Recently spent an enjoyable 3 hours with Rose, the charming guide who took my wife and me around…read morethe streets of Edinburgh. We got to sample some great food and drink and learn a lot about local history and culture. It was a great way to see more than the local tourist traps.

I have taken Secret Food tours in several cities and have never been disappointed. The one today…read morehere in Edinburgh lived up to my expectations. It was a great sampling of Scottish foods and will return to several restaurants that were sampled on the tour. And not only do you sample the food, you get a nice slice of local sites and history. Do NOT visit another city without doing a Food Tour! It's not just about the food.

The entire experience was awesome. From the tour guide to the taste testing, you feel immersed in…read morethe world of chocolate. Yum!

First trip to Edinburgh Scotland! My friend booked us a tour at The Choclatarium, and I have to say…read morethe tour was so great! Carina the tour guide was informative with a great personality. She imparted her knowledge with enthusiasm and some humor sprinkled in. We arrived a little late for the tour we booked and we're not made to feel bad about it. We were asked if we had any dietary restrictions and I told her I was vegan. The woman that checked us in let the tour guide know. Every part of the tasting, I was provided with vegan version. It was all so delicious! We were given drinking chocolate when we arrived, it was made with oat milk. Warm, rich and creamy..so good! After a talk, we were led into a room where we sampled chocolate and then made our own chocolate bars. I was provided with dark chocolate, vegan marshmallows and I added a pinch of red pepper flakes. I poured into a mold shaped like a castle. Best chocolate bar ever! While we waited for our chocolate bars to set. We listened to some history of the cocoa beans and the guide made a drink that we all toasted to. She explained the ingredients the Aztecs used as she mixed it up, minus the blood of a human sacrifice. This was an amazing experience, I would highly recommend!

The food was a very nice quality and delicious. The tour guide was lovely (thanks for making the…read moretour so memorable Jenny!). Each of the locations offered something different which was great as i was able to try a variety of Scottish dishes in a short amount of time. Very useful if you're only up for the weekend. I'd definitely recommend doing this tour at the start of your trip so you have tried and tested places to eat meals at later in the trip and also to familiarise with the area with the historical street walk thats included. I definitely plan on re-visiting the locations. The buildings were also full of Old Edinburgh character inside and out.

From the owner: Journey with us through the historic Old Town of Edinburgh, sampling mouthwatering Scottish…read morecuisine, visiting unique locations and exploring the evolution of Scottish food

We took the 4 day tour to Isle of Skye with Rabbie's Tours. It was amazing!! Our driver/tour guide,…read morePeter was knowledgeable and entertaining. I would highly recommend and use this company for other tours.

We went on 3 day Isle of Skye tour in July and it was fantastic. Our guide was Kaylie and she…read moregreat .. knowledgeable and helpful. She was always on time and very kind. I was taking a diabetic medicine that was causing some bathroom issues and she did an emergency stop for me and I am so grateful. I highly recommend tours to see Uk as driving on the other side of the road and a million turn about circles is terrifying so let the professionals take that stress from you. Plus they know where the cool stuff is and when to go. Our other tours in other countries the driver and guide were separate, so she gets bonus points for doing it all and to perfection. the roads are so narrow and scary but she did great. this was first time using this company but left willing to take other tours with Rabbies. She didn't say anything about tips which most do .. but bring tip money and reward exceptional service. We went on the trip with another couple and made some lovely memories. Loved going with friends even made it more special but in other trips we ended up making friends for life so either way is great. We did a stop near an ancient Village I think Vikings anyway there were some shops there where my friend bought a purse and I kicked myself for not going in there and getting one too. I thought the purse prices would be better in Edinburgh they were made with the local Fabric and real leather. When we got to Edinburgh the purses were not as well made and they were more expensive and a lot of them weren't even with real leather or made locally. The Edinburgh purse is a lot of them they use the fabric woven there but they made them out of the country probably China or India. Anyway I that is my biggest regret of the trip that I didn't buy an Islander purse. Now I'm going to have to see if I can buy one online and it'll be a lot more money. So if you go to the Isle of sky and you want a bag or a purse you might want to keep that in mind. My friend bought one that was more large than what I would have wanted but it was around a hundred and some dollars great price for the quality. It's well known that the UK is not known for its great weather. Lots of rain and can be very windy around the cliffs and water. I bought vessie shoes which are waterproof and comfortable but kind of expensive. I also took a raincoat with a hood and a hat with a brim and a chin strap because the wind around the cliffs is real. This hat is especially nice because it has a mesh netting that you can unclip in case you're getting in a buggy area which around the ferry pools we needed. If you don't need the netting you can just clip it back up and so it's really handy. The UK and pretty much most of Europe we find that they like twin beds in the hotels and especially the b&bs. I guess people don't like each other lol and want to sleep together. So we would call ahead and ask that they push the beds together before we get there if that was the case. They also don't seem to have air conditioning screens on the windows or sheets on the beds?? Sometimes places will have fans so it's worth asking or calling ahead to see if you can reserve a fan because they definitely don't have enough fans for every room. If you stay in a US-based hotel like a Hilton or Marriott Holiday Inn you don't have to deal with this as much but I guess it's just common in Europe. Traveling through the summer or heat wave months this can be a bit of a problem. The bed seemed all have these duvets which is great if it's cold out but when it's too warm it's a bit uncomfortable. Since we were roasting we had to open the window didn't love that there was no screen and a lot of the windows are made to where you can only open them about an inch so it doesn't provide much air. This was the case through all of the UK not just the Isle of Skye.

Great experience learning about Scotch. We had a great guide and got to taste some good whiskey.read more

Sipping our way thru Scotland! We loved the tour featuring over 3,300 bottles, of the largest…read moreprivate scotch collection in the world! Select a dram of your favorite scotch by region and flavor profile to enjoy while perusing the bottles and grab a bite to eat afterwards at the award winning Amber Restaurant. I learned my favorite scotch/flavor profile comes from the Speyside region! Located on the Royal Mile, this is the perfect way to spend an afternoon in Edinburgh!

It is truly regrettable that I find myself writing this review about a much-anticipated Tuscan…read moreItalian Language Course Holiday with Flavours Holidays, on 17th- 24th June 2023, which has left me feeling cheated out of the £2,000+ cost and disappointed by customer service. The catalogue of issues are suitably long enough to fill at least two A4 pages and I only have 500 words, so I shall synopsize the main unacceptable events. Inexplicably long wait at Pisa airport to be transported to our villa, no air conditioning for 3 days in temperatures of 33o due to Flavours holidays allegedly not paying for the use of air con. The Flavours holiday experience comes with a Chef and Host in your isolated villa. Unfortunately, the chef (I use this title very loosely) served appalling food that was inedible and, most of the time, not sufficient in quantity for all the guests. One evening (even though I had informed the company I was a non-meat eater) I was served some sort of processed chicken or maybe turkey, that was grey in colour and completely unrecognisable as any form of edible food. It was a meal I would not have fed to my dog. This was a recurring theme throughout the week, so most nights I went hungry. Breakfast, not much better. We were served stale bread, prepared in a dry frying pan as there was no toaster. No fruit was available, until a complaint was made, and then not enough was provided for all the guests. A continental breakfast of sorts was provided after two days, but it was inedible due to being left uncovered to be feasted on by flies while wilting in the heat. Completely shocking, that, in a country famed for its delicious food, fresh fruit and vegetables, that none of it was available on this holiday. The entire holiday (I can only call it this as the Tuscan landscape made it such) felt like a 'rip off' from start to finish. In a time of economic difficulties, no one takes parting with such a large sum of money for a week's holiday lightly Before writing this review, I informed Flavours of my dissatisfaction with the holiday. Following various back and forth emails, I have been left feeling as though the onus was on me, as the paying guest, to seek out the owner of Flavours to complain about the many, catastrophic issues this holiday was presenting, as opposed to speaking to the Flavours representatives that were present on the holiday (which I and the other guests did, to no avail). To my knowledge, when you book a holiday you book it in its entirety and expect all aspects provided to be of a certain standard. When paying at a £2,000+ per week price point it is not unreasonable to expect the equivalent price point in the holiday experience and provided service. I believe Flavours completely misrepresented the holiday that I paid for in their brochure, leaving me feeling cheated and ripped off. In my final email from the company I was offered, as recompense, a discounted price for a Flavours holiday next year. Why I would choose to part with my very hard-earned money to risk going through that awful experience again beggars belief. If, like me, you type your holiday choice into your internet browser searching for that perfect holiday, I would advise that when Flavours Holidays comes up, continue scrolling.

I discovered Flavours in 2111 when i was looking for a holiday in Italy that I could go to on my…read moreown. I have now had 3 Flavours holidays and each one has been fantastic. The villas are fabulous and the lessons with the excellent Italian chefs and hostesses are great fun. I have made many good friends with whom I still keep in touch. Flavours holidays are very good value for money and I can't wait to go with them again. Jean McF

My wife and I have just completed the 3 day tour of the Highlands and Skye. What an incredible…read moreexperience, our tour guide Gary S. was brilliant, informative and helpful. The Highlands themselves are incredible, the scenery and the history is incredible. The trip on Loch Ness was great. I really cannot recommend this company and the tour enough. Thanks for an amazing time.

Our journey started very early 730 in the morning, and it seems they had enough bookings to fill 2…read morebuses. Starting was not so pleasant, these girls' gang (3 ladies in their 40s), they all took window seats and nowthe guide is asking politely to sit them together so that the other person can board the bus, but no one wanna leave their window, and 3 seats were vacant. Hey, aunties, what about some basic courtesy? Everyone paid the same bucks, so don't act like you own the company Coming to the topic, the guide was witty, knowledgeable, and cool. Yes, I had some difficulty understanding the Scottish accent, but it's okay. The tour started with a quick coffee break at Calendar. Then we stopped at Trossachs Woollen Mill- This is possibly the most easiest way to spot highland cows in Scotland. The second stop was somewhere in the Scottish Highlands: beautiful surroundings, so soothing. Then we stopped at Commando Memorial, Fort Augustus Locks, and Loch Ness View Point, Fort Augustus. Each stop was a 15-45 min stop, depending on how big that attraction was. Loch Ness (Fort Augustus) was 2 hrs+ stop, as a few folks had to go on a boat tour. The bus was comfortable, and the guide kept telling us about stories of the highlands, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and stuff. Overall, it was a tiring but fun day, knowing many facts, stories, and visiting such a beautiful part of the world.

I like that you always know you're getting a decent room and basic amenities with Motel One. We…read morestayed for one night upon our arrival in Scotland and then circled back after going to the highlands and stayed for several more nights. Both our rooms were ok, but the noise outside was ridiculous. There is a bar with patio right outside the window of a lot of rooms and the noise (even with the window closed) kept us up half the night. When we would finally fall asleep, then the garbage truck would come by to empty the bottles out of the bins and the noise would wake us up and keep us from falling back to sleep. If that doesn't bother you, then you should be fine here.

So far, my experience at this hotel has been less than three star. My first room had black mold in…read morethe shower, and while the hotel manager tried to be accommodating, the room that they put me in has a toilet that doesn't flush. Reception desk's response is to try to dismiss my concerns. Quite expensive ($720/3 nights, including breakfast) for this lack of quality, i truly wish I had booked a different hotel.

This tour was fabulous. 12 hours of constant trivia and stories and humor and music from our…read morefantastic driver, Donald, with not a dull moment. I was not expecting him to talk the entire time, but he did, and the ride was very informative and entertaining--a perfect balance of each. On the few occasions where he wasn't talking, he was playing some tunes that pertained to Scotland. There were just enough short stops along the way to get out and photograph the beautiful Highlands, so that one did not get tired of the bus ride, and the distillery tour and boat cruise, though at an additional charge, were discounted and fairly priced, and completely worth it. Everything I expected and more. The bus itself was clean and comfy, and the Donald was a trusty driver. The ride back was a different route than the ride up, so we got to see even more new things. I would definitely recommend and do this tour again.

An amazing and great day out to Loch Ness! Mark was fantastic, entertaining and very knowledgeable!read more