Category: Travel

One of the highlights of this year was our big UK trip. We left the day before school let out (they missed a whopping 4 hours of messing about and total teacher apathy) and flew direct to London.

Once we got to London, we almost immediately hopped a train to Bath and spent a couple of nights there (basically a full day) exploring the Roman Baths, Bath Abbey and the charming little city.

The following morning we headed back to London and then got another train to Edinburgh via York. We had a nice lunch and walk around in York and despite a downpour, really enjoyed our time there.

The late train into Edinburgh was a lovely view of the Scottish countryside, and the beginning of my love affair with Scotland. Swoon.

We had a nice full day in Edinburgh: touring Edinburgh castle, having high tea at the museum and climbing to the top of Arthur’s seat, a pretty amazing “mountain” within city limits.

Another night’s stay there and we picked up our rental car the following morning and headed across the highlands. WOW. Words cannot describe the rugged beauty. Lush and green everywhere, but rugged and amazing! We had a lovely seafoody lunch and saw the sights via car and a little hiking around but it was raining a lot too, so we had to balance cold/wet with outdoorsy fun.

We stayed the night in a delightful little fishing village called Mailaig where we had some of the best seafood chowder I have ever had in a cozy little pub. The next morning we caught the ferry to Isle of Skye.

Isle of Skye is simply incredible. We had an amazing time exploring the island. The renowned Fairy Pools (a hike filled with beautiful and fascinating waterfalls and little pools) completely lives up to the hype and had it not been raining we could have happily stayed there for hours.

We had amazing food at cool pubs. We saw sheep everywhere. We had lovely pies (note to self: more savory pies in our cooking!). We saw amazing natural features and a beautiful light house. We also got a little rest in our “self catering” (i.e. vacation rental).

But finally our time in Skye had to come to an end so we drove our little van back across Scotland to Inverness. On the way we stopped at Eilean Donan castle, an amazing sight to see.

Once in Inverness, we had a quick bite and got on the Caledonian Sleeper train. We spent a pretty comfortable night travelling from Inverness to London where, thankfully, showers greeted us in the first class lounge upon arrival.

Our time in London was amazing too. We visited the British Museum. We went on a bike tour. We saw the sights. We visited Tower of London. We met up with old friends for Turkish food. We went to a giant toy store and an amazing department store. We rode the tube. We loved our hotel (The Bloomsbury) and the Portobello Road Market.

It was an absolutely amazing trip … never hurts to be with the very best people.

At some point in time, my uncle mentioned to me that trains run from Denver to Granby (a mountain town a couple hours away and near his lake house). I filed it away under “cool, maybe later” and thought nothing of it for a while.

Suddenly, a couple days before we were scheduled to visit, I thought of the train and we decided to see what it would take. Matt had to rearrange a meeting, I had to take a day off work and we had to figure out transportation to the station and home, but in the end, $90 netted us tickets and a few phone calls did the rest.

We got up early on Friday, went to my sister’s house, where we parked our car for the weekend, and drove to Union Station. We boarded our train and about 3 hours after we got up, we were trundling right back by our house! ha!

It was a fascinating experience. We got to see parts of the state that are different from what you see on the well-traveled highways. And I could track our progress on my Google Maps app which was fun too.

There was a dining car (bottom left) where you could have a (pretty uninspired looking) nosh and an observation car that had a volunteer from the forest service narrating the scenery. This was pretty hard to get a seat in, but it was cool to pass through.

I liked train travel a lot and the whole family agreed. Tabby would love to do a longer trip.

The seats were large and comfy and reclined nicely. We had power at every seat too which is a huge winner. Probably the only thing I didn’t love were the restrooms which were similar to airplane restrooms but didn’t seem to be in as good repair or as clean. Boo.

If we were going to do it again, especially for longer, we’d bring more things to do and plenty of snacks (offerings were a little iffy), but I think it could be a really fun way to travel! And I’d love to check out a sleeper car!

But the very best part was rolling into Granby and seeing my uncle and aunt!