The Michelin map does a good job of representing the quality, width, and aligment of a given road, which will give you some idea of the speed possible. Speed limits on motorways and "dual carriageways" (divided four-lane highways) are 70 MPH; other roads are 60 MPH. Drivers tend to break the limit if traffic conditions allow. I can't remember specific driving times, but with few exceptions we didn't encounter traffic backups. The road from Edinburgh to Inverness (the A9) is a well-built 2-lane which bypasses many of the smaller towns and has occasional passing lanes. You can expect to average close to 60 MPH on a road like that. On the other hand, the roads from Glasgow to Inveraray is winding and hilly -- we got stuck behind a truck for lot of the distance. The Rand McNally Atlas has good maps of metropolitan Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as more detail than the Michelin map. We were glad to have both along.
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You'll get as much breakfast in the morning as you like. There's the standard "fry" -- bacon, eggs, sausage, and tomato, served with juice, tea or coffee, and toast. Most places will also serve cereal or porridge in addition to the fry or instead of. A few places also had fruit, usually prunes or grapefruit. It's all included in the cost of the room. For lunch we usually grabbed a sandwich somewhere at a shop for not too much. Cheap Chinese places abound, but often they're only takeaway and may or may not have utensils to give you. In the big cities we occasionally indulged in McDonald's or Burger King; a Whopper, medium fries and medium drink go for #3.00, or about $4.50. There's a McDonald's in Perth that has a drive-thru! In the evening, we'd frequently get fish-and-chips, which you can find anywhere. We really didn't eat anywhere fancy, with one exception. We had dinner at the Pine Trees Hotel in Pitlochry. It was called a "bar meal" but it was a sit-down dinner and service was leisurely. That was our splurge -- about #22, including dessert. Very good food and they treated us nicely even though we were wearing blue jeans (although they did put us far away from the other diners and behind a potted plant).
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We used _Scotland: The Rough Guide_ to help plan our trip, and borrowed a friend's copy of _Fodor's_. We also took along _Let's Go: Britain and Ireland_, but found it didn't add much to the content in _The Rough Guide_, which was far superior in detail.
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Pitlochry had plenty of places to buy woolen goods, and the prices seemed reasonable.
We came across a couple of good Christian bookstores: Wesley Owen in Glasgow and the Manna House in Perth (which also has a popular tea room and bakery). Both bookstores stocked evangelical periodicals, which were useful in learning about area churches, upcoming events, and the general religious scene.
If you're into china, we found a place in Edinburgh that handles second-hand stuff (for people who are "trading up" or who want to sell inherited china). We missed being there when it was open, but it looked really neat. It was near the University at the corner of Potterrow and Marshall Street, caddycorner from a large carpark.
I'd be happy to provide more detail to anyone interested. We loved Scotland and hope to return in the future.
Mike Bates, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
mikeb@ssd.fsi.com
mbates@nyx.cs.du.edu
[Expanded 3 January 1995 to include descriptions of Book-a-bed-ahead, maps, driving conditions, and food.]
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