We left our beautiful hotel in London and took a London cab to Kings Cross station for our journey to Scotland. They have taken a piece of wall in Kings Cross station between platforms 9 and 10 and turned it into a tourist trap. Someone has placed half a trolley in the wall and charges people to have their photo taken holding the handles as if they are running through the wall to go to Hogwarts. Cashing in on the success of Harry Potter.

We boarded our train, which was very comfortable and spent the next 4 hours enjoying the spectacular scenery as we sipped whisky and made our way to Edinburgh. Of course, we only had the whisky because Dennis asked us to.

When we arrived in Edinburgh we lugged our suitcases up to our hotel. Edinburgh is gorgeous, with a medieval castle sitting on top of a giant rocky outcrop keeping vigil over the town in the valley below. There are statues and coats of arms containing unicorns all over the city, the unicorn being the national animal. That's right, a fictitious national animal. The national flower is a weed, the thistle, so go figure.

The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel. We are in Scotland, so of course I had to try haggis. Haggis sounds revolting and it was. I didn't eat much of it at all. We then took a walking tour through the town which led us down the Royal Mile, a stretch of road that leads from the castle at the top of the hill to the Royal Palace at the bottom of the hill, where the queen still spends the night every now and then. Our tour guide, Euon, was very entertaining and kept us enthralled with stories for our two hour tour. One memorable story was about a lady named Maggie d*** on, who was a fisherman's wife. Her husband left her and took her livelihood with him, so she started working in a tavern. She fell in love with the tavern owner's son and soon became pregnant. Adultery was illegal at this time, so she kept the pregnancy secret until she gave birth 2 months prematurely. She tried to dispose of the baby, but was caught and sentenced to hang. On the day of the hanging, a crowd gathered to watch her execution. They threw her body in a coffin on a cart and started the journey to the graveyard. Along the way, the drivers of the cart decided to stop for a drink. After a few drinks, they came out to find Maggie banging on the lid of her coffin. They opened the coffin and she sat up, alive and (mostly) well. Under the law of the time, she was legally dead, so couldn't be executed again. This meant she was also not married any more, so she went back to the tavern and started popping babies out with her boyfriend, who technically was practicing necrophilia. They had seven children in all and lived happily ever after. She has gone down in history as "nearly-hanged Maggie". Euon believes this to be J K Rowling's inspiration for Nearly-headless Nick in the Harry Potter books. Speaking of which, we visited a graveyard which JK Rowling used to walk around while she was writing the books. She borrowed some of her character names from the headstones there, which contain McGonagle, Tom Riddle and many others.

While we were walking along on our tour, I failed to see a short, concrete bollard, of which there are many in Edinburgh. I rammed my toe against it and then my knee slammed against the top of it like Hulk Hogan jumping from the top rope. I thought I'd broken my toe for a minute and my knee hurt for about three days afterwards.

We wandered through a courtyard which was surrounded by ancient apartment buildings. Euon explained that these buildings were 10 stories tall and built before plumbing and sewerage were invented. People would do their business in chamber pots and then toss the contents out of the windows at night, shouting "gardyloo!" as they did so. Apparently it was common after a huge night out on the whisky for drunkards to be walking along when they heard the term "gardyloo!" They would look up just in time to cop the contents of a chamber pot, which is where the term "s***-faced" comes from.

After the tour finished, we bought the obligatory tartan scarf each and then went up to the imposing Edinburgh castle. We arrived just in time to see the canon fired, which they do every day at 1:00. We then stopped into a whisky bar on the Royal Mile. We sat at the bar and the bartender explained all about scotch whiskies. There are four main regions where they produce whisky here: Highlands, Lowlands, Spey and Islay. Each region has distinctive flavours, so of course we had to sample a dram from each region. We then topped off our visit with a final Islay whisky recommended to us by the bartender. Islay whiskies taste of smoke and peat and are almost like drinking a cigar. Sounds revolting, but really isn't. We rolled out of there considerably happier and with a much keener appreciation of the amber liquid.

Next stop was a meal at a tavern named after a famous character in Edinburgh called Deacon Brodie. This guy was a respected business man by day and a thief by night and was the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Stevenson lived in Edinburgh. We then wandered down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace, which is owned by Queen Lizzie and still used occasionally by the Royal family. We finished our day at Calton Hill, which contains the remains of a Greek-style acropolis and has fantastic views across the old and new towns of Edinburgh.

The next morning we picked up a car for our third road trip of the holiday. We had to cross a bridge called the Firth of Forth which led to the region of Fife. Or as Lidia pronounced it, the Thirthfth of Thorthfth to Fifthf. Our first stop was a tiny town called Falkland, which was used in place of Aberdeen to film many of the scenes from Outlander. This quaint little village is nestled in the green hills and we took the time to sample their tea and scones in the Campbells Coffee House, which is a café used in the series.

Our next stop was a town called St Andrews which has the ruins of a castle and a huge cathedral. It was freezing cold and pouring rain by this stage, but we still managed to get some good shots. Summer has just started here so watching the fog come out of your mouth when you talk was unexpected for us. We then continued on our journey towards Aberdeen, taking the scenic coastal route so that we could see the famous Dunottar Castle on the way. This is the ruins of a castle perched on a green, rocky outcrop on the coast. It is stunning, apparently. We couldn't tell because by the time we got there the fog was so thick it was like walking through wadding.

So we continued on to Aberdeen. Apparently this city is supposed to be beautiful. It is built entirely from the grey granite found in their local quarry, which shimmers with silver sparkles in the sun. Unfortunately there was no sun to be found in Aberdeen and so all we saw was grey skies and grey buildings. It was so drab and depressing we had to go and cheer ourselves up by sampling more whisky at the bar in our beautiful hotel, where we were upgraded to a suite with views over the lush gardens.

The next morning we drove to a couple of castles, but didn't see a lot because it was again pouring rain. We ended up at Balmoral Castle just as the rain cleared. We spent a couple of hours admiring this beautiful property, which is the summer residence of the Royal family. It was built by Queen Victoria and Queen Lizzie still spends a few weeks here every year. The castle itself is stunning and the gardens extensive. We enjoyed a scone in the café, which I like to think the Queen may have baked in her kitchen. We walked through the gardens where the Queen has probably walked and passed many trees, at least one of which the Queen probably squatted behind.

After we left Balmoral we drove to the heart of the Spey region and dropped into the Glenfiddich distillery. The scenery along the way was breathtaking. Narrow roads, winding along patchwork hills in multiple colours. At one point I pointed to a couple wandering through the moors and said to Lidia "Hey look, there's Pete and Heather wandering through the peat and heather!" I thought this was Scottish comedy at it's best, but Lidia, who, only ever laughs at jokes about farting, didn't agree. Genius unappreciated once more.

We arrived at Glenfiddich and took a tour of the distillery to see how they have been making their whiskies since 1890. They still do most of the work manually just as they did when William Grant started the business, which is still run by his family today. In the interests of research, we bought a couple of small bottles to enjoy in our hotel room.

Our hotel that night was a converted mansion, which was built by a gentleman who was gifted the land by the King of Scotland, who he apparently saved from a rampant stag. It was a beautiful, white castle with gorgeous green gardens surrounding it. We enjoyed some of our whisky in the room and then had a wonderful dinner in their restaurant. This included a Scottish dish called "Haggis, neeps and tatties", which is basically haggis, turnips and potatoes. I was reluctant due to my not so good experience with haggis, but the waitress assured me it was delicious so I took a punt. She was right. It was absolutely delicious. Goes to show there is more than one way to prepare haggis. Some good, some gross.