UK Archives - Page 2 of 58 - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

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

Countries, UK

Burns Day for Ellisland syne

25th January 202625th January 2026 funtime65

And for the day that’s in it and because it’s never brought to mind we’re marking Burns Day for Ellisland syne.

Ellisland Farm, near Dumfries in Scotland’s south-west, was where our national bard wrote the New Year’s anthem For Auld Lange Syne.

His witches’ tale Tam O’Shanter and his paean to doomed love Ae Fond Kiss.

But the only home the wordsmith actually built sits in the shadow of the National Trust village of Alloway and the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.

Although there is a fightback by friends of Ellisland to restore the farmhouse in the Burns story.

Fair farm

It was to this little corner of Scotland where Burns at the height of his popularity had repaired to a more domestic lot.

The famously restless and spendthrift Burns had, by 1788, set his sights on the lucrative post of an Excise Officer.

And the writer settled on one of three vacant farms his trusty friend Patrick Miller had on offer.

With Burns describing 170-acre Ellisland Farm, with its view over the River Nith and orchard, as ‘the poet’s ch9ice,’

Burns’s choice was to turn it into a splendid six-apartment house, described as a “modest mansion” by visitors in 1789.

Ae Fond Nith

Walking in the footsteps: Inside Ellisland

It was here then among his new country gent set on Nithside that the Ploughman Poet was inspired to write his classic poems.

Surrounded by his ten cows, four horses and some sheep.

Of course, Burns’s native Ayrshire was never too far from his mind.

And it was while regaling himself in the sumptious surrounds of Ellisland Farm that his mind drifted back to the Alloway Kirk.

Dumfries Trail

The Ploughman Poet: In Dumfries and Galloway

And you can to this day see the gravestone of his father William.

Which Robert, brought up on spooky stories by his grandmother at the nearby cottage, used as the set for his witches’ fable.

If you want to find Robert Burns himself though then you’ll want to go back into Dumfries.

And the St Michael’s Churchyard where Robert lies for eternity with his long-suffering wife Jean Armour and some of their brood.

The Robert Burns House, another dwelling where the great man lived, on Mill Street is where he died at 37 and which is now a museum with free entry.

Other features on your Burns Dumfries Trail include the 18th century hostelry, The Globe Inn, known as ‘Burns Howff’ with poems etched on to window panes.

While the Robert Burns Centre , an 18th-century watermill on the banks of the river, features an exhibition about his life in the town.

And the Brow Well & Ruthwell, outside the town, is where Burns sought a cure for the illness which claimed his lfe.

The Immortal Memory

So we’ll tak a drink of kindness now and toast The Immortal Memory.

In truth we did so yesterday at our Burns Supper in the hoose.

And wish the Burnsophiles at Ellisland Farm good luck in their fundraising for their refurb.

With particular interest in the section reaching out to the Scots-American diaspora.

Now if only we could think of a Scots-American with deep pockets and influence who could help rebuild a big, beautiful Burns House.

Countries, Flying, UK

Concorde by a nose in Scotland

21st January 202621st January 2026 funtime65

And because you can still board the greatest plane ever built without shelling out a fortune, we mark 50 years since its inaugural flight and how it’s always been Concorde by a nose in Scotland.

Because, here on our doorstep at the National Museum of Flight in East Fortune in East Lothian, east of Edinburgh, Concorde still holds pride of place in its own hangar.

Which you can board, and enjoy, for just £14.50 of your Earth money.

And see how the other half lived, and flew, back then.

It wasn’t inevitable, of course, that Scotland would house a Concorde, in this case Golf-Bravo Oscar Alpha Alpha, the first of her kind to go into service with British Airways.

Since her maiden flight in January 1976, she has flown 22,768 hours and 56 minutes, landing 8,064 times and going through 6,842 supersonic cycles.

Concorde’s most dramatic journey

In almost 25 years of service, she traversed the globe, touching down in New York, Paris, Bahrain, Miami, Calcutta, Auckland and Barbados.

Its most dramatic journey perhaps though was one where it never got off the ground.

When G-BOAA took to the water instead.

On an unforgettable week-long journey from Heathrow to a bunch of fields east of Edinburgh.

