Allyson Johnson

Freeway Free in Scotland: All Aboard the Royal Scotsman

You have figured out by now that our tour of England, Wales, and Scotland is a splurge trip, not designed for budgeting backpackers.  A week of travel through Scotland aboard the Royal Scotsman is not for the faint-of-checkbook, but a taste of luxury sweetens the cup of life. (Does that sound like a folk saying?  I just made it up.)

Your trip aboard the luxury train “Royal Scotsman” begins with a kilted and shako’d bagpipe player piping you aboard.  It continues with gourmet meals on Villeroy & Bosch china, an open bar with hundreds of choices of whiskey, wine, etc. in the observation car, and lectures en route by a noted regional scholar.

You roll along through verdant countryside, viewing the landscape through spotless windows, pulling over at night on quiet sidings in quaint villages.

And of course, there are stops along the way at a number of Scottish distilleries in order to activate our  taste for Scotch whisky.  I’m afraid my pictures, as well as my brain, got fuzzier and fuzzier as the trip progressed, so  the final banquet, with fine food, fine china, fine wine, and several guests and all the staff dressed in formal Scottish regalia, will be left to your imagination.  If you have yearned to travel like a member of Queen Victoria’s retinue, this was a week for wish fulfillment.