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After leaving the cottage on the North Sea we first drove to Aberdeen to get our tire repaired.

We were having some issues getting used to driving on the left side of the road and in parts of the country there are some nasty potholes on the edges of the road. The result was that one tire developed  an ominous looking bulge. But it wasn’t long before we were fixed up and on our way again.

RRS Discovery

For lunch we decided to search out the town of Forfar and their famous bridies. They are very similar to their cousin the Cornish pasty but without potatoes.

We also stopped to look at some of the many Pictish standing stones that are in this part of the country. The Picts were an early people who lived in this area from as early as the 6th century. 

We spent the night in Dundee. This city is famous not just for orange marmalade but was a center for the whaling fleet and shipbuilding. It is also the home of the royal research ship Discovery. There is a wonderful museum there where you learn all about Robert F. Scott’s voyages to the Antarctic in the early 1900’s. It was interesting exploring the ship and learning how the wood hull is 28 inches thick to prevent the ship from being crushed by sea ice.

The next day we drove to Limekilns, a village across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. We had booked a room there and planned to take the train into Edinburgh to avoid the festival traffic. We attended a fringe festival show while waiting for the military tattoo to start. The tattoo had the greatest number of bagpipers in one place that I have ever experienced. There were at least 150 bagpipers. A little over the top as Roy put it, but quite an extravaganza!

The “Sticky Feet” penguin. One of Dundee’s many penguins.

Our last day we returned the car to Glasgow and flew back to Barcelona. We had to get back before our next visitors arrived!