Our budget break in Scotland from 5 -  10 May 2012 was based on cheap rooms bought in the Travelodge UK December 2011 sale.  I paid £59 for 5 nights accommodation, one night in Dufermline, two in both Inverness & Perth.  You can save on travel if you snap up hotel deals whenever you spot them. While Travelodge is unlikely to offer a memorable experience, you get a comfortable place to sleep with your own bathroom. I managed to get a decent mobile broadband signal with my T Mobile USB modem during our trip. Although Travelodge offer free WiFi in their Bar Cafes, none of the Travelodges at which we stayed had Bar Cafes.

Caledonian Canal Locks at Fort Augustus in the Scottish Highlands

We decided to come home a day early, on Thursday 9 May, as heavy rain was forecast for the following day. We’d been very fortunate as the weather was much drier and brighter than forecast and we didn’t want to end the trip on a soggy note. It turned out to be a wise decision, as it rained non-stop all day on the 10 May.

Cost of Budget Break in Scotland

Accommodation - £59 It was £19 for the first night in Travelodge Dunfermline, Travelodge Inverness cost £10 a night for two nights and Travelodge Perth Broxden Junction was £10 a night for 2 nights, so a grand total of £59 for 5 night accommodation (room only) for two people.

Transport – Fuel £60 We travelled in our Skoda Fabia diesel supermini which returns 67 average miles per gallon. We covered just under 650 miles, so that cost £60 for fuel.

Food – Meals  £74 -  We took quite a bit of food with us; things like longlife milk, cereal, sandwiches, tinned tuna, cheese scones and fruit for breakfasts in our room and picnics. As we’d be spending money on food at home anyway, I haven’t included this in the cost. Having a flask saves a lot on drinks and means you can pick the most scenic spots for a tea or coffee. We had lunch in Edinburgh on the first day at £24, a dinner in Inverness costing £21 and afternoon tea in Perth which cost £9 with Groupon voucher. If we’d stayed for the last night,  I reckon we’d have spent another £20 on a meal and some food shopping.

Total Spend – £193

Day One – Dunfermline

We arrived in Dufermline in the late afternoon of Saturday 5 May and had a walk around Pittencrieff Park and the Abbey & Palace.

Dunfermline Abbey & Palace

Photos from the Budget Break in Scotland

Click here to see all the photos on Flickr.

Budget Scotland Mini Tour on Twitter

We had a late lunch at the Oblo Bar & Bistro in Eyemouth in mid April 2012. Our decision to eat at Oblo was based on the fact that they have an all day Bar Menu, which allowed us to have a leisurely walk along the North Sea Trail toward Coldingham without having to rush back to make lunch serving hours.

It was a bit cold to sit out in the patio or the balconcy, so we opted for the first floor conservatory where it was light but we had some protection from the wind. We did get a whiff of cigarette smoke from the one smoker out on the balcony and wished that smoking was prohibited in all areas.

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I want to keep it real on Europe a la Carte. Many hotel and restaurant reviews seem to be a mixture of pure fluff,  implausible if the reviewer hasn’t actually stayed or eaten there, based on unrealistic expectations, or used as an excuse for a negative rant. Although I often stay in hotels and eat at restaurants on a complimentary basis in exchange for a review, I do try to be objective. Anything else if pretty useless to readers.

I’d write the same travel reviews whether I stayed/ate free or paid for it myself. I let you know in the first paragraph of my reviews if I stayed or ate at the establishment free of charge, so that you can factor that into your assessment of my review.

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The Duddo Stone Circle, also known as the Duddo Five Stones in Northumberland, lies just off the B6354 signposted from the A1 for Etal, just south of Berwick upon Tweed. We’d seen the small brown “stone circle” sign on the bend in the road in Duddo many times when driving past on the way to one of our favourite walks along the River Till in Etal. This morning we finally decided to go and see the stone circle for ourselves.

Duddo Stone Circle (using Flickr’s Aviary editor’s Venture photo effects)

We picked one of the best times of year to visit, as all the surrounding fields were a riot of yellow rapeseed flowers.

Walking next to the rapeseed field on the way to the Duddo Stone Circle

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The Panorama Restaurant at the Lisbon Sheraton Hotel, hosted Mary Goudie of Your Lisbon Guide and me for dinner in late March 2012.  The restaurant is located on the top floor, so has great views over Lisbon. However, I think the views would be better in daylight, due to all the light pollution after dark.

Me posing with a glass of Mum at the Panorama Restaurant Lisbon

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Just after 11am this morning, I received an email supposedly from Booking.com, about a hotel reservation for 7 May 2012. I was immediately suspicious, as I already had a reservation at Travelodge Inverness for that night. The email didn’t have my name on it and asked me to open an attached zip file to see details of the reservation. But if I hadn’t recognised that date, I could have possibly opened the attached file, as I sometimes get in a muddle over hotel reservation dates.

I did send an email to the address at the bottom of the email  “customer.service@booking.com”, to flag up the issue.  I assumed that might be a genuine email address, as it used the Booking.com domain. It must be an existing email address, as the email didn’t bounce back.  I was busy doing other things, so I just deleted the dodgy email.

However, around 11.30am with no reply to the email I sent to “customer.service@booking.com”,  I thought I should really phone Booking.com to alert them to the dodgy email. They told me that an email had just been sent around all their customer service advisors to tell people who phoned up about this dodgy email to delete it.

I did a tweet and a couple of Facebook updates to warn people about the dodgy email but I couldn’t see anything regarding this email on the Booking.com Twitter stream.

Booking.com must have picked up my tweet because they asked me to follow them so they could send me a direct message. I followed them and below is the message exchange over the following 45 minutes.

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I think that Faro Cathedral is well worth a visit. There was 3 Euro entry fee when I was there in late March 2012.

Stork perched on Faro Cathedral Bell Tower

The exterior of Faro Cathedral

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On a recent rail journey with East Coast from Edinburgh to Berwick upon Tweed, I witnessed a passenger who had lost his train ticket having to leave the train at Berwick upon Tweed. It was going to cost £152 to buy a ticket onboard the train for the Edinburgh to London journey. The hope was that the passenger would be able to buy a cheaper ticket, either at the Berwick ticket office or online, when he’d get his ticket from the online purchase printed at the station’s machine.

Photo by Timitrius

As I was sitting diagonally opposite I could hear everything that was going on. The passenger had only lost the ticket for the homeward leg of their return journey. He had the receipt for the return journey and therefore asked the inspector if he couldn’t trace the ticket through the reference numbers on the receipt. The answer was no. Surely this should have been possible? I know when I book my train tickets online, I receive a confirmation email with all the booking details.

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Bocca Restaurant in Lisbon hosted Mary Goudie of Your Lisbon Guide and me to dinner in late March 2012. This is one of the hot Lisbon restaurants, so I was a bit dismayed that the interior seemed more like an upmarket canteen with plastic topped tables and not very comfortable chairs. The tables were pretty close together, so if the restaurant was busy, you’d be pretty close to the adjacent diners.

Interior of Bocca Lisbon

We asked the staff to chose our dishes for us, which with hindsight, probably wasn’t a good idea. We started with an Amuse Bouche of small pieces of vegetables clipped and impaled on a wooden strip served with a dip.

Amuse Bouche at Bocca Lisbon

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Mary Goudie of Your Lisbon Guide took me on a day trip from the Portuguese capital to Tomar, site of the Convento de Cristo. It was originally built in the 12th century as a bastion for the Knights Templar, a Christian military order, as part of the line of defence against the Moors.

Exterior of Conventi di Cristo

In the 14th century the Knights Templar were disbanded and replaced by the Order of Christ. The former fortress at Tomar became their headquarters. The Order’s best known Grand Master was Henry the Navigator, who launched the Portuguese Age of Exploration. The Janela do Capitulo is one of the best examples of Manueline Portuguese (Late Gothic) architecture.

Janela do Capitulo at Conventi de Cristo

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