First Things First

The first thing Jane thought of when considering a sabbatical from Grace Episcopal Church, Newington, Connecticut was to spend time living in the Iona Community at Iona Abbey off the west coast of Scotland. As she thought about what it takes to travel to Scotland it struck her that it made sense to expand the trip and travel around the Scottish highlands. And if you're traveling through London, why not nip out to Canterbury? And why leave out Salisbury Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, Wells Cathedral, York Cathedral? The trip expanded to five weeks in Great Britain.

We will be on Prince Edward Island for a week or two before the trip, so we decided it made sense to fly from Halifax Airport in Nova Scotia rather than returning the the States. We found a bus service that will get us from Charlottetown to the Halifax Airport the day of our departure and return us to Charlottetown the day we return, so we won't have to park a car at an airport for five weeks.

Here's a rough picture of the trip:

Date	En route	Destination
7/7	Charlottetown, PE	Halifax, NS
7/8	Atlantic Ocean; London, UK	Glasgow, UK
7/9		Dervaig, Argyll
7/10	Mull	Bunessan, Argyll
7/11		Iona, Argyll
7/12		Iona, Argyll
7/13		Iona, Argyll
7/14		Iona, Argyll
7/15		Iona, Argyll
7/16		Iona, Argyll
7/17	Iona	Plocton, Scotland
7/18		Glendale, Skye
7/19		Stein, Skye
7/20	Western Highlands	Scourie, Sutherland
7/21	Durness; Scrabster	Stromness, Ornkey
7/22	Kirkwall; Skara Brae	Stromness, Ornkey
7/23	St. Margaret’s; John o’ Groats, Aberdeen	Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire
7/24	Dunnottar Castle; Dundee, Perth	Kinlochleven, Inverness-shire
7/25	Cairngorm; Inverness	Kinlochleven, Inverness-shire
7/26	Stirling; Falkirk	Stirling, Stirlingshire
7/27		Edinburgh
7/28		Edinburgh
7/29	Lindisfarne; Hadrian’s Wall; Durham	York, North Yorkshire
7/30		York, North Yorkshire
7/31	Burnley	Blenheim, Oxfordshire
8/1	Bath	Wells, Somerset
8/2	Glastonbury	Mousehole, Cornwall
8/3	Land’s End; Tintagel; Penzance	Mousehole, Cornwal
8/4	Stonehenge	Salisbury, Wiltshire
8/5	Winchester	Portsmouth, Hampshire
8/6		London
8/7		London
8/8		London
8/9		London
8/10		London
8/11	London; Atlantic Ocean; Halifax, NS	Charlottetown, PE

Because of my work schedules, up until now I've never been "away from home" for more than two or three weeks. We also realized that we would be traveling to Great Britain during peak tourist season. This meant shifting from the, "Where should we stay tonight?" mode of travel to the, "Let's see, we've got our reservation at the Mamore Lodge tonight. Phew!" Of course traveling to a place or region for the first time requires a lot of research to identify and vet places to stay. It took many, many hours of work for us to pull the itinerary and reservations together. But, remarkably, it is all in place. Now comes the next layer of planning -- what to pack? More on that later.