The Travel Connection

Blast from past! After the fun filled day capturing Nessie, I was all set to explore rest of Edinburgh. Ok I was a little low on energy as capturing a monster is no child's play. So after a quick breakfast at the Inn I decided I would take the Hop on Hop off bus instead of walking. I walked up to its bus stop close to the Inn and caught the bus. The bus took us too holyrood which is the official residence of the British Monarchy in Scotland. I wasn't really interested in exploring the palace. Close to the palace is the hill where you can trek up to the highest point of Edinburgh. I didn't want to do that either. So I caught the bus back and just went on a full loop without getting out anywhere. On reaching the royal mile which is nothing but a road which has the Edinburgh palace on one end and the official residence on the other end, I got out of the bus. I did some window shopping till I came across a sign in big letters saying that they

 Blast from past!  After a wonderful day in Edinburgh, I was all set to catch a bus early next morning at 6.30am. I had already explored the city in the evening and located its local bus stand so that i don't get lost in the morning. As it was a long day, i crashed to bed immediately only to be waken up in the middle of the night. A couple next door, most probably drunk  were fighting at the top of their voice. My first night in a new country, i am all by myself and all that noise irritated me enough to want to call the reception. I wanted to shout out " get a room" and then i realized they were already in a room..well they were in the room and the corridor of the hotel. Luckily the fight died down as quickly as it started. I certainly had a very eventful first day and night to my holiday. So i walked down to the bus stand the next morning and joined a group of diverse people on board. Of course an Indian couple and their parents were a part of the group.

Blast from past! After dropping off my backpack at the inn, I grabbed my map and camera and decided to walk up to the Edinburgh castle. I started walking down the winding roads and after some distance, I came across some stairs between buildings. After a bit of wait and looking around, I decided it was safe enough to take these stairs between  the roads at different levels and save on walking long distances. You may ask how I knew where the stairs led to. My friend, I am a smart traveler and a smart traveler just knows! So the stairs are something that is not mentioned in guide books or rather in the ones that I had read. I was thrilled to have discovered it! Ok, I know, something too small to be thrilled about but honestly I was glad I came across these stairs Let me remind you, I was in the old city of Edinburgh packed with really, I mean really old, don't ask how old buildings along winding roads and the connecting narrow stairs between buildings. It was a ve

Blast from past! After my recent trip to Scotland of east, I just could not help but go back in time and remember one of the most exciting trips I have had so far. It was to Scotland of west. Well to be more precise, it was to Edinburgh and Highlands. But before I embarked on my journey to Scotland, I had to fly into London from New York and then take a 4 hour bus ride to Norwich.After the transatlantic flight and a night's break at Norwich,I  took an very early morning train to Peterborough. A long journey to reach the destination but yes this was the start to one of the amazing cross country rides on a train! Let me pause here and tell you that even though i have taken transcontinental, transatlantic flights on my own before, this was my first holiday as a single female traveler. As I was planning to move back to India, I wanted to visit my family in England and travel to a few places around it. Most would think holidaying alone is not a good cup of tea. For me it was l