Looking for travel tips - Scotland (with a little bit of London thrown in)

[dreamshark]

I have now booked airfare for a mother-daughter trip to Scotland in July. So it's official - we're going! Now I have the basic dates I'm trying to fill in the rest of the details. I'm looking for tips on:

* Car rental overseas (specifically UK). I'm particularly baffled by the constantly changing information regarding insurance, collision damage waivers, and credit cards. I have several credit cards to choose from: which should I use? Do I need to pay the exorbitant rental car insurance? Should I rent from someplace familiar like Hertz, or can someone recommend a reliable European car rental agency? How hard is it to drive a stick shift with the gearshift on the wrong side?

* Someplace affordable to stay in London for 2 days. We won't have much time there, so we'll need someplace centrally located. But I don't want to pay $200/night. It doesn't have to be fancy, just relatively safe. Has anyone ever used Priceline to find hotels? Does it work?

* Trains. We'll be taking the train from London to Scotland and back again. I see that Britain no longer has a national rail system, and there are a bewildering number of choices. Yikes! Where do you start?

* If you only had two days in London and wanted to be leisurely about it, what would you see? I'm leaning towards the Tower, the Eye, and the British Museum.

* How about Edinburgh?

* Have you been to Scotland? If so, what was the best part?

Comments

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"We rented bikes and spent a day out in the country, biked to an old castle that didn't have a roof anymore. "

Do you recall where that was? I was looking around on websites for easy bike rides with rental bikes, but it seems that most of Scotland is way too challenging for the casual biker (steep steep steep).

"July huh? Look at the Fringe Festival dates for Edinburgh and see if your trip will overlap. The home city of the Fringe, they rent out every lecture hall available, and have plays going all day, everyday, for two weeks I think? We were very lucky to land there during that, without planning to."

The Festival is in August, which is fine with me. I'd pay extra to avoid that. I mean, I love the Fringe Festival here at home, but I do NOT want to plan a trip that overlaps with the biggest tourist draw of the year. I was on a business trip once that happened to hit Munich during Oktoberfest - Yikes!

"Our bed and breakfast was really nice, but outside the downtown area. It had a bus stop right outside it. :)"

Do you happen to recall the name of the place?

[hakatrip.livejournal.com]

A-Haven Townhouse for the B&B. (We took a pic of the sign, so I just looked in our photo album.:) The only problem was that it was a bit far out, so when we were out very late at an 11 pm show, the bus only took us partway back and we had to walk the rest. Not too far, maybe a mile, mile and a half? The breakfast room of the B&B was the only place I heard a real thick Scottish accent... to the point of recognizing that the other guest was speaking English, but only understanding about one word in eight or nine.

We rented bikes from a bike rental in Edinburgh, and that guy gave us the map and route to the castle. I don't remember the name of the castle. It was not too steep, indeed I remember a lot of rolling greenery. It was a day trip, with that hike up Arthur's Seat in there. There was a small village with a pub that we stopped at for lunch. It rained lightly on us, as it's wont to do in the middle of the day I understand.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Good tips! Thanks.