Calendar: Two Thousand Ten: April

April's calendar photo is of tulips at Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. I love the picture and knew I wanted it in the calendar; I assigned it to April because that is the month of my sister's birthday, and tulips are considered "her" flower in my family, since my mom's tulips seem to bloom right around Mary's birthday.

My mom and I went to the Isle of Skye at the midpoint of our trip to Scotland. Our itinerary was: Sunday-Tuesday morning: Edinburgh (point A on the map below); Tuesday, train to Inverness (point B/D), drive to the Isle of Skye (C). Wednesday, explore Skye; Thursday drive back to Inverness and stay there, Friday, train to Glasgow (E). Friday & Saturday we explored Glasgow, and on Sunday my mom left from Edinburgh. We were very busy!

Looking at the map, I'm impressed at how much ground we covered. We had reservations for much of the trip, but not for Skye. Thanks to my friend Joe, I had a cell phone with me, so was able to make calls to a few lodging places on Skye from the train from Edinburgh. We settled on a hotel in the harbor town of Portree, and arrived in gloomy weather with lovely light.

Much of Portree is above the harbor itself, and our hotel was down a the water level. We had a hard time finding the sharp turnoff for the road that led down the hill to the waterfront! The harbor of Portree is featured in many photographs of Skye, because the town itself is the main town on the island, and there is a lovely row of brightly-painted houses down at the harbor level; our hotel is in the photo below, the white building diagonally across from/to the right of the row of colorful buildings.

We had dinner one night in the building in the middle (yellow on top, dark blue on the bottom). I believe I had fish & chips, but I know I had a traditional Scottish dessert called Cranachan at the end of the meal. It's basically whisky-infused whipped cream with raspberries and toasted oats. Yum!

The rest of the time on Skye we spent driving about to Dunvegan Castle and the Talisker Distillery - though it poured on us while we were at the Castle, it did clear in the late afternoon: