UK Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

Keep walking to Edinburgh’s Johnnie Walker Experience

6th May 20266th May 2026 funtime65

Now I’ve had my share of distillery tours and that has taken me to keep walking to Edinburgh’s Johnnie Walker Experience.

The JWE for those who know the Scottish capital and Princes Street, and even those who don’t, occupies the old House of Fraser store.

Where whisky fans are kept walking and drinking through more than 200 years of Scotland’s most popular dram.

Now we’ll not try to bottle the history of whisky into this post.

And better visit the Scotch Whisky Experrience next to Edinburgh Castle on the Royal Mile for that.

Nor will we bring into the distillery and face to face with pot stills.

You can visit the any of the hundreds of whisky manufactures, big and small, across Scotland.

Bells and whistles

Instead take in the Johnnie Walker Experience in the hands of actress Rachel and guide Grace.

For the best bells and whistles interactive tour of the life and reach of the grocer from Kilmarnock in the west of Scotland.

Everyone’s whisky takeaway, of course, will be different but ours was an explanation of the distinctive square bottles.

To increase the amount of bottles that could be transported on ships from Britain to North America.

Of course, it’s what is in those bottles that is always more interesting.

And which makes listening to the science bit in any ways palatable.

Band of gold

To get you started JWE ask you to take a quiz in reception.

To find out what flavours suit you for your cocktails.

You get three and depending on the colour of your band it should reflect your tastes.

Although guess what, there is no whisky police to say what you can and can’t put in your whisky.

And this traditionalist was happy to try.

A pineapple-infused highball alongside a smoky bay leaf flavoured smoky whisky and spicy old-fashioned.

Tour de force

Now at the end of your 90-minute tour you will arrive, unsurprisingly, at the merch shop.

Where you can also buy the uisge beatha and at a 10% discount although at a ceiling of £400.

Which means you won’t be able to get a cut on the £15,000 bottle of 1978 Isle of Arran whisky.

Although you’ll be disappointed anyway as I’ve raided the Scary One’s House Refurb Fund.

KEEP WALKING

America, Countries, Food & Wine, UK

Trump rolling out Kentucky barrels for Scotch whisky

1st May 20261st May 2026 funtime65

And because we (and King Charles) have his ear Donald Trump is rolling out Kentucky barrels for Scotch whisky.

The US President is the toast of his late beloved mother Mary’s Scots homeland today after lifting prohibitive tariffs on uisce beatha.

Because he told us of ‘Scotland’s ability to work with the Commonwealth of Kentucky on Whiskey and Bourbon.

‘In that there had been great Inter-Country Trade, especially having to do with the Wooden Barrels used.’

A toast to Trump

This year’s blond: ‘The Donald’ in New York

All very timely too as Favourite Cousin, New York Kath and Kentucky Cousin-in-law Mark fly in to see us in North Berwickety.

And we will be breaking out the Woodford Reserve he first introduced me too, and in front of tomorrow’s Kentucky Derby too.

The truth is that almost everyone who has enjoyed a drap of Scotch will also be drinking in the best of Kentucky too.

Because ex-bourbon barrels are used to mature over 90% of all scotch whisky today.

We have, of course, the half-Scottish 45th and 47th President to thank for cutting the cost of our national drink.

A New Deal

But it his predecessor, the 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt who made it all possible.

When he stipulated as part of his New Deal that all bourbon whiskey barrels must br single-use barrels.

Which created a supply of barrels for Scots to pounce on to store their liquid gold.

And so Kentucky barrels became the standard containers for Scotch ever since.

Gracias amigos

Best family bar none: Johnnie Fox’s in Dublin mountains

Enhanced further by Spain’s decision in the Eighties that all sherry must be bottled on home soil, taking their casks off the market.

The rest as they say is history and science.

And for that bit we’ll turn to the whisky attraction experts this week.

The distilleries, the Scotch Whisky Experience on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and the Johnnie Walker Experience, on the capital’s Princes Street.

And now that The Donald is channeling his Scots half we humbly implore that he looks again at the ban on Scottish sheep lungs.

An integral part of our national dish haggis.

Because we know he takes calls from journalists… and reads Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel.com.

SLÁINTE AND MEET YOU IN THE BAR

Countries, Ireland, Pilgrimage, UK

Shrinecations near you

29th April 202629th April 2026 funtime65

And because we were on pilgrimage long before Gen Z turned it into a TikTok fashion here are our shrinecations near you.

All of which is timely, and not just because it’s never been a better time to get off the mad path the world has chosen.

But because ten years after we first explored the most famous trek of all, The Camino Way.

We’re following our own footsteps and taking on the Portuguese Coastal Camino with our go-to providers CaminoWays.

Traditional Caminos, of course, started outside our own doorsteps and that’s where we’re beginning here.

World Expeditions or its Euro brands, UTracks and Walkers’ Britain & Europe, kick us off.

On the BBC series Pilgrimage: The Road to Holy Island.

The Holy Island

We’ve been here before but we’ve never been worried about retracing our steps.

And Walk Northumberland Coast Path & Lindisfarne.

A seven-day self-guided with Walkers’ Britain & Europe.

Replicate the journey of the BBC’s celebrity pilgrims with highlights.

Including walking the St Cuthbert’s Pilgrim route over the causeway to Holy Island.

And visiting ancient castles at Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh and Lindisfarne and staying in fishing villages Alnmouth, Seahouses and Craster.

From £860pp, daily departures from April-September.

Man alive

And because the isle that Finn MacCool created, the Isle of Man, is more than just daredevil TT motorcyclists, walk this way.

As the bird flies the nine-day self-guided Isle of Man Coastal Path: The Way of the Seagull is a 100-mile route.

Walkers’ Britain & Europe will map out your walk which overlaps with many sections of the Raad Ny Foillan Pilgrimage Trail.

You’ll take in cultural heritage towns such as Castletown and Peel, while WB&E want us to try some sea swimming too.

You’ll pass the remains of Celtic chapels, clifftop carved crosses and remnants of island life in times gone by.

From £990pp, daily departures from April-October.

Mingle on the Dingle

And while I’ll probably be having a glass of wine before my red-eye out to start the Camino, our Irish pals do things differently.

Irish pilgrims would traditionally sail from the south-west for Finisterre, so for the hardy you could bolt on UTracks’ The Kerry Camino.

A six-day self-guided tour with UTracks in the Kingdom of Kerry.

And an exploration of the wild Atlantic coast on foot.

And the chance to immerse yourself in the music and culture of Dingle.

On a lesser-known camino which we’ll call the Camino with the Craic.

From £720pp, daily departures April-October.

Countries, Food & Wine, UK

Made in Scotland from girders for 125 years

25th March 202625th March 2026 funtime65

It’s our other national drink Irn-Bru and it’s been made in Scotland from girders for 125 years.

The bronze-coloured soft drink is so much part of Scots’ blood that brewers Barr have come up with a novel idea.

With a drop-inn parlour where you can have your love of ‘ra Bru‘ inked into your arm or wherever you want to mark it.

The story goes that Barr, then a makers of corks, tinkered with the idea of a tincture.

After seeing Irish immigrant steel workers sweating it out and refuelling with beer.

On the rebuilding of Glasgow’s Central Station.

Which, of course, is the focus of more refurbishment after the destruction of Union Corner by a fire this month.

The Irn Age

Spell it out: Part of the Scottish landscape

Glaswegians of a certain age will, of course, recall that the Victorian B-listed building opposite the train station was adorned for years.

With signage of an Indian boy in a turban advertising Irn-Bru.

The Bru has prided itself on its promotions over these 125, second only to Coca-Cola, but first and ahead of them in sales in Scotland.

Traditionalists will fondly remember, for instance, the athlete on the bottles and then cans.

That being 19th-century Highland Games athlete of note Adam Brown.

But the Bru has moved with the times and we’ve travelled with them.

And it is barely remembered now that the strange misspelling has only been around since after the Second World War.

Prior to which it was Iron.

Barr had become worried over changing food labelling regulations after the war.

