An autumn drive through Wales and Scotland

Yet another half-term break (finally!) this October saw Gez and I off on a driving tour of Wales and Scotland. Our holiday started off by getting the train to Bristol to catch up with friends. Bristol was lovely- like a mini London, funky and in the countryside. Bonus! We then picked up our little car (a fiat- not very fast, but it was a nice blue colour, always important) and headed around the south-west coast of Wales.
We stopped over in Llanelli (pronounced 'Flafley' for some reason!) and continued on around the Pembrokeshire coastline- lovely little stone cotages, sandy beaches and strangely named Welsh villages. One sign we passed was all consonants- went something like 'Wynnthnnrmmn'. The Welsh were all very friendly however and the accent was so strange but nice, like a musical version of the North English accent. The only real difference between Wales and Scotland seemed to be the spelling- the Welsh were much more creative. We crossed the border-of sorts- at Shrewsbury, which was mini-Tudor town, full of those ye olde black and white striped buildings, and then onto York.
York was great- like an authentic 'Old Sydney Town' but about 400 years older! Old Norman ruins and castles were everywhere in the town, and a bloody huge old wall ran right through the centre of York. Apparently there is still a law in place in Westminster where it is legal to kill a Scotsman if he is carrying a bow and arrow within these walls of York. Can't think that is used so much nowadays- but York is just dripping with history- wars with the rogue scots, vikings, black death. All that history seems very real at York. Except of course, when you join a ghost tour (as we did- along with all the other 5 year olds) which was a bit of b-grade fun- people dressed up as Black death survivors, haunted pubs, torture chambers, etc..... York is big with primary school history excursions (like Canberra). York Minster was fascinating, even though our very old tour guide frequently forgot what he was talking about or what he was up to (lots of long pauses ensued) and the Shambles (more Tudor buildings) were very quaint as they literally leaned over the street.
After York we continued up through gorgeous Yorkshire and Cumbria (beautiful country- roads winding through tiny stone villages, rolling green hills, red, orange and brown trees), and stayed at a great pub in Cumbria. English people are certainly good at b&bs- lots of fluffy towels and hot full english breakfasts (the latter of which somebody took advantage of every morning- ie. Gez!).
We then finished off our marathon driving holiday by a quick tour of south Scotland- Edinburgh (did the castle), Stirling (didn't do the castle), Helensburgh (visited my old school) and up the highlands to Glencoe- gorgeous, misty and very, very cold! We got Richard Branson's train back to London and were back at school two days later- ahhhh!