We woke up to this beautiful sunny Wednesday morning at the house we rented on the banks of the river Fiddich in the beautiful village of Craigellachie, Aberlour, Scotland. The sun was out early and the birds were performing their most beautiful compositions in our windowsill, reminding us we had a beautiful day ahead, where we…

The wonders and festivities of the Spirit of Speyside Festival were over, but our trip to the Whisky Capital of the world was only one week old, and we were not even close to being ready yet. The morning after we said our goodbyes to Oliver and the remaining five of us had planned a behind…

The last day of the festival sadly arrived far too quickly. We had pre-booked a trip to the (once more) normally closed to the public Auchroisk Distillery. This distillery was perhaps one of the easiest for us to find; following the A95 north, turn left onto the B9103 where the road forks, and after a…

Deciding what to get for lunch Fourth day of the Spirit of Speyside festival – the Sunday, we started slowly. We drove down to Aberlour and walked around the city for a bit, albeit closed because, well, it was Sunday. It amazed us a little that with the extra people in the vicinity, the Sundays…

Our third festival day was another busy day. We would start around 11:30 at the Laichmoray hotel in Elgin, so we decided to sleep in and have a relaxed morning. Following the A941 up from Craigellachie, we arrived without any problems at the hotel, where a bus was waiting on us to tour us around…

We have had a great, but busy time at the Spirit of Speyside festival 2014. Many evenings ended with us crashing on the couch talking to our new friends with a fine dram, our feet up and a fire blazing in the fireplace, or we ended at the kitchen table, trying to get some text…

Day three (we were officially in holiday mood and lost track of what day it was), the car is getting heavier already, and with the places still to visit in mind, we feared that we needed to repack the car for our trip home, and use the backseats that we had left clear “for no…

After an easy boat ride, we landed in Newcastle at the predicted time of 9 in the morning, local time. Due to Ansgar’s perseverance of never being late for any appointment (read: we arrived three hours early in Ijmuiden), we had been amongst the first on board and were positioned with the bikers. First on…

Arran scenery When all excitement on Islay and Arran still on our minds, before we knew it we were home again. One thing was sure though – we would keep doing this and even expand our madness. The year already had been good, (it is only June 2013 in this timeline) but coming back from…

Arran scenery A week of driving around on Islay was good. Sadly, we missed Ardbeg day because of our boat left before the distillery could legally open their doors, but we managed to get one of the collectible Ardbog festival bottlings, that we opened once we arrived at the self catering house on the Isle of…

Bruichladdich sunshine A smooth boat ride to Islay on the first true morning of our vacation brought us to the magical island. We landed on Lagavulin day, but missed most of that because we needed to check in to the bothy first. Our real start would be the Sunday: Bruichladdich day. We could not have…

As can be seen in the first part, we had developed a serious taste for everything whisky: Distilleries (breweries too), festivals, nosings & tastings, whisky specialist shops and not in the least of all, Scotland. Although we were well aware that besides Scotland there are many more whisky producing countries, Scotland stole our hearts. Among…