Pubs of Scotland

Soup and toasted bread in the local

This will probably be my last post on Scotland until I go there again! This recent trip to Scotland was my second trip. I really enjoyed Scotland very much on my first trip there, which was in 1996 and I also really enjoyed this trip. The people in Scotland are very friendly. This started off at the boarder control in Glasgow. I think that boarder control people people get special training not to be friendly. This is particularly true of the boarder control officers in the USA. Going through boarder control in the USA is a whole different travel experience. I must say, they now have automated system for screening your visa, and the whole process is much smoother now at the airports in the USA. stern voice he asked what I was doing in Scotland and where I was staying. I told him I was here for a conference and I was staying in Edinburgh and I had not figured out how I was going to get to Edinburgh. He smiled at me (obviously I was an acceptable risk) and then proceeded to give me excellent details on exactly how to get to Edinburgh. It was nice to be in a friendly country.

Anyway, back to the friendly people in Scotland. When the plane landed in Glasgow, there were two "groups" of people on the plane, people from the EU and people not from the EU. The EU people moved through boarder control very quickly and we (non EU people) were left in a very long slow moving line. It was interesting watching the boarder control people working trough the line, and getting supervisors to check quite a large number of passports. Looks like certain people were trying to use Scotland as an easy access to the EU. When it was my turn, I handed my passport to the official and in his well trained

I was travelling with a group of students to attend the World Veterinary Poultry Association congress in Edinburgh. One of the students in the group is one of the founding members of Kovies Brewing. These guys are producing some excellent craft beer and have recently been awarded the "world of beer" micro brewery which they are in the process of getting set up. Anyway - back to the story. He knows his beer. This was also his very first overseas trip. When he walked into his first pub in Scotland, he just about passed out. Here were a variety of beers on tap. Just too much for him. When we went into the next pub, and there was a completely different set of beers, this also was just too much. He was like a kid in a candy story. What really blow his mind was that he could get his favourite (not sure why it was his favourite as he had not tasted it yet) Brewdogs on tap. We decided to have half pints, so that we could taste the different beers on tap.

The oldest pub?

Bobby the dog

There is the pub with the famous statue of Bobby, the dog who spent 14 years sitting by the grave of his master.

One of the pubs we found was the "oldest" in Edinburgh. I think that there are quite a few pubs which make that claim. What was interesting was that this pub was standing proud below the castle some 150 years before any Europeans set foot in Africa.
The locals pubs were also a good place to get food. The pub meals were the most affordable food and there were some pretty good meals. Another of the pubs on the royal mile close to the castle served a wonderful soup with a toasted bread. A good meal at a reasonably affordable price. There are no shortage of pubs in Edinburgh. We had quite a long walk to get back to our hotel from the conference each day. Luckily there was not too much rain in Scotland, but there was rain. We could move from pub to pub to keep out of the rain on the way home. After the congress, I checked on the app on my phone which counts steps. I had walked just over 100 km in the week in Edinburgh, but the pubs were great.