Category: food

Visiting Inverness, Scotland

On By Rick McIn food, hiking, travelLeave a comment

After getting washed out hiking Skye, I fled to the capital of the Scottish Highlands ➙ Inverness.

The tourist centre is small. I did two walking tours using the GPSmyCity app.

Inverness Castle

I stayed right beside Inverness Castle. Accommodation here is expensive in September. Highest I’ve paid in Europe so far in 2026.

Night outside the castle was my favourite spot.

Inverness Cathedral

Just across the river is the impressive St. Andrew’s Cathedral.

Ness Islands

The best of the city walks is along the river to Ness Islands. Turns out this is where Nessie relaxes. 😀

Solid Stone & Metal

Because of the climate, enduring things in Scotland are made of thick stone and metal. Stolid Scots learned the hard way.

Dunbar’s Hospital
Town Steeple

Leakey’s Bookshop

A highlight for me and many is Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop.  Family-owned and run since 1979.

Beatles played Inverness as a back-up band 21 May, 1960.

Food

Most food in the U.K. is too expensive for me. 50 – 100% higher cost than the same dish in Canada.

My go-to donairs are too expensive in 2026. Instead I ordered donair burgers at about half the price.

When I do spend money, it’s mostly for U.K. Indian food.

Loch Ness

I headed out to a nearby hostel on Loch Ness when accommodation was booked out on a Saturday night.

Did some relaxing day hiking. Here are Divach Falls.

Two children were watching this slow worm.

I thought it was a snake. They explained it’s a non-venomous legless lizard. Also called a deaf adder, blindworm, or regionally, a long-cripple, steelworm, and hazelworm. I’d never heard of the creature.

Get a haircut, hippie. 😀

Hairy Coo. Ready for the Scottish winter.

As I often do, booked an inexpensive early morning flight. Headed up to the small airport — BUT it’s locked during the night. Airport Information desk recommended I tent at the end of the last parking lot. Under the Scottish Outdoor Access Code you can tent almost anywhere for free.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Splurged on a Scottish Buffet

On By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

Before heading up to the wild north, I indulged in the COSMO (Kramer) ALL YOU CAN EAT WORLD BUFFET RESTAURANT IN EDINBURGH.

Check the menu. Over 150 dishes: Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Italian, and a traditional British Carvery. Dessert was terrific, for a change at a buffet.

I became a fan of Indian buffets in Glasgow, years ago.

Click PLAY or watch it on Instagram.

Visiting Newquay (Nookie), Cornwall

On By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

I knew nothing of nothing Cornish aside from Port Isaac, home to the Doc Martin TV series.

Actually, that comedy is a pretty good introduction to Cornwall. 😀

I’d return to Cornwall anytime. There’s so much to do and see.

Doc Martin coastal scenery. Charming British attractions.

My Ryanair flight landed me in Newquay. What a terrific tourist town!

I stayed 4 nights.

Turns out Newquay is the undisputed surf capital of the UK.

Surfers sometimes show up here and never leave.

Of course this was originally a medieval fishing hamlet.

By the 1800s, tin mining and china clay industries were important here.

After WW II, tourism boomed with the rise of guesthouses, holiday parks, and family beach vacation spots. Newquay was most known as a PARTY TOWN — before rebranding to attract more families.

I was here for hiking. Enjoying several walks a day up and down the coast.

In September, huge beaches still busy with surfers & tourists.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. I uploaded my video clips to the Vizard.ai web page. This is the edit it created including music. Not bad.

This attraction is photographed by all. Perched atop a 70-foot-high granite sea stack right in the middle of Towan Beach, a unique home is connected to the mainland cliffside by a dramatic 100-foot-long private suspension footbridge.

Though summer 2026 was warm and fairly dry with the climate change European heat wave, Newquay normally gets 150 – 200 rainy days a year. Plenty of overcast. BRIGHT colours are important in this kind of climate.

Best was sunset over the Atlantic.

No colour correction.

I did find prices high in 2026. Many things 50 – 100% more expensive than in Canada. Few bargains.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Mixed Feelings – Tirana, Albania

On By Rick McIn food, government, hiking, travelLeave a comment

Albania is cool in 2026. Especially the Albanian Riviera.

Almost every tourist online has a lot of praise for Albania.

Once the “North Korea of Europe“, Albania is frantically trying to become the next Greece for tourists.

Inland Berat is great. I hear Gjirokastër is terrific, too.

