Scotland 2023

I had the chance to spend 10 days in Scotland this past month. It’s the second time I’ve been there; the first trip was mainly distillery tours, while this trip was mainly hanging out in Edinburgh…and also a couple of distillery tours.

I took my typical travel camera - the Leica M10-R with the 50 Lux - but also brought along a Leica Q2 as a wider option.

We cycled through ORD and Dublin on our way to Edinburgh. It ends up being about 20 hours of flying and waiting in airports. We used the long layover in Chicago to hit up Mr Beef, an absolute must if you are into beef sandwiches.

We had the weekend in Edinburgh - the castle, royal mile, national museum, and Holyrood were all on the menu.

I always have a tough time balancing “just take the photo so you remember it” and “I want to actually take good photos”. Some of them ended up being 100% stuff I thought looked cool that had no historical or documentary value. It’s fine.

We also went up to King Arthur’s Seat; I managed to snag a good handful of landscape photos. Neat place.

We even had some sun, which is great! But it was also like 25 much of the time, which is less great!

After a good long weekend, we grabbed a car and went for a drive. After coffee. (One advantage of the Q2 - you can just hand it to your buddy and not have to explain how to focus.)

First port after Edinburgh: Oban. It’s a neat small town. We stopped in at a tiny bar and watched all the 100 year old fisherman argue about things.

The weather north of Oban was lovely, we got the full view of Ben Nevis.

I don’t love the Q2. It’s an amazing camera, I’d recommend it to anyone. But I don’t love it. (I sold it shortly after the trip.) That being said, so glad I brought a 28mm; some of the landscapes on the way out to Skye were incredible.

And Skye itself is amazing as well. We blipped it on our last trip but went farther in this time. Absolutely worth the drive. We stopped and saw The Cuillin as well as the Talisker Distillery. A couple of kids in Carbost pelted our car with snowballs.

On our way back to Edinburgh, we stopped in at Glenfarclas and Aberlour. We did the tour at Glenfarclas. I think I’m done with distillery tours - only so many ways to make whisky! Hah.

We spent the remaining two days bombing around Edinburgh on the train…seeing the sights and trying the food.

Scotland is lovely! Definitely go if you can.