Friday, October 27, 2006

Sixth honeymoon

We always try to go somewhere for our anniversary and call it our honeymoon. This year was our fifth wedding anniversary, so our sixth honeymoon. Since we are on a tight budget we just went somewhere nearby for one night. Our Am Ex forum Scotland travel expert suggested an area called Dunkeld/Birnam. We missed autumn back home and Josh was really wanting to get into the woods again, not an easy task in Scotland. Scotland had been deforested for agricultural purposes thousands of years ago. By the first World War, only 5 percent of Scotland was covered by trees http://www.snh.org.uk/publications/on-line/education/advances5/4-land-cover.asp BUT, Dunkeld actually has forests! And we were hoping to catch a little autumn color action, like this: http://www.visitdunkeld.com/perthshire-autumn-colours.htm

We got up at 5am for a 6:30 train. We missed it. And the next one was two hours later. Guess what you can do in city centre at that early hour? Walk. So we walked around until Starbucks opened at 7:30. We were early for the next train.

When we got off the train in Birnam we had to walk through a little wooded path to get to the town. I knew then that it would be lovely! We walked to our B&B and checked in: http://www.birnamguesthouse.co.uk/ Birnam is quite small (under 300 I believe) but Dunkeld is much larger (over 600 I believe) so we headed over there to get some food. To get to Dunkeld we walked over the scenic River Tay.

We did a lot of walking through the town (or village) and the woods on the first day. The interest point of the town was ruined Dunkeld Cathedral: http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/dunkeld/cathedral/index.html We were so nackered from all of our walking the first day that we didn't really attempt our ambitious desire to walk up the highest hill. It was pretty foggy during our entire trip anyways that we wouldn't have been able to see much. We had heard about Birnam Wood, made famous by Shakespeare's Macbeth: http://www.visitdunkeld.com/birnam-wood.htm so we spent our final hours in the wood and on a trail along the River Tay.

It was short and sweet. We walked to much and after we were kicked out of the B&B we had to keep our backpacks on us, so we were ready to get home. Oh, and never take the Perth train to Edinburgh on a Sunday afternoon. Josh stood and I had to sit on the floor much of the way.

I have lots of pictures on flickr now (click here). Have a browse. (There is more than one page so be sure to flip through!)

Oh, and PLEASE leave your comments. Unfortunately I had to get rid of the tagboard and haven't been able to find a new one yet. We want to hear from you. You can leave comments on flickr, too!

2 comments:

Stephanie Wilson she/her @babysteph said...

I think it is so awesome you are in the land of Shakespeare's Macbeth. You are getting to do some awesome and amazing things- happy Anniversary, too!

P.S. Tiph's shower is tomorrow and I'll try to remember the video camera!

jilandrich said...

I was just sorting through all of my pictures and found some from your wedding. Five years! Congratulations. Sounds like a great honeymoon :). You guys have some great traditions.

I'm praying for the job situation too.