The Highlands

Taking a tour around Loch Ness turned out to be a grand idea.  We saw two castles, mountain ranges,  several lochs, and two waterfalls. Also lots of sheep, red deer, and different types of trees. Beautiful scenery and once again, a beautiful day. We've been surprised by how late it stays light here but today was the first time we noticed it gets light at 4:30. Of course, the tradeoff comes in the winter when there's only about 6 hours of daylight.

We had booked a private tour with a guide named George who is a delightful man who told us a lot of  history and is also knowledgeable about the landscape and all things environmental. He also knows a lot of corny jokes  Our tour was supposed to last 5 hours but he kept us out for over 7 hours. Inverness is just a few miles from Loch Ness and we drove along miles of it. It's 23 miles long, a mile wide and 750 feet deep. We neither looked for nor saw a monster. 

Our first stop was Urquhart Castle which is in a picturesque location but is mostly destroyed.  The structure dates from the 12th century and was often raided by various clans.It was conquered by Edward I of England in 1296, leading to the Scottish Wars of Independence. It changed hands multiple times, between the Scots and the English Finally, the last clan who occupied the castle destroyed most of it in 1692 to prevent it being overtaken by Jacobite forces. It is now maintained by the Historic Society and is the third most-visited castle in Scotland.

Urquhart Castle

After seeing the landscape along the Loch, we drove higher up the mountains which are surprisingly bare compared to the wooded areas around the water.  George explained that a deer can eat up to 200 saplings a day so it is difficult to plant forests.  Their solution is to fence in the trees and keep out the deer so there are patches of trees, mostly evergreens, on some of the mountains.

The Five Sisters Mountain

We took two hikes in the woods to see waterfalls.  Neither one was too strenuous but they would have been treacherous had it been raining.

One of the Falls

The other castle we visited is called the Eilean Donan Castle. It, too, has a beautiful setting on a point where 3 lochs meet. These lochs are salt water and empty into the ocean. The castle site dates from the 13th century. It changed hands many times until it was finally blown up by Spanish invaders. It was rebuilt by John McRae-Gilstrap in the early 1900s and opened to the public in 1955. . It is used extensively in the Highlander film, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and other movies. 

After the long day, we ate at a fine restaurant called Rocpool. This area of Scotland specializes in seafood. It is tasty but they call the prawns and scallops "king" size and both are smaller than the ones you usually get in the States. Speaking of food, we've been asked many times whether we've had haggis yet. We haven't but Mickey has ordered it for breakfast tomorrow here at our B & B.  It's her job to know all things food so she must try it. Most of the restaurants fix it with a whiskey sauce but that won't be the case for breakfast. If it's good, we'll try that next or at least make Mickey try it.

INVERNESS

Today we went to Inverness but before that, since people are begging for a laundry report, here it is. The first load in the washer/dryer combo washed but didn't dry. I had to ask a young man at the front desk how to make it dry only and he actually knew. It dried in 10 minute intervals until I got tired of it and hung the clothes in the closet to dry.  For the second load, Lola was washing black pants and a couple of t-shirts. She decided to use the gentle cold cycle since the pants had just been washed once. The cold water made the pants bleed into a t-shirt which she then threw in the trash. I don't know why. My clothes washed at a high temperature since that's what they call a normal setting. We can't do laundry again until Glasgow so we'll just have to make due with what we have.

We came by train to Inverness today. It took over 3 hours but you can see beautiful scenery. We traveled next to the Firth of Forth (or vice versa) and saw herds of cows and sheep. Inverness is on the River Ness and is considered the Capitol of the Highlands.  We can tell it's far north since it's after 10 and still light.

We had just a couple of incidents getting here. When we got to the station, every train listed a platform except ours. When a platform was finally listed,  we had to hustle to get the train. We put our luggage on seats near us, knowing someone would make us move them. When someone did, he put them in between the doors. At a stop, Mickey, who was looking out the window, noticed my suitcase  had flung itself to the platform.  I jumped up and luckily, a woman had picked it up and was able to hand it to me. I don't think train companies deliver lost luggage like the airlines do.

We're staying in a charming B & B close to the River. We walked part of the river trail and went into the city. Outside of the usual stores, like Clarks and TJ Maxx, all these cities have a Harris Tweed store with great kilts and hats and blankets at very high prices.  We also found a great antique store, probably one of the few left in the world--a huge used bookstore: Lots of old cookbooks, Scottish history, Scottish birds, etc. It's been years since I've seen a pile of books the owner bought and has to stock.

