The Pride and Prejudice Tour of Scotland and Northern England 2009 Part 1

My ideal job, at this point in my life, would be to travel in England (hitting as many of the filming locations of my favorite British Period Dramas as possible) and then write about it.  I was able to do some of this last summer when my husband (hereafter known as the Squire) and I had a glorious 2 weeks in Scotland and England to celebrate our 20th anniversary.  The Squire wanted to see the British Open Golf at Turnberry, on the southwest coast of Scotland, and I wanted to see the North of England, specifically the Lakes district, the Peaks district and the medieval walled city of York.

We started in historic Edinburgh, used often for filming historical drama such as Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South, where it stood in for Victorian Manchester.

This is the view from on top of Calton Hill, which was used for all of the "walking in the park" scenes in North & South and only required minor computer graphic alteration of the skyline to make it historically correct.

This part of the trip was mostly for the Squire, as one day in Edinburgh was spent toddling up to St. Andrew's on the train to see the famous golf course.  St. Andrews is a lovely little town (where Prince William and Kate Middleton met at school) and there was a ruined cathedral over a cliff at the far end of town which was much more interesting than the golf course, for me.

We next drove to Glasgow, where we promptly got lost and discovered that the main street in Glasgow is called Sauchiehall Street (pronounced Suckyhall).  Some very friendly locals helped us find our way, however I had to ask for the spelling of the aforementioned street!  I spent one day happily shopping alone in Glasgow while the Squire was at Turnberry taking in as much golf as he possibly could.  I also popped into the Glasgow School of Art, which was designed by Charles Rennie MacIntosh.

I missed the tour of the school (below) but I was able to poke around a bit and picked up some lovely swag at the gift shop.  I also was able to fit in lunch at the Willow Tearooms (also Mackintosh designed).  I love the high backed chairs which are right from that transition period between the Arts and Crafts period and the Art Nouveau.

I did go to one day of the Open golf and the view of the Ailsa Craig rock just off the coast was amazing.  I'm sure the golf was good too, but I was mostly there for the view.  This is the place where they quarry for the granite they use for curling rocks (called Ailsite).  I got to see Tom Watson up close, who almost won the tournament, but alas, no Tiger Woods.  He didn't make the cut, possibly due to exhaustion from juggling all of those mistresses.

I have to say that the drive down the Ayrshire coast, towards England was gorgeous.  We left the golf just as the sun was getting low in the sky, to head for our B&B in Dumfries.  The road was winding and the view was breathtaking.  Well, I am going to leave off here, at the break between HIS part of the trip and HERS.  My goofy idea, other than generally to see the beauties of the North, was to try to see where Elizabeth Bennett wanted to go on her trip with the Gardiners (The Lakes District) and where they actually travelled to in the book (Derbyshire and the Peaks District).  Stay tuned to see how this plan actually panned out.