Scotland

[su_quote cite=”Mark Renton” url=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/quotes?item=qt0335540″]It’s SHITE being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can’t even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We’re ruled by effete arseholes. It’s a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference![/su_quote]

The truth couldn’t be further from this famous quote out the movie Trainspotting. Scotland has a lot going for it; big skies, lonely landscapes, spectacular wildlife, superb seafood and hospitable, down-to-earth people.

With my big mouth I was tasked by my employer to arrange a weekend with colleagues, after mentioning that doing a road trip through Scotland was on my bucket list. Having never been to Scotland before I was a bit in the dark but thanks to the assistance of VisitScotland.com and the Oban tourist bureau I was able to plan a nice route featuring a nice little taster of everything Scotland has to offer.

Starting our journey at Glasgow we spend our first night in the CitizenM hotel. Having been there in Londen before, it was everything I remembered it would be. The staff was great and the high tech and futuristic setting was well received by my tech savvy colleagues (no, we didn’t steal any iPads though some were encouraged by their offspring back home).

Anyway, we had a nice scenic route planned to Oban for the day and in teams we set off, first for a stop during lunch and then to meet up at the family hotel in Knipoch, near Oban. Again the staff was very nice and we had the whole hotel to ourselves. Since Oban is near we had a tour through the awesome distillery where they make the famous Oban whisky (of course this had to be tasted) and grabbed a bite to eat at Cuan Mor, where they had prepared an awesome Scottish dinner for us (behold though, if you have the nerve to order at the bar in the front the monster of Loch Ness Cuan Mor might bite your head off).

In the hotel was a piano present and one of my colleagues is an excellent piano player. Music was heard the whole night throughout the Knipoch Hotel and whisky was tasted by many.

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cigaivWb6c”]

After a tasty breakfast we continued on our way back to Glasgow Airport, taking a detour through a bit of the highlands to Stirling Castle. More awe inspiring views were offered by a sunny Scotland. It was a beautiful weekend!