We’re in July 2022. I’m trying to keep the heat out of my house. I’ve stripped to the bare minimum and the fan under the desk opposite mine blows a soft cool breeze towards my legs. I’ve just come home from Corsica and Sardinia where the heat was unbearable, but even back home the heatwave seems to follow me... and so I’m starting to be homesick for... Scotland.
We were in Scotland a few weeks ago in June and, as far as we can remember, we did not once complain about the heat. On the contrary, we rode approximately 5000km in ‘fresh’ spring weather and several days’ non-stop drizzle and rain. And even today while the rest of Europe is paralysed by a heatwave, I’m checking the weather app and – yes, on the Isle of Skye it’s merely 20 degrees and rain is still falling all day.
Earlier this year we were thinking about ideas for our next Motorcycle Diary trips and looking at a digital map with all the routes we’ve ever ridden highlighted – but then we spotted several places on the old continent we didn’t visit very often. First thing we noticed was a lot of blank spaces in the east – still a lot of countries we haven’t ridden that much: Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Turkey. But also, in the west, there are two places we’ve barely set wheels in: Ireland and Scotland. It shouldn’t be too warm in summer we thought, especially in Scotland. While consulting the average weather statistics we kept noticing the phrase, ‘May and June are the driest months in Scotland.’
Hence we had our next destination.