With the mysterious orange elixir containing only the minutest traces of iron and not being brewed.

Raising the Barr

For all of us who jealously protect our favourite brands (think Tayto in Ireland) we have our own in jokes which we can share.

Anywhere we meet fellow Scots and flush out the authentic ones.

By asking the likes of ‘I’m Thirsty, I’m very thirsty too… so here’s a drink that’s made for you, Barr’s Irn-Bru.

Of course, each generation has its own favourite ad, the young boy who lifts a girder after drinking the Bru.

A skit on The Snowman movie and the recent Fanny gag.

And it works too in American English as well as Scots English.

By gum

Now where once you would struggle to get the Bru beyond the northern bit of this British island it is widely available now.

With our other national drink even sponsoring that most northern English of sports rugby league… and you’re welcome.

Whether though, you’re prepared to mark yourself with an Irn-Bru tattoo really depends on how much it’s in your blood.

And pretty much every Scot does have it in under their skin.

But it is worth a try although maybe not say it tastes like bubblegum.

Unless you want to invite some kind of unpronouncable slur spat back at you.

Countries, Flying, UK

The Loch Ness MonstAer

24th March 202624th March 2026 funtime65

And to mark the Irish national airline carrier’s opening of a new route to the capital of the Scottish Highlands we trust some will claim that they have seen the Loch Ness MonstAer.

Only there is no such creature, and there I’ve said it, although there are no shortage of fluffy merch toys.

As we found out on a visit to the Loch Ness Centre where the Son and Heir left the glove puppet soothing toy he carried everywhere.

Among all the other Nessies.

Of course, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was the fabled Loch Ness Monster which put Inverness and its environs on the tourist map.

When, in fact, word of the beauty of the Scottish Highlands had long been known.

From forays from friend and foe alike over the century.

With no less a chronicler than Samuel Johnson waxing lyrical about its beauties on his 1775 A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

Walking in Boswell and Johnson’s footsteps

Johnson commented on the diction of the Invernessians, to this day praised as close to ‘Queen’s English.’

Saying ‘The soldiers seem to have incorporated afterwards with the inhabitants.

‘And to have peopled the place with an English race.

‘For the language of this town has been long considered as peculiarly elegant.’

Johnson and Boswell were much taken by Inverness Castle, reputed home of Macbeth, and a particular fort nearby.

‘It was no very capacious edifice, but stands upon a rock so high and steep, that I think it was once not accessible.

‘But by the help of ladders, or a bridge.

‘Over against it, on another hill, was a fort built by Cromwell, now totally demolished.

‘For no faction of Scotland loved the name of Cromwell, or had any desire to continue his memory.’

All of which will be music to newbie Irish visitors to Inverness.

With the famously warty religious zealot no friend of our Celtic cousins either.

When we got our Erse kicked

Castle in the Aer: Inverness Castle down below

Today’s Inverness Castle may be different than the one B&J visited but you’ll still be able to take in the atmosphere on your visit.

Johnson goes somewhat off track though here.

With the kind of demeaning and belittling descriptions of the Invernessians which would have him cancelled today.

Although he helpfully reminds us that the Highlands and Islands is the home of the Gaelic or Erse language.

And stop giggling there at the back.

‘There is I think a kirk, in which only the Erse language is used, he notes.

‘There is likewise an English chapel, but meanly built, where on Sunday we saw a very decent congregation.’

Go West

B&J seemingly don’t linger in Inverness, preferring to get on their journey to the remote Hebrides.

Saying: ‘At Inverness we procured three horses for ourselves and a servant, and one more for our baggage, which was no very heavy load.

‘We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare.

‘For it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and treading bogs.

‘And winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen.’

Bonnie Prince Charlie’s last stand

Why B&J chose not to visit the site of the last battle on British soil, at nearby Culloden in 1746, we never learn.

Although it might still have been too raw.

But you can, and learn about the fate of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and how he too fled to the Western Isles.

Or the Jacobite Train, or Hogwarts Express over Glenfinnan Viaduct.

Or why they missed too the Clava Cairns, prehistoric burial site.

