Arjan has done it again! He found us a marvelous place to stay for the next five days in Scotland—a bungalow called “The Garden Studio” in Doune, Stirlingshire, about halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Doune (pronounced “dune”) is a tiny town, most famous for its medieval Doune Castle.
We are centrally located near Stirling (site of another famous castle) and the Trossachs National Park, which includes Loch Lomand. (More about those places when we have actually visited them!)
In the meantime, I want to praise our lodgings. The owners, Fiona and Colin Graham, have set up the little cottage perfectly. It is very cozy and beautifully arranged, and everything we might need has already been thought of. The little house is tucked behind their house, at the end of a driveway you couldn’t find unless you knew it was here. We have the ultimate in privacy and convenience, and a wonderful place to relax and stay put for a while.
Outside our windows is an old stone fence and rolling green farmlands, with mountains that appear out of nowhere in the afternoon sun. Speaking of sunshine, we have had two days of cloudless skies and temperatures in the 70s Farenheit (above 21 degrees Celsius). Hard to believe that we have brought our travel weather gods with us once again. Even if it turns cloudy or even rainy over the next few days, we have been blessed with absolutely perfect weather to get settled into our little haven.
Today, we took a long time to get started, enjoying the precious sunshine on our porch and streaming in through the windows. We finally dragged ourselves away to go sightseeing around 3:00 PM. Luckily, the sun doesn’t go down until around 10:00 PM, so we had plenty of sunshine to drive a portion of the Trossachs Trail, a scenic loop around the National Park, and take a walk near Loch Katrine.
Dinner will be at the Lion & Unicorn in Thornhill, a nearby pub that sent us away last night because they were mobbed. Last night, we ended up eating at L’Angolino’s in Doune just before closing. Every other place we tried turned us away! While waiting for our table, we took a stroll around the neighborhood and actually stumbled across Doune Castle after the tourists had all gone home for the night.
Photographs © 2016 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.