacation in a larger map:
Saturday, 8/8 I'll drive out to Chicago and stay the night with Sam
Sunday, 8/9 Leave O'Hare at 9:35a
Monday, 8/10 Arrive in Glasgow about 8:50a. We will take the Citylink bus to Edinburgh
Monday, 8/10-13 We will stay in Edinburgh at St. Christopher's Hostel

Thursday, 8/13 We will pick up our rental car, an Opel Astra and drive to Inverness, in the highlands, which is just over three hours.
8/13-15 We will be staying at a great little family run bed and breakfast, Summer Lee B&B. Here we will have the pleasure of a full Scottish breakfast, which traditionally includes toast, beans, fried haggis, potato hash, eggs, back bacon, potato scones, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, Lorne sausage, black pudding, oatcakes, kippers (salmon), and porridge. I am full well aware of haggis and black pudding and will, I promise, try it at least once.

Saturday 8/15 We will drive to the Isle of Skye, which will take us just over 2.5 hours. This is the last leg of the trip that we have still to plan. There are several great places to stay in Skye and we will most likely be traveling around to different parts of the island to see everything (or as much as we can). I still have to decide the best "central" location to stay if we will be doing some traveling within the isle, but it is looking like Portree is the most likely candidate. If anyone has suggestions, they would be greatly welcomed.

8/15-18 We will be staying in the Isle of Skye. We will be heading back to Glasgow (about a 4 hour trip) sometime late on the 17th or early AM (i.e. 2am) on the 18th. We need to be back to the airport around 6am to drop off the car and get checked in on time for our 10:15am flight. We figured that we might as well spend the last night either on Skye or at a pub in Glasgow - we've got a long flight to sleep it off.

Still to do:
Find a place to stay on the Isle of Skye
Figure out if there are any festivals during our visit, because I hear Scotland is famous for their summer festivals
Determine if there is anything we want to see that needs reservations/tickets, like tours etc.