And the site of The Traitors UK castle at Ardross.

We’ll give them a pass on not knowing about the Victorian Market.

Or Scotland’s second-oldest bookshop and old church, Leakey’s.

Or not heading out to Chanonry Point on the Black Isle for dolphin watching.

And they actually do exist.

Take the Aer

Aer Lingus’s Inverness route will commence from 21 May.

With the new service operating twice weekly on Thursdays and Sundays.

We found a sample return fare in May from €22.62.

Countries, Food & Wine, UK

Whisk yourself off to Britain’s best hotel

13th March 202613th March 2026 funtime65

Want to know where the best hostelry is… well, we suggest you whisk yourself off to Britain’s best hotel.

Maybe not where you expected but whisky island Islay is The Times’s choice of best inn on our islands.

With Ardbeg House, attached to one of the ten distilleries on the island.

Which means there is a whisky home for every 300 of the isle’s inhabitants.

And which is why it’s a magnet for those of us who love the uisge beatha, or water of life, the Gaelic euphemism for whisky.

Gael force

And big reveal here, that’s probably as far as my mastery of the Scots language stretches.

Not that you need it on the Inner Hebrides but it does help you feel more of an islander.

And which is why we bring my old schoolfriend and Gaelic scholar and wordsmith Martin around with us!

That and the fact that he was our friend Stewart’s best man when he married his Japanese sweetheart Hisayo back in the day.

With the wedding party all decked out in kimonos.

And us breaking bread and sake and wine and, yes, of course whisky at the Ardbeg.

Drams are made of this

The Ardbeg boasts 12 bespoke bedrooms and suites inspired by the distillery’s history.

With the owners promising that each has a secret miniature dram tucked away for you to find.

With clues to local myths embedded in the artwork, and subtle touches that nod to the island’s characters and folklore.

Several of the bedrooms can be set up with a king bed, or twin single beds in the Fèis, Creation, Legend, Wild or Rebel rooms.

Four rooms boast a separate sofa-bed – the Legend, Monster, Untamed, and Invention rooms with a third person costing an extra £65/night.

Signature dishes and nips

Of course you’ll be wined and dined with the best local produce.

Which means the Signature Restaurant.

With its pan-fried Islay sea trout, Ardbeg smoked venison pie, Islay cauliflower schnitzel.

Local hand-dived king scallops, and Islay duck cannelloni.

While the Islay Bar is the holy of holies for Ardbeg’s distinctive smoky, peaty whisky.

And altruistically they serve the best offerings from the other Islay distilleries.

As well as craft beers, small-batch gins, and island-made produce.

You can bus it, ferry it with CalMac or fly with Loganair with our friends at the Islay tourist board always there to help you.

Superior rooms at Ardbeg House are from £297 per room per night and £341 per room per night for premier suites.

Countries, Food & Wine, UK

An Edinburgh beach resort that is the home of ice cream

11th March 202611th March 2026 funtime65

Bergamo’s is bellissimo, America’s awesome and the Caribbean’s chilled but it’s an Edinburgh beach resort that is the home of ice cream.

If you’re in and around the Scottish capital just now, then get yourself down to Oscar’s Gelato in Portobello.

And sample from any of their 30 flavours from Biscoff (not a clue) to Bubblegum, in the best ice cream store in Britain.

Or their Best Open Flavour pistachio sorbet and Best Sorbet lemon and butter sorbet.

Although we all scream a different sound for ice cream, and our choice would be rum’n’raisin or strawberry.

Oscar’s ceremony

The choice of Oscar’s, which has been drawing in gelatophiles from far and wide since 2020, is fitting.

As Portobello has long held a special place in the ice cream world.

As it was here at 99 Portobello High Street that the 99 ice cream originated.

Back in 1922 when Stefano Arcari responded to a visiting Cadbury rep.

By breaking a large Flake in half and sticking it in an ice cream.

All of which fills the residents of my old stomping ground with pride.

Ice cream Porty

Alas, Cadbury doesn’t give Porty the credit it deserves.

And get this they would rather big up a rival claim, the Italians of mountainous Veneto.

