Pubs and Inns Part 1

You've seen the beautiful scenery, ancient relics, and fun loving family shots. Now it's time for the truly important things...the pints. A few years ago on a Disney trip, we began taking pictures of our drinks when we go out. Not sure why, maybe it's the Frazier version of a selfie? But, here we go - through our trip in pints.

Day 1 featured a visit to the Red Lion Inn, right next to Parliament. You have to be specific in defining this one because we passed at least 2 other Red Lion pubs during our travels - in fact, one of them was less than a mile from this one. This one is a Fuller's pub, so our draughts are from that fine brewery. We have Margaret's ginger ale, my ESB, and Denise's London Pride Ale.

Dinner was at Great British Fish and Chips, which is a chain fish and chips shop, but the manager treated us well (or at least made us think he did) and I got a massive piece of fish. Not a true pint picture, but here is Denise toasting our arrival (and, yes, I know you saw this picture back on the day 1 blog post). We simply shared an Efes Pilsner with dinner.






Day 2 featured two very nice stops for pints. At the Mad Hatter Hotel (another Fuller's establishment) we started off with the ESB and London Pride again. I'm fairly certain that the ESB was responsible for my Jenga loss...  The second round went to some pints less readily available in the US - the Bengal IPA and the Porter.

In the evening, we had checked into our hotel, the Oakley Court, and enjoyed the pints they had at the pub onsite. Some UK microbrews from the Crafty Dan label of Daniel Thwaites Brewery. Nice and rather interesting to have their take on American style brewing.

We don't have any pint pictures from day 3. After our long day of touring Southwest England, we stopped at the local nearest our B&B in Horley, the Foresters. It made no positive impression as things were poorly labelled, service was lackluster at best, and they truly didn't want to take our food order. So, to keep you satisfied with our pub posting, here's the map of pubs in Horley.

Day 4 featured quality pints in both Dover and Alford. In Dover, we got lunch at the Castle in their cafeteria and enjoyed some pints unique to the area.

And on the drive back to Horley, we stopped in Alford for dinner at the Pheasant, which was a Marston's pub. Unlike our previous night, the service and atmosphere here was great. It didn't have a lot of character, but great staff and that makes up for everything! Sadly, we don't recall which pints those are, but guaranteed they were delicious.

Next post we will head north for more pints across northern England and Scotland!

Day 9 - better late than never

Yes, I'm well aware that is has now been almost 6 months since our trip and I am only just now finally getting around to finishing things off, but...life has been busy and there have been many things to do in the meanwhile. I'm sure your vast appetite for Frazier family touring blog has only grown in the time away...right?

We started the morning with a drive west to Stirling to visit the castle that many consider one of the finest in all of Scotland.

As you can see, it was a bit foggy upon our arrival (which may have assisted in the wrong turns along the way...or maybe not). But, the clouds soon parted and Stirling did not disappoint.

In addition to being beautifully preserved and affording amazing views, we got to experience a musical demonstration of the hurdy gurdy, Margaret got to chat for a bit with a Mary Guise (mother of Mary Queen of Scots), we played some period games on the courtyard, saw a very early carving that predicted the arrival of Starbucks 700 years later, and paid a short visit to my king, Robert Bruce I of Scotland.

We also enjoyed lunch at Stirling before heading back east toward Glenrothes. Along the way, we had found a smaller and far less touristed-up castle that we wanted to visit. Above the town of Dollar was Castle Campbell. After ascending a quite steep and somewhat unpaved road we parked in the lot and then hiked our way up to the castle. The view along the hike was quite tantalizing!

Once we got to the castle itself, we were sad to learn that there was a significant power outage which made it unsafe to visit the interior. So, we did a decent length hike down the Dollar Glen and enjoyed some beautiful views along the way.

Once back in Glenrothes, we headed back to the Fettykil Fox for a second night of delicious food and drink. And, sadly, our last night in the UK. The next morning was a relatively early wake-up call and drive to the airport in Edinburgh to return our car and begin the trip back home. An amazing visit to be sure. Hopefully it won't be another 6 months before the Pub post that I have promised!