This blog post is dedicated to the neighbourhood we called home in Scotland for the month of November - Burntisland (pronounced burnt - island).
Burntisland is located in the are of Fife, directly opposite Edinburgh across the Firth of Forth ( A firth is a narrow area of sea between two areas of land in Scotland)
Originally we planned to stay in a small apartment in the area of Musselbough, about 20 minutes by train East of Edinburgh, but in August the host cancelled our booking on AirBnB, saying that they were no longer renting the apartment as a short term rental. We were able to get a full refund but we had to look further field to find something in the same price range. There was no way our budget allowed for us to stay in Edinburgh for the whole month.
But that was fine because Burntisland turned out to be a lovely little town; very quiet in the late autumn but it had everything we needed. We didn’t intended to hire a car while we were in Scotland, so being on a train line that went directly into Edinburgh was handy for day trips. And the town had a two convenience stores, a library, a playground, a little beach and a public pool and gym within walking distances.
We stayed in a small two bedroom apartment on the top floor of a two story flat. Imagine a rectangular two story building with two apartments at the top and two apartments on the bottom, very basic, perhaps a council flat, the whole street was made up of flats like this, but they all had surprisingly big yards and the apartment it’s was cozy and comfortable.
We always intended November in Scotland to be a restful month, recovering from the busyness of the road trip though Europe, conserving the budget a little and preparing for December in Scandinavia. We planned to do the trip up to Loch Ness but we weren’t prioritising traveling around as much as we did in Ireland, although I’ve no doubt the scenery of the west coast of Scotland and outer Hebrides are well worth the trip Scotland has just as many castles as Ireland but to be honestly, I’ve never felt the same connection to Scotland as I do Ireland. I’d certainly come back to Scotland to see more but if it came down to a choice between Ireland or Scotland, I’d choose a trip to Ireland again in a heartbeat.
We had plenty of days ‘at home’ were we followed a fairly consistent routine: schoolwork in the mornings, gym session for Braino, lunch then a walk to the playground and then I would do an extra long walk, I was aiming to do 10,000 steps each day. Braino and the girls would stop in at the shop or the library on their way home from the playground. The sun set around 3:30pm - 4pm, Most of the photos in this post were taken on my walks, on the days were we had clear skies and lovely afternoon sunshine.
I would aim to be home by 4pm and we’d then play an hour or so of Monopoly. We bought an Edinburgh version of Monopoly at the start of the month and it was a brilliant decision. It was a great way for the girls to get familiar with the sites and landmarks of Edinburgh and it made our trips into Edinburgh even more interesting as we’d point out who owned which location in our Monopoly game. (Edinburgh Castle was the equivalent of Mayfair and the Scot Monument was the equivalent of Park Lane to give you an example)
Monopoly is really good for basic mental maths equations so it’s a great learning tool, even Rooney did a great job at being the banker or one of the players. We continued the games across multiple days so there was enough time to accumulate a whole property sets and even put houses and hotels on them. This is when the game got the most exciting - Hallie was the ultimate winner of one round while Farley won the other round.
It may sound a bit dull but having the time to play the Edinburgh version of Monopoly as a whole family most afternoons will always be one of the highlights of our time in Scotland. I just wish we took some photos of our Monopoly games.
Before I wrap this up, we were very surprised to realise how cheap is was to hire a car in Scotland, drastically cheaper than hire cars in Ireland. So we hired one for last few days of our time and did a few more day trips to Glasgow. We were flying out very early in the morning on our last day and we realised that hiring a car for a few days and returning it to the airport was cheaper and easy than trying to catch the train or call a taxi to get the airport.