The capital, Tirana, is NOT one of the tourist highlights. Fly in and leave as quickly as possible. The airport is terrible in 2026, by the way.

Taking walking tours of the centre on a hot day, I concluded this must be the most boring capital city in the world.

The only attraction to write home about is weird and wonderful Pyramid of Tirana. On top is the place to be at night.

Children sliding down the pyramid.

The inexplicable structure was co-designed by daughter of former dictator Enver Hoxha — and nobody has settled on best function. Numerous proposals to demolish the thing have been pitched — but I hope they keep it.

There are some impressive religious buildings.

Resurrection Cathedral, Tirana
The Namazgah Mosque near Skanderbeg Square

This thing was closed.

I did enjoy walking the Grand Park of Tirana close to the city centre.

Tried to go to the Botanic Gardens — which seemed to be closed — so bought a ticket to the animal prison. The zoo is bad, as I expected, needing funds for reparations and animal care.

After a week hiking Accursed Mountains, crossing between Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro — some of our group finished the trip with an excellent meal downtown.

Food fantastic.

Walking town on Saturday night after dinner, I started to see why tourists like the lively cafe culture, and budget-friendly, high-quality food.

That night I stopped in at the government Flamingo Revolution protest. It started against luxury tourism developments, one backed by American investor Jared Kushner.

Expanding nationwide into an anti-government movement focused on corruption, land rights, protected areas, strategic-investment laws and political accountability. Most of the signs I saw were calling for Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign.

Tourism is booming everywhere in Albania — and I expect things will keep improving quickly.

Don’t count on good toilets or showers. 😀

Visiting Ohrid, North Macedonia

On By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

Ohrid in North Macedonia is a super popular tourist stop.

Designated a Cultural and Natural World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. 

Samuel’s Fortress is the biggest attraction. You can walk parts of the ancient walls.

By kallerna – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139070032

The many Byzantine churches were what I liked best. So impressive.

Ali Pasha Mosque is the most important of many in the city.

This is St. Clement of Ohrid, celebrated here for creating Cyrillic scripts — the alphabet confusing me so severely while traveling in the West Baltics. 😀

At night, everyone walks the lake front. ESPECIALLY when it was 35C+ during the afternoon.

Mmmm. Pizza.

I Have a Drinking Problem

On By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

I like a glass of dry red with dinner — but find myself drinking less and less over the years.

This might help. The cheap wine in Montenegro is Plantaže Vranac. Dark, robust.

Not quite as good as my favourites: Syrah and Malbec. But close.

I carry it in a Diet Coke bottle. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. 😀

Visiting Vernon, B.C.

On By Rick McIn cycling, food, friends, travelLeave a comment

Friends moved from Vancouver to Vernon in the sunny Okanagan.

What do you think of their new vista?

We were working on a Gymnastics project, taking breaks with good food.

One highlight was visiting gorgeous Ellison Provincial Park.

Friends are improving the rock climbing routes nearby.

Who are my friends, you ask?

From Vernon, I started my ride back to Calgary.

Visiting Syracuse, Sicily

On By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

Syracuse had far fewer tourists than the other places I visited in Sicily in March.

Yet it once rivalled Athens in power and splendour.

Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage site celebrated for its seamless blend of 2,700 years of history, ranging from massive Greek ruins to golden Baroque architecture.

Click PLAY or watch some drone video on YouTube.

I started with a GPSmyCity walking tour of Ortigia Island (Historic Center).

Beneventano del Bosco Palace
Holy Spirit Church. Under reconstruction. No surprise.

Underwhelmed. Not sure why. Everyone else seemed to really appreciate having the place to themselves.

I did enjoy it more at night than in daylight.

BETTER was simply wandering the narrow streets of the old city.

Stumble upon random historic sites not mentioned in my tourist bumf.

Next day I paid 18 Euro to tour the Roman Amphitheatre, one of the 3 largest in Italy.

This and the surrounding grottos were more interesting than the old city, for me. BUT the site is badly organized. Poor signage. Confusing navigation.

Museum quite good, however.

You’ll enjoy Syracuse more than me. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.

One HIGHLIGHT for me was a small, unpretentious restaurant called PASTA RUN.

Inexpensive. Small portions. Tasty.

Here’s their Pasta Alla Norma, a signature dish of Sicily. It was named in honour of a native of Catania, Vincenzo Bellini, the composer of the opera Norma.

I went back the next day to try their arancine, Italian rice balls that are stuffed, coated with breadcrumbs and deep-fried. 

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.