Cheating on Scotland

Do you believe in love at first sight? After visiting England’s Lake District in Cumbria, I surely do.

Starting with our scenic drive into the town of Keswick, I was smitten. What more could I ask for out of a vacation than an adorable English town with indescribable scenery, fantastic pizza, challenging hikes dotted with farm animals, picture perfect weather and great pubs serving Strawberry and Lime cider?

I was having the time of my life, but yet still had this nagging guilt in the back of my mind. Historically, my beloved Scotland and its southerly neighbor have been bitter rivals, so I couldn’t help but feel a bit unfaithful by enjoying the Lake District so much.

It didn’t take long after being saturated with Cumbria’s majestic mountains and picturesque villages for Jon and I to start discussing Lake District real estate. And Christmas vacations. And Anniversary trips. It was as if after 2 short days away, we completely forgot about the lovely scenery and culture in Aberdeen’s backyard.

Scotland has its own mountains and lakes. And farm animals. And cider. And perfect weather. So even though it’s tempting to start planning our next trip down ‘south’, I think for the next few months we’ll go back to exploring what our adopted borders have to offer us.

Scotland will always be my first love.

Speaking of which, I think that our last two trips have really solidified the fact that Aberdeen is our home now. We are some majorly weary travelers after our back-to-back trips to Warsaw and England. After exhausting days of travel, it’s still surreal to realize that we’re going ‘home’ to Scotland. Before 4 months ago, visiting Scotland would have been an epic trip of its own.

I will say that it is oh-so-nice to travel Europe without that pesky jet lag following us around. In the past, we’ve taken 7 day trips here and the first 2 days were always pretty miserable and the initial sightseeing was mostly a confused blur. It’s so nice to be able to shift right into gear without worrying about re-training our sleeping and eating schedule.

Either way, we’re done with traveling for the next few weeks which should give me enough time to research our next trip to….

Austria!!! And during my initial research today, I discovered that this Alpine country has its own little Lake District which I just can’t wait to have an affair with.

Austrian Lake District- Source