“Exploring a country by train is a great way to be able to fully focus on your surroundings. Watching the landscape go by, listening to conversations around you, reading a little. Arriving in the middle of a city without any hassle is a really convenient way of traveling. Also trains go where most roads don’t, which gives a totally other perspective than traveling by bike or car. The downside is that a train can’t stop whenever you want to stop. When we’re traveling by car we stop at any place which looks interesting.

Our train ride through Cairngorms National Park was especially beautiful. We really want to go back and discover that side of Scotland. Visit the parks, do some hiking, do some camping. We already suspected it to be beautiful but it blow us away honestly. This being our first trip to Scotland, it was a great way to make so many miles in such an easy way.

Our trip was planned around multiple cities, so for our artwork we decided to focus more on that part of the trip than on the nature we’ve experienced along the way. When we started working together all our work was inspired by traveling and the things we found along the way, we’ve always had a keen eye for packaging design on these travels. For this trip we felt it would be nice to look for that kind of inspiration again. To go back to where we started and revisit it in a new way. It felt like a very natural match with Scotland as a lot of things are still designed the old fashion way, or at least they feel like it. From the signing at stations, to packaging, to hand painted store fronts it all feels if there is a lot of labour involved. We decided to focus on these particular things and the work we made in the end is a painting inspired on a souvenir we brought for a friend.”

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

After a really early wake up and a short flight we arrived at Manchester Airport, to start our trip. We figured it would be worthless to go into the city for just an hour or so so we went to Hebden Bridge straight away where we checked into a small and cozy B&B.

To be honest, we don’t know anything about Hebden Bridge. We only know it from the pictures we see sometimes over at our friend @theprintedpeanut ’s account. She lives in the small town of Todmorden which is just 5 minutes away by train. Hebden bridge is slightly bigger and offers a bit more in terms of accommodation and places to eat and drink.

Of course it’s raining at the moment we arrive and it’s exactly what you expect from a small picturesque English town. Little canals with canal boats, geese swimming with their little ones, beautiful storefronts and lovely brownstone architecture. After exploring the town we took the train to Todmorden where we got welcomed by Louise (The Printed Peanut ) and her husband Paul in their beautiful home, a renovated old paper mill. We had dinner and ate an enormous cake and after a few beers we took the train back to Hebden Bridge for a good night of sleep. Tomorrow: Edinburgh!

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Today we took an early train to Preston only to discover that our connection to Edinburgh was cancelled so we had an unexpected hour on our hands to discover a little bit of Preston. The train journey to Edinburgh was filled with green hills, sheep, small towns and an occasional castle. We can’t believe how extremely green the scenery here is, it feels kind of lush and the rolling hills passing by are satisfying to watch, even in the rain :)

Edinburgh is beautiful with all its hills and castles and cobbled streets. We of course did some Harry Potter sightseeing as that’s the thing to do, you see witches and people walking around with brooms on every corner. We found some beautiful old storefronts, some nice bookshops and had some delicious beers at a brewery.

If we travel we most of the time don’t really have a plan, we wonder around and see what happens. As we have such a short stay in each place this trip we don’t have the intention to see it all which makes for a quite relaxed stay. Till now, every place we went is worth to go back to!

Friday, May 27, 2022

Edinburgh —> Dundee —> Aberdeen

We woke up, checked out, had breakfast and went to the railway station. As our feet are getting a bit sour of all the walking, the train rides are a welcome change.

Because of a change in the train schedule we had some extra time to kill in Dundee. Which at a first glance looks as a cozy little town on the waterside. We wandered around, had some coffee and found out that V&A Dundee, a design museum, was next to the railway station. Too bad we were already out of time so the only thing we saw was it’s nice architecture.

We’ve been told that Aberdeen is also referred to as ‘the grey city’ and we understand why. Literally all the buildings are grey and we think we have been lucky to have seen it with the sun out. Our first stop is Footdee, a little fishers village on the east side of the harbour. As small as the village is, as small are the houses. We walked along the beach and headed back in town for some cold beers and diner.

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Aberdeen —> Inverness

The journey by train was again filled with beautiful green rolling hills and plenty of sheep. We figured there was a festival called ‘The Gathering’ in Inverness and the train got pretty crowded with tons of people heading there which made for a festive atmosphere. Once we arrived the sun came out and the temperature rose. We decided to have a stroll along the banks of the river Ness. It was a funny contrast, the beautiful nature and the loud Scottish music of the festival.

Inverness is a beautiful city in a beautiful environment and once we headed back into the city we explored its city centre. We don’t eat meat and sometimes while traveling it’s hard to find nice places to eat. We are quite amazed how many vegan/vegetarian and organic restaurants and bars there are here in Scotland. All the food we had this far was really good and for us eating out on trips is half the fun. 

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Inverness —> Glasgow

Today we planned to go to Inverness Museum and Art Gallery but we found out it was closed as it is Sunday. So change of plans! We decided to go for a long walk along the river Ness in the opposite direction as we did yesterday. The walk took us along little neighbourhoods with nice little houses.

Once we finished our loop we decided to head to the open studios at Inverness Creative Academy. It’s located in a beautiful building and as we love to see other peoples studios it was a joy to wander around and see the working places of local artists. As we stayed around for a bit too long at the open studios we had to hurry to the station for the most exciting train route so far.

The route took us a little more into the country and away from the coast which made for a more dramatic scenery of hills, rivers  and wide vistas. The train went past Cairngorms National Park which is beautiful and should be a great place to hike and/or camp. We will definitely come back for this. When we arrived in Glasgow it was already a bit late so we hurried to a neighbourhood which we heard was nice and found a cozy little pub where we could have some beers to finish the day.

Monday, May 30, 2022

Glasgow —> Utrecht 

It’s already the last day of our trip and it feels like we have been away for quite a while at the same time. As Glasgow is the city where Risotto Studio is based we decided to pay them a visit as we’re working on a little project for them at the moment. Risotto is a little studio specialised in riso printing, stationary and bold and colourful commissions. We talked, had some coffee and cakes and discovered we already met years ago as we were both part of a groupshow in London (Risorama). We stayed way to long around so there was only 1,5 hour left to visit the Centre for Contemporary Arts which we discovered was closed on Monday.

After a quick bite we hurried to the Airport to catch our flight back home. It’s been a brilliant trip which gave us a good idea of Scotland. Next time we will stay around way longer as there is so much to see and do! One thing we didn’t really thought of before we left is the people, who turned out to be so nice, hospitable and always up for joking around. It made traveling around a joy and as we said before, we’ll be back!