With a rather more dramatic and histrionic story.

Italians party like it’s 99

That the 99 honours the final wave of Italian First World War conscripts.

Born in 1899 and referred to as ‘i Ragazzi del 99‘ (‘the Boys of ’99).

With the chocolate flake said to remind ice cream sellers of the long dark feather cocked at an angle.

In the conscripts’ Alpini Regiment hats.

All of which seems a little far-retched.

Countries, Culture, Food & Wine, UK

The world’s oldest check tartan really is English

9th March 20269th March 2026 funtime65

Geordies are oft tagged Scots with their heads bashed in… now add to that their claim that the world’s oldest check tartan really is English.

The back story is that we’ve just spent International Women’s Day with The Scary One and her mum in their English homeland.

In Alnwick in Northumberland, only an hour and a half from our North Berwick home on Scotland’s south-east coast.

And learning about how fluid our stories are, with Northumberland having changed hands countless times in Borders skirmishes.

Which must explain how check tartan plaid first showed up in the third-century AD before more northern peoples took it on.

On track in Alnwick

It has in truth been a two-way street between Scotland and the north-east English county.

And our venture into the Alnwick institution that is the repurposed train station and now bookshop/cafe, closed after the war, Barter Books … and which reveals all.

The best story: With the Scary One and her mum

With iconic Scots Oor Wullie and The Broons showcased on the shelves and Billy Connolly to the fore.

Read all about it

On the shoulders of giants: The greats of literature

Barter Books is of course, more than a second-hand bookshop.

One of the biggest in the country and expanded since it first opened 35 years ago.

With its most notable addition its renowned buffet from a room they never even knew they had but fell upon a dozen years after first opening.

And which we sit in today by an open fireplace and historical pictures from Northumbrian yore with The Top-Hatted Station Master purveying the scene.

The rest is gravy: The famous roast beef sandwich

It is here that we sit eating our roast beef and onion gravy sandwiches, recommended as indeed Barter has been by Daughterie, and coffee stout.

Everybody screams for ice cream

And if that doesn’t fill you up you can reward yourself with ice cream, cakes or speciality coffees from Paradise, the former Stationmasters office.

We are glad to have got a table at all as Barter Buffet can become busy and visitors have been known to queue to get in.

Perhaps it is because regulars to BB, 45 miles north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, clearly linger over their food, with a good book from the shop.

Of course, in the best company, it would be rude to read although when the conversation drifted I took in the artefacts, the top-hatted lamp shades.

And the pictures of what look like Scots but are really Northumbrians in those 3rd-century black-and-white check tartans.

Wham bam Bamburgh

Now you can easily spend the whole day, and Barter is open every day but Christmas Day, but any day tripper must take in the dramatic Bamburgh Castle before heading home.

Of course, we haven’t left ourselves enough time, and anyway we must always leave ourselves another reason to return and we will.

But before we go we take in the celebrated wooden-panelled Copper Kettle cafe in the quaint village.

And high teas with pots of tea that would sate any hungry hiker and scones and jam reserves or cake treats.

Countries, Ireland, UK

The charms of Edinburgh for the Irish

2nd March 20262nd March 2026 funtime65

The charms of Edinburgh for the Irish used to only come every other year when their throngs of rugby fans would descend on Murrayfield in the city’s west end.

And now it seems they can’t get enough of us, the culture and the castle yes, but probably mostly the craic around the Rose Street hostelries.

With our friends at loveholidays reporting too that the Scottish capital is their leading emerging destination.

As part of a growing market for Britain.

Now its proximity and our Celtic kith and kin comradeship as well as Edinburgh being a much easier city to get around than, say London, is probably part and parcel of it.

And will account for why our travel provider pals have seen a 75% spike in bookings.

Who do we love?

Hat-a-boy: On the King Charles Bridge in Prague

Analysing bookings from the last three months, the online travel agent reports that Edinburgh is leading a distinct spike in city break popularity for 2026.

Not that London will ever lose its appeal with a notable 48% surge.

