Rolls Royce & Bentley Club at Chatsworth

1960 Bentley S2 Continental (Mulliner)?

1960 Bentley S2 Continental Saloon (Young)

Lots of fine cars
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Day 11: Peak district

Chatsworth House

The dining table ready for the Queens Jubilee

Haddon Hall

From one national park to the other over the most interesting, beautiful and curvy roads we continue our way down south. Now we are in the Peak District - which is stunning and has lots of things to do. We visited Chatsworth and Haddon Hall.
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Day 10: the rest of York

On top of the Minster
Great Organ concert

The medieval streets
York is a wonderful medieval little town - with lots of old stuff to see and of course the famous York Minster. Also here is the National Railway Museum which is one of the biggest in the world (with the Flying Scotsman e.g.). After a quest of more the two years I finally found my silver English soup spoons at Mulberry Hall- so now we really can enjoy soup the proper way...
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Day 9: York

Castle Howard
Statue Gallery in Castle Howard
James Herriots' House
Calling at James's door
Castle Howard is one of the grandest private residences in Britain and we were lucky to walk around (alone) early in the morning gazing at the magnificent rooms and especially the entry hall. This is where Bridgehead Revisited has been filmed (twice: the TV series and the movie) - so you recongnise quit a lot actually. After the castle we went to an other house: that of James Herriot (aka Alfie Wight) to have a look into the real world of a Yorkshire vet, the TV studio's where the series was recorded and some other fun artifacts of the famous writer/vet.
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Day 8: Yorkshire (Dales and Moor)

Beatrice Potter
Blackwell House - Art & Craft

Yorkshire Dales

Yorkshire Dales

Rievaulx Abbey

From the lakes we go east to Yorkshire (the Dales and the Moors). But first we take a peak at the house of Beatrice Potter and an other famous Art & craft House (blackwell). Then riding through the dales with its endless stone walls, sheeps and meadows. It is nice, but I had expected it to be even grander. The same for the Yorkshire Moors. Maybe it is because we already saw some amazing landscapes in Scotland and the Lake District, maybe we are riding to fast - I do not know, but it is a bit disappointing.
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Day 7 - the lake district and so...

Drumlanrig Castle

The Lake District
And further south we go into the Lake District which is very pretty indeed. It was also the day that we said goodbye to Scotland and hello again to England. We had much fun in Scotland and saw some awesome things - we will certainly return (if the Scots provide us with the same weather again that is...). The Lake district is very touristy and there are an awful lot of hotels, inns and B&B's along the several lake borders. We have chosen one of the best along the windermere lake: Merewood hotel which has a terrific view over the lake and let's hope good food as well...
Riding here is really fun with lots of curves and inclines as steep as 20% (up and down).
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Day 6 South!

Culzean Castle

Culzean again

Finally I had a good night of sleep...

Sheep everywhere you look and ride
Now we have started our long way south on the British Island. We had to stop at Culzean castle of course because it is one of the finest pieces that is designed by Robert Adam from which we already saw George house, Hopetoun and Inveraray earlier this trip. The famous oval staircase and round room didn't let us down and where simply beautiful and with a stunning view of the Ayrshire coast. The were very few people visiting, so we had practically the place for our own. We ended up in Galloway / Dumbfries - the weather still holding up very high temperatures.
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Day 5 From Oban to Glasgow

To many castles?

Inveraray Castle, the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyle

We started our day at Cruachan, a (man made) hollow mountain which holds the world's first high head reversible pumped storage hydro scheme - a truly amazing engineering achievement. Visiting the plant is fun and leads you trough a tunnel which was dug out by hand through the granite rock by 1300 miners.
Along many lochs and hills we rode to Glasgow, which was a bit of a letdown. The city had clearly better days. Even the Charles Rennie Mackintosh stuff was dissapointing. Our hotel and restaurant compensated that more then enough.
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Day 4: Loch Ness and Oban

Some really old bridges

At Loch Ness - is that a rock in the water or could it be...?

Looks like "The black Island" of TinTin

Room/hotel with a view over Oban
Way up north we further go and then we cross Scotland from East to West, along the many lochs. Nessie was just as the Queen not home... But we saw an tremendous amount of fellow motor riders along the borders of the lochs. Oban is a pretty harbor/ferry town and our hotel was perfectly positioned to have a great view over the bay. We had fresh fish at the fish temple to finish an other perfect day.
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Day 3: The Scottish Highlands and the Queen isn't home

Forth Bridge

Hopetoun House

Scottish Highlands

Balmoral forrest

Eddie calling at the front door of Balmoral
The Scottish Highlands are a blend of Austria, Switzerland with a dash of Norway: splendid!. We rode many miles on windy tiny roads only encountering sheep and other motorcyclists. Riding left has become a second nature very quickly and I hope we can adjust when we are back in Holland... The weather is absolutely awesome - especially for Scotland in May. We visited Balmoral, residence of Elysabeth and Philippe when they are in Scotland, but they were not home - maybe an other time?
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Day 2: Edinburgh

Castlemilk Lads in the Scottish Portrait Gallery

Scottish war memorial
Edinburgh Castle

Checking the guards

On the royal Mile


Scott

Broom
I knew Edinburgh only from films and books (Alexander McCall Smith!) but I fell in love with this city. It is just stunning!. The old town, the castle, the memorials, the new town - everything is really pretty. You have wonderful views over the town itself from the castle and the city itself is just big enough to be able to walk everything. There are plenty of nice museums (national portrait gallery, writers museum) and very good restaurants. So we really enjoyed our day here and will be certianly be back for more.
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Day 1 - the coastal route

Alnwick castle

Bamburgh Castle

Special VIP motor bike parking places

 
The first leg of our journey is along the coast of North East England up to Edinburgh. With sunny skies we were riding quiet  coastal roads along Castles (Alnwick and Bamburgh) and many coastal villages. Just south of Edinburgh we had to stop at Rosalyn Chapel (of Da Vinci Code fame) but find it a little bit in ruins...
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Scotland Ahoy!

huge ferry

every where "convenient bags" - just in case...

After a couple of months of preparation (finding the best regions, tracks, interesting things on the way, hotels and restaurants) we are finally heading to New Castle - on our way to our motor trip through the UK. It should be fun, the weather is awesome (even in Scotland) and our motor gear extra checked. We bought new Nolan 104 helmets - so we should be able to communicate very easily and in high quality during the trip.  The ferry was Ok, nothing special, but the crossing was very smooth and we slept like babies.
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