Aisle be looking after you: In-flight entertainment

Concorde was loaded onto a specialist barge, the Terra Marique, at the Thames port of Isleworth.

And sailed up the Thames and north,.

Before being rolled ashore at the British Energy jetty at Torness, East Lothian.

The pipes are calling

She was then guided by members of 39 Engineer Regiment’s 53 Field Squadron (Air Support), with a helicopter hovering overhead.

Before, in true traditional Scottish style, was greeted by two pipers on arrival.

Which is a little bit extra.

And not what you’d get at any of the four Concorde sites in England.

Worth the journey then.

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

St Stephen’s Day v Boxing Day which is better?

26th December 2025 funtime65

Straddling Britain and Ireland means switching Christmas hats… so St Stephen’s Day v Boxing Day which is better?

Just one of the many cultural differences between the two islands is in what we call the Day After Christmas.

Being the first Christian martyr, St Stephen, of course, came before the consumerist Boxing Day.

And he has the jump on the alternative by dint of being by appointment to the Almighty.

With the Church decreeing early that the first martyr should bank the day after the day of Jesus’s birthday.

While Boxing Day had to wait until 1833, with Queen Victoria’s seat still warm on the throne.

When the aristocracy handed down some crumbs from their table.

From Melbourne to Massachussetts

The upper classes would box up gifts and give them to their servants, the poor or tradespeople the day after Christmas Day.

Now as you’d expect Boxing Day took root in the countries of Empire, now Commonwealth, and are still celebrated today.

With Boxing Day in Melbourne, Australia, noted for its Test Match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, or MCG.

Although England, on the end of an Ashes humiliation, aren’t doing much partying.

Randomly, there is a corner of America where Boxing Day is a thing and that is in the least likely, Patriots’ Massachusetts.

Where since 1996 it’s been celebrated, in response to the efforts of a coalition of British citizens to ‘transport the English tradition to the United States’.

Long to wren over us

Czech it out: On the King Charles Bridge in Prague

Stephen’s Day, on the other hand, is where the rest of the Christian world outside of the King’s hails the first Christian martyr.

And where the Good King Wenceslas first looked out in Prague, with his pizza deep pan, crisp and even.

The best tradition though, and we are biased here, is in Ireland.

Where Stephen’s Day is also called Wren Day… well, they would have two names for it.

It goes back to the legend that a wren’s cooing gave away Stephen.

And where Wrenboys, dressed in masks and costumes sang songs and played music for money,.

And used to hunt for wrens although now they’re carried around as stuffed or fake wren.

Then there’s the Mummer’s Festival, held every year in the village of New Inn, County Galway, and Dingle in County Kerry.

From Magyars to Murtys

While there’s also a Magyar Festival, a fertility ritual, which we discovered on our travels this year.

Where Hungarians wear sheepskin furs and use a bagpipe and a chained stick to make music.

Our household of all nations, for our part is called ‘You do the Christmas clean-up Day’.

Countries, Deals, Music, UK

Mamma Mia in London

2nd December 20252nd December 2025 funtime65

And if you don’t want to leave your kids with a ‘free house’ then take them with you… to Mamma Mia in London.

Take one precious neighbour back home in Ireland.

And a much-earned weekend away in the West End.

And your peace will be broken.

With endless texts about how she’s had to get the Gardaí out to break up the Son and Daughterie’s party.

Just as you are dancing away to the show-stopping finale to Beautiful: The Carole King Story.

Take a chance on Mamma Mia!

Alas, it’s too late baby to see the brilliant which packed up and moved on.

But Mamma Mia! Here we go again with the magical musical on at Novello Theatre (Holborn).

And you can dig in the dancing scene with Cassidy Travel who are offering a two-nights package in March.

With two nights’ accommodation, March 11 and 12.

You’ll get a seated show ticket in the Dress Circle with return flights (optional). Prices from €289pp.

Super troupers

Now if you’re looking for a Christmas gift for Herself.

And aren’t women always harder to buy for than men.

Then why not take your Dancing Queen to London’s bright lights for the big Abba musical.

Only make sure that you don’t leave a free house behind.

And seeing you’re asking then all My Own Little Spirit of Christmas wants is…

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy… a man after midnight.