July 10-17 We flew from Paris into Edinburgh – pronounced Edinb-u-dd-da
Ari was trying to say it and this old man got right in her face and said “you say it Edinb-udd-da. We spent the night there and the next day took a train to Inverness where our biking adventure began

We lost the boys in town the first night so we walked back to our B&B, where we tried to use what we thought was their front door key to get back in and using our super-strength broke it off in the door. The hostess was extremely kind about it – it was actually a back door key (I think they’ve had people making that mistake before)

This is our guide Chris, who took us on an incredible adventure. We rode along the Great Glen Way. Chris is FREAKING AMAZING! I couldn’t say it any better than that. The guy speaks four languages, writes soundtracks for BBC, writes travel articles for multiple publications, knows every kind of vegetation that exists in Scotland and it’s uses, owns a mountain biking adventure business that tours Scotland in the sumer and Italy in the winter, is hilarious, patient and was voted a top 15 mountain bike guide in Europe. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, just take my word for it! He was like our very own super-hero.

When I was planning this trip, B wanted to mountain bike in Scotland.  I, however, DID NOT.  Mountain biking scares me.  When I booked it (talking to the girl with a strong Scottish accent was difficult) I assumed we’d be on roads and a few dirt trails riding from Inverness, through Drumnadrochit, Fort Augustus ending in Fort William.  This is considered the highlands.  Our guide Chris, however, did not like the idea of riding with kids on the two-lane narrow roads (that the drivers are not nearly as accommodating of bikers as they are in Italy) – decided unbeknownst to me, that he would take us off road the first day and if we handled it, he would take us the whole way off road.  He deduced from my sheer stubbornness an ability to do it and off we went for three solid days across rocks,small streams, tree roots, mud (it rained a lot) with the most incredible views of Loch Ness, Loch Oich, Loch Lochy.  My two favorite moments in Scotland, were eating raspberries literally what I imagine straight from the Garden of Eden in a teeny little town called Drumnadrochit (I like saying the word too) and listening to the guy that I filmed singing at the beginning of Master D’s video, in Fort William.  On the fourth day, B and the boys biked the biggest peak in Scotland called Ben Nevis.  Me and the girls took the Hogwarts train to the coastal town Mallaig (where I ate the best fish n chips in the whole UK) and we went over the ‘famed bridge’.  There were a lot of crazed obnoxious Harry Potter fans that went with us.  It’s now a close race between Italy and Scotland as my favorite places in Europe.

A campsite along the way where we ate lunch

Chris grabs a natural cure for stinging nettle for poor TT.

Inverness Scotland likes their alcohol but I have to admit husband daycare is appealing

Loch Ness – hoping that we can catch a glimpse of Nessie.

Master D taking a breather in the Shire

In the morning we’d go to the little grocery store and picked up lunch for all of us. There were some weird choices. Lelu does not approve of B’s choice for lunch.

The Hogwarts train – so fun!

Riding the train and seeing all the train spotters taking photos up on the hills along the route of the train – we felt a little like royalty.