In the Spring of ’23, Tori and I took a two week trip to the UK. We spent 5 days in London so Tori could show me the sights from her grad school days at University College, had a brief stay in Sandwich to continue our quest of visiting every town named Sandwich, then spent about a week in the Scottish Highlands exploring and renting a motorcycle to ride a big chunk of the North Coast 500.
England
London
We left on a a Friday night red eye flight from Boston and landed in the early afternoon on Saturday. After making our way to our AirBnB near Camden Town, we took a short walk to The Regent’s Park and Queen Mary’s Rose Gardens before setting in for the night to decompress from the flight.
The next day we started by headed out of London to Horsham for a Sunday roast and visit with Amy (and her then-fiance and dogs), one of Tori’s friends from her time living in London. After a train ride back to the city, we walked past Buckingham Palace and St James’s Park before exploring Soho. We spent the following morning browsing the vintage markets in and under Camden Town. After shopping, we took a detour through University College London before heading to the train for dinner plans with Georgia, another of Tori’s close grad school friends, at an Indian restaurant in Shoreditch.
The next two days were more touristy. Tuesday was hitting the British Museum, Trafalgar Square, Shakespeare’s Globe for a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream, London Tower and Tower Bridge, and pub drinks followed by dinner at a Patagonian restaurant in Camden. On Wednesday we did the Natural History Museum, a science-themed tea service, Westminster and the London Eye, and ended the night with a Thames River cruise.
I’m usually not a city person, but I genuinely enjoyed London. It was lively without feeling overly crowded, the food and attractions were world-class, and I loved how different each neighborhood felt. Being able to explore on foot helped the feeling of connection to the city, and Tori’s time living in the city definitely made navigation much less stressful.
Sandwich
Part of our quest to visit every town named Sandwich has to include the OG Sandwich in England. It’s a pretty small town near the coast in Kent, so we hopped on a train from London and booked two nights at a cozy AirBNB in the medieval town center.
There’s really not too much to the town. There’s a small museum, a medieval guild hall, a few vintage shops, and a small workshop where they practice medieval crafts like blacksmithing and printing. The biggest excitement in Sandwich was a seal & wildlife cruise up the River Stour. The quiet was a welcome break from London, and two nights felt like the perfect amount of time to spend before making our way back to London for our flight to Inverness.
Scotland
Inverness & Isle of Skye Tour
We landed in Scotland late Saturday evening — it shouldn’t have been surprising that the sun still hadn’t set at 9pm, but it somehow hadn’t clicked just how far north we actually were. It was a good preview of what to expect on my 2024 Arctic trip. We set up base at the Travelodge and went to sleep to recover from the day of trains and planes.
We spent our first Sunday in Scotland just exploring Inverness. We wandered the Victorian market, took a walk down the paths along the River Ness, and walked the outside of Inverness Castle (which was unfortunately closed for renovations.
We had booked a private tour of The Isle of Skye for the Monday. Our tour guide was great and put together a route that took us through Loch Ness, Urquhart Castle, and Eilean Donan Castle before crossing Skye Bridge to the Isle. Our tour went up the eastern coast of the isle and we had lunch in Portree before driving along the stunning coastal roads and stopping for a bit of walking at The Quiraing and the Fairy Glen. The day in the van was a great way to get used to driving on the left side of the road and the tight, twisting highlands roads before taking on the NC500 the next day.
Riding the NC500
On Tuesday, we grabbed a cab and headed across town to pick up our rented BMW R1200GS for two days on the NC500. We found the Keith, the manager of the hire company, and his pup Winston waiting for us with a bike prepped. Keith got us sorted with gear (not great quality, but it beat dragging our gear all over the UK) and gave us some advice on the route before we loaded up the bike and got the RAM mounts set up for navigation.
The NC500 is a tour of the northern peninsula of Scotland and weaves its way along the coast and through breathtaking scenery. We set out counter-clockwise, stopping at Dunrobin Castle for photos and coffee before heading up the coast to John O’Groats, the northernmost point on mainland Scotland. The first day of riding was on larger roads and fairly tame, but it was a good chance to get used to the bike and riding on the left.
The route got more interesting once we rounded the corner at John O’Groats. The skies got darker and the wind chillier, but we avoided any rain as we made our way to west towards Strathy, about the half-way point of the north coast. We’d booked a room in a converted lighthouse, and our arrival around 6pm gave us several hours to explore the expansive grounds and rock-scramble our way out onto the rocks that jutted into the North Sea.
The next day we had our morning coffee with the sheep while sitting on the rocks looking out over the ocean and got back underway. The roads got narrower quickly, and we spent most of the day on single-lane back roads where opposing traffic had to pull over to make room. In one valley, we’d pulled over near a crumbled foundation to take in the views and Tori enjoyed fantasizing about how our Scottish property could be laid out when we rebuilt it.
Despite the route being a heavy tourist draw, the only real traffic issues we had were with other motorcyclist — there was one impatient German on an R1200 and a group of military veterans who liked to hog the entire road without letting others pass.
It felt like every turn lead to another astonishing vista of lochs, valleys, or the ocean. While the nature of the roads kept our average speed down, a motorcycle was perfect for the route. I can’t imagine how stressful it would have been to be driving a car on the narrow roads, dealing with the turnouts and traffic all while the driving side and controls were mirrored.
We stopped for an afternoon coffee at a Geo Park and spent time in their small museum before carrying on. Tori was battling some travel sickness, so we ended up cutting off the southwest corner of the route and headed back to Inverness on Thursday to decompress and rest on our last full day in Scotland.
Making our way home
We had most of the day on Thursday to return the bike and hang our in Inverness before taking the sleeper train back to London. After sleeping in a bit and getting the bike to its home, we spent the afternoon taking on last stroll of the city. The Inverness Museum showcases natural history, political history, and art from the Highlands and was worth the visit. We also did some shopping at Leakey’s Bookshop and met an American expat who tried to convince us to move to the highlands before getting dinner at MacGregor’s pub.
I had a romantic notion of a sleeper train being a charming and relaxing way to get back to London compared to a plane — I was incorrect. The tiny, stuffy cabin we had definitely wasn’t conducive to a good night’s sleep, but the views through the window and general convenience of the process made it worth trying. When we got back to London we killed some time at a coffee shop before heading to the famous Ace Cafe for Full English breakfast. It was pretty quiet on a Friday morning, but the displays of British motorcycle history were cool, as was the prototype Triumph electric bike sitting center stage.
After Ace we made our way back to Heathrow for the flight back to Boston and a late-night drive into Hartford.
