Scotland

A few months ago I had call to visit the Isle of Skye for a couple of days. I have travelled acros Skye countless times but rarely spent more than a couple of hours exploring places such as Portree where we would often stop for a bite to eat before returning to our journey. This time my destination was the island itself so I had plenty of time to look around... Read More

The United Kingdom is home to many wonderful towns that are worth visiting. One of these towns is Newquay which located on the north Atlantic coast of Cornwall, England. This town is bounded to the west by River Gannel and its associated salt marsh, and to the east by the Porth Valley... Read More

It’s been a while since I posted here, it’s not that I have run out of things to say about Scotland and the UK, no, I have actually been rather busy building my new UK Hotels site SimplyTop.com. I have also been hard at work trying to make something of my front garden and although there is still a fair bit to do I have started to think about my other sites, especially those about the Isle of Harris and the Outer Hebrides. I’ve just completed a couple of sites dedicated to hotels on Skye after spending a wonderful couple of days there getting our car serviced and I have just revamped my site Virtual Skye with a view to expanding it considerably over the next year or so (yes there really is that much to see and do on Skye!).  The next islands I plan to visit are the Isle of Arran and, in the autumn, I plan to visit the Isle of Mull but for now I am happy enjoying the wonderful Isle of Harris... Read More

Each year I see more and more people taking their family pet away with them on their annual vacation. I used to only see old age pensioners taking their pet dog with them but now it is just as common to see a whole family with the dog. I don’t know why this surprises me so much as when I was a child we always took our dog with us when we went camping and the only time we didn’t was when we stayed in a hotel. Maybe that is it, maybe these days more hotels and guest houses allow pets? I pondered on this for a while and took a look at some of the many articles on the Internet about so called “Pet Friendly Hotels”. I then decided to begin creating lists of places which allow pets and could therefore be said to be pet friendly... Read More

I have mentioned Stirling Castle in earlier posts but having just created a new page for simplytop.com with a wealth of details about Stirling Castle I thought it was worth including a few of the important details here. Although I have yet to visit Edinburgh Castle from the information I have read it appears to me that it is rather over estimated, especially when compared to the fantastic example at Stirling... Read More

Scotland is a wonderful country, a country of diverse contrasts, and this is most evident in the countryside. Many folk in Scotland live in rural areas where getting to the local supermarket is a full day trip rather than a simple jaunt around the corner or popping along to the outskirts of the city in which you live. When it comes to Christmas shopping can be something of a problem and as I live on a very remote island I thought it worthy of mentioning my experience of shopping in Scotland this time last year... Read More

I write for a number of sites and I was recently writing for Virtual Scotland about Tony Blair when I just totally lost it. The article started of reasonably well with a basic rundown of his life but by the time I got to his days as British PM I found that all the good I had to say was negated by the war in Iraq and the likes. I had decided that I was going to write her about the wonderful Scottish city of Aberdeen and why it was such a cool place to take a weekend city break but I can not help but think about all the choas that seems to be going on there at the moment so I will add a quick bit about that first... Read More

There are several places in England which feature strongly in Scottish history, especially along the borders and in the very north of England. While places such as Berwick-upon-Tweed (South Berwick to the Scots) changed hands frequently other places were simply a tasty target for attack and plunder. The important city of York frequently appears in Scottish history and it is York that I shall introduce you to here... Read More