Indicating that holidays to the UK are taking off, while escapes to other European city destinations Prague (+48%) and Budapest (+44%) have seen significant increases too.

Now having enjoyed the delights of those two great Central European cities, and having been barred from most of the pubs in Edinburgh.

We’ve decided to take the wise counsel of our loveholidays friends to expand our Greek islands knowledge by booking up for Rhodes next month.

It is +54 per cent while perennial favourite is +63%.

New York, New York

This year’s blond: With ‘The Donald’ in New York

For long haul it will come as no surprise that New York continues to grow, and always will, with +30.

While Dubai, understandably, figures highly at the start of the year with +53%.

Now it helps with your city’s promotion to have somebody at the helm of loveholidays’ Irish promotion who loves their rugby and golf.

And my old mucker Clem Walshe, Irish Commercial Director at the firm, is just that.

Clem to fame

‘What unites these emerging destinations, from the cobblestones of the Royal Mile to the thermal baths of Budapest, is the variety that they offer,’ the travel provider expert opines.

‘Beach holidays remain a firm favourite, but there is a clear increased enthusiasm for city escapes this year. Edinburgh is the standout performer.’

Just remember, Clem, to promote the Golf Coast, east of Edinburgh and our championship-standard courses Muirfield, Renaissance and North Berwick.

Although you might have to give me a monster handicap next time you’re over.

Countries, Sport, UK

Curl up and enjoy this winter pastime

20th February 202620th February 2026 funtime65

If the exertions of Scotland’s Bruce Mouat have pricked your interest this last week for a new sport to follow then here’s where to curl up and enjoy this winter pastime.

Chances are that for most of us the strange sport of curling with its stones, brushes and dartboards only comes onto our radars every four years at the Winter Olympics.

But long before football became Scotland’s national team sport curling had a hold.

And there was indeed a rival for golf to be the Royal & Ancient game too.

Championed by one Queen Victoria.

We are amused

The story goes that the British monarch and Empress of half the world took to the quaint Scottish game.

On a visit to Scone Palace, near Perth in 1843.

When a certain Earl of Mansfield put on a demonstration of curling on the grand ballroom floor.

And she was so taken by the sport that she granted the Caledonian Club’s name to be changed.

To the Grand Caledonian Curling Club her Royal seal of approval.

The ink on the actual rules of this loose game had only, in truth, been dry on the paper for five years.

Swisskey and curling

Curling could actually trace its roots back as far as 1540,

When Paisley notary (or legal clerk) John McQuhin recorded in his protocol book a challenge.

Between monk John Sclater and Abbot worker Gavin Hamilton.

And he notes that Sclater threw a stone along the ice three times.

And he asserted that he was ready for the agreed contest.

Which is as much skills as yours truly showed halfway up, of all places, the Eiger in the Swiss Alps.

At the Ice Bar with a Swiss whiskey chaser to fuel me.

Now where Scotland led, others followed most notably Canada, the go-to country for Caledonian crofters and penniless Picts.

While, of course, winterlands like Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France also quickly picked up on curling.

Rolling stones

Now, for those of us fortunate enough to live in this top bit of Britain, and for all you other Albaphiles.

The good news is that you can build a holiday around curling,

In Stranraer, in the south-west tip of Scotland, which to our shame we probably all pass through getting on and off the ferry to the North of Ireland.

If ye bide awhile, which you should, you will soon learn that the pride of Galloway is also the de facto home of Scottish curling.

Where Olympic silver medallists Hammy McMillan, Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie.

And Olympics champion Vicky Wright from Eve Muirhead’s 2022 rink never have to buy a drink.

Bespoke curling breaks in Stranraer

Bespoke Holidays helpfully point us in the direction of residential stays residential stays, organised to suit any number of delegates from 2-100.

Beginners to the Roarin’ Game are welcome and breaks with curling lessons included can be arranged.

Of course, we’ll be roarin’ on Bruce Mouatt and his rink today.

And even putting our mind to that poster that has gone up in our own wee town of North Berwick.

Promoting curling in nearby East Linton for those bitten by Bruce’s heroics.

MEET YOU ON THE RINK