We are going to stay in a castle!

I've always had a bit of a fascination with castles, and we have visited many over our years of travel. The best ones are the ones that are authentic and not necessarily restored to "modern" standards.

And I've always wanted to stay overnight in one! But first of all, it's usually prohibitively expensive, and secondly, most of the castles that have been turned into hotels are are more similar to a manor house rather than an actual authentic looking castle.

Last minute surprise visit!

Long time readers will remember that we have spent quite a lot of time over the years with Ruth's cousin Helen and her husband Tony. Even back in our working lives, we sometimes took vacations together, including one way back in 1987 when we went to Scotland!

Helen and Tony live in southwest England, but they recently bought Vinnie the motorhome and decided to do a trip up to Scotland with Vinnie. We had planned to meet up with them, but not this soon!

We picked up our brand new car, and saw some interesting sights on our way to Glasgow

I had to go back to downtown Edinburgh to pick up our rental car. Ruth stayed back at the house because it didn't make sense to pay another £2.20 bus fare just so that she could accompany me. 

Car rental in Scotland is much more expensive than Spain was. I started searching months ago, and the best price I could get for a one month rental was £578 ($1,071 CAD, $782 USD).

There is a lot to see in downtown Edinburgh!

As is evidenced by the 56 photos and one video below! 

In fact, we probably could have done with two full days in the central area. But we will have to return our car rental here, so maybe we will do another day towards the end of our time in Scotland.

Edinburgh day 1

Our accommodation is located about 8 kms (5 miles) SW of the center of the city. It's a newer three bedroom three bathroom townhouse. The owner is a single woman about 35, and there is a flatmate who is rarely seen, and when she is here she spends most of her time in her room. And they rent out the third bedroom on Airbnb, which is of course our room. The room itself is tiny, but we have full use of the kitchen and living room so it's totally fine. And the bed is comfy!

On Thursday, we went for a 10 km (6 mile) walk around the area.

Welcome to Scotland!

We had some time to spare before we had to drop off our car rental at Madrid airport, so we did a small detour to the 11th century town of Sepulveda.

Then we drove to the airport and waited for our flight to Scotland!

Today is a busy travel day!

On Tuesday, we drove from Palencia to the village of Fresno de Cantespino, with a stop in Peñafiel.

Overcast, with the threat of rain almost all day, but we never got more than a few drops.

Through Astorga to Palencia, Spain

On Monday, we headed further east from Molinaseca to Palencia, taking a route with a stop in the town of Astorga.

I've forgotten to include a map of our travels the last couple of weeks, so I'll include a map update below.

The gold mines at Las Medulas and the city of Ponferrada

Our next accommodation stop was just past the city of Ponferrada at the small town of Molinaseca.

It was only about an hour and a half drive, but we had a stop to make along the way.

More waterfalls and viewpoints!

I published our May expense report last night. You can check it out here.

We headed out fairly early yesterday because we wanted to beat the heat. We weren't going far... only about half an hour away to a parking spot in the forest near a trailhead that leads to a waterfall.