For my daughter's 15th birthday we celebrate "Quinceanero". This is a celebration of fifteen years, which is a common celebration in many Latin American cultures. This is typically celebrated with a massive party but if you know us by now, my daughter went in a little different direction for her celebration. As part of her quinceanero, my daughter wanted to take an international trip with her immediate family and she selected to visit London and Scotland.
Here is what we did for her celebration:
Day 1: Boat tours - we were tired and just wanted to sit down and relax looking at the London scenery.
Day 2: Took a bus tour to Stonehenge, Windsor and Bath (visited the Roman Bath and shopped around). Long day traveling around but it was well worth it.
Day 3: Harry Potter Warner Bros Studios - we had a private driver to take us, but you could do an Uber or cab to it. I am sure there is a possible train, but did not look into that because we were with the kids. The studios was great, it actually exceeded my expectations. We had Indian dinner back in London.
Day 4: Spend the day around London. The kids really wanted to do the red buses, so we caved and did it with them. We had a tea at One Aldwych (the Charlie and Chocolate Factory) to make sure we had a mix of a tea afternoon along with a kid's twist. Really had a great family time. We found out that Bansky has been making painting that same week, so made a stop at the zoo just to see the new Banksy that had just shown for the past few hours. It was a bucket list item for me to do, and my family totally went with it. Bucket list item done for me!
That same night: we took the sleeper train from London to Edinburgh so we could just sleep in the train and once we wake up, then be already at Scotland. It was a true adventure for the kids.
Day5: Woke up in Edinburgh, and walked all over the old city. OMG, what a beautiful city!!! We did the Harry Potter walking tour, which by the way, we totally recommend it. Then at night we had a lovely birthday dinner at Bread Street Kitchen & Bar by Gordon Ramsay.
Day 6: We hiked the King Arthur Seat and got drenched with weather. It didnt matter to us, we were up for the adventure. Once we finished the hike, we went back to hotel, checkout and then immediately got picked up by the camper company. They had the camper for us, and we got into our next adventure sleeping in the campervan. Drove all the Inverness and stayed in a castle like place which was a request for my daughter's bday. The place is called Bunchrew hour and we had the best food we had in the entire trip there. We got there a bit tired and didnt even make a dinner reservation. But when we got there, the hotel was super accommodating, and they added us to the dinner list.... and man or man, are we glad we did, they had the best food ever! The place was super charming and beautiful, so this was a super great stop, even with the camper.
Day 7: We drove to Old Man of Storr, and of course we hiked it up. The weather was absolutely crazy which made it even a better adventure for the kids. The rain did not stop us!!! This was one of our favorite spots in the whole trip. Then we drove to Mealt Falls and then to the Skye Camping. This was our first true night at the camper.
Day 8: Woke up and started driving around to explore even more. Went to the fort, and explore many stop along the isle of Skye and started our way back to Inverness to sleep there. What a beautiful country! Went to the town area to have our last Scotland meal, and it did not disappoint!
Day 9: Woke up, and started driving back, made a few stop to enjoy our drive. Our last stop in Scotland was the Kelpies, then returned our camped in the afternoon. Got a cab back to Edinburgh station to take the train back to London where we spent our last night before returning!
Day 10: This was our return day, we had bad luck with flights and airlines, which made us stay the night in Chicago, but then returned home the morning of day 11.
We had such wonderful time in both places (London & Scotland)... Scotland was a true surprised for us, we loved it so much that we wished we had even more time there to explore.
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