Used Books and it smelled like...books

Tomorrow we're taking a tour around Loch Ness and leaving the next day.  Here's some pictures from the walk--it was cold and windy and actually rained a little. But tomorrow is supposed to be dry and warmer.  

A chapel across Ness

North Church across Ness

The "castle" was built on the site of an 11th century defense structure but this one was buillt in 1856. It is used as a justice center and not open to the public.

Stirling Castle

Today was the first cold day we've has and with the wind, it feels much colder. We had to get out the big coats for the one hour train ride to Stirling.

Stirling Castle is a grand structure with many of the walls and ramparts still in place. It is considered one of the most important castles in Scotland.

Stirling Castle Entryway

Lots of cannons

However, much of the "reconstruction" they've done is tacky, like whoever's in charge doesn't have very good taste. They seem to want to appeal to families and have a lot of things set up for children.  For example, they spent 13 years reproducing famous unicorn pictures which were never in the collection although they believe there once were tapestries with unicorns.

Not the real one

Still, it's a remarkable structure that has a rich history. Most of the buildings are from the 15th and 16th centuries. Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Stewart Jameses (IV, V, and VI)  lived there, for example. Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to overtake the castle and failed. Robert Bruce had better luck in 1299. There's lots of other important Scottish history but I can't keep it all straight.  There's a lot of kings, queens, and invaders involved.  More important is that the castle has been used as backgrounds for rock star videos, including by Bob Dylan and REM.

An equally interesting place which doesn't seem to be advertised with the castle is the very near Church of the Holy Rude (not mispelled), established in 1129 and has been used for many coronations.  James the VI was crowned there as a baby and John Knox preached there..  There was an argument between ministers in the 17th century which resulted into the church being divided with a wall into two parts--the East Church and the West Church. That arrangement continued until 1936.  The church has had some restoration, most noticeably some new stained glass windows, funded by a tradesmen guild that has been in existent for centuries. Most of the stained glass is from the 19th century but a couple are from 2012 and the parishioners are very proud of them. We can tell you the significance of every single picture in the following because a kind Scottish gentleman told us:

The images and what they represent really are fascinating so we were glad to hear about it and thankful the "guide' didn't follow us around and tell us about all the windows.

For dinner, we ate at an unusual restaurant called Indaba which serves tapas with an African twist. We tried many different dishes including a dessert trio which was the best dessert ever. I'd explain the dishes but Mickey has promised to make it all.  Seriously. Just ask her.

Gardens and a Palace

Today, we managed to get to the Royal Botanic Garden just a few minutes after it opened at 10. That worked out well because once again, it was a sunny, beautiful day so it started to get more crowded around noon.

The 70 acre garden is a scientific garden where researchers are attempting to preserve many species of plants from all over the world. It was created in 1670 to grow medicinal plants and moved to its current location in 1820. There are 3 branches in other cities. The grounds are immaculate and there are 10 glass houses with  tropical plants including lots of orchids and the tallest palm house in the world with a 200 year old palm . They have reproduced mountain conditions to grow plants from the major mountain ranges in the world including an entire section called China Hill.  More of their accomplishments can be seen in the pictures below.

The beginning ot the first trail

This hedge is over 100 years old. It's made from beech trees

Blue poppy; there are fields of these which are indigenous to Scotland (who knew?)

Lily pad glass house with dragonfly sculpture

Blue Poppy; there are many fields of blue poppies which are indigenous to Scotland (who knew?)

After walking around the 70 acres (!), we caught a bus that took us within a few miles of Holyrood Palace, the official residence of the Queen in Scotland. The bus stop really wasn't miles away; it just seemed so, especially because we took one wrong turn which caused us to go up and down and up again. . The audio tour guy says the palace is over 500 years old and has been the residence of many famous rulers, including Mary, Queen of Scots and Bonnie  Prince Charlie. Each year, the queen has a garden party for 8000 Scottish guests but we're guessing she doesn't stay in residence more than a week or two. She does meet with people inside the palace, bestowing honors to people like Sean Connery. Most of the decorations within the palace, including lots of tapestries, were added by Mary, Queen of Scots. Unfortunately, she didn't get to stay amidst her decorations for too long.

Holyrood Castle

Remains of the Abbey which was the first structure on this site
It was destroyed in the 18th century

After visiting the castle, we walked around the Queen's garden which is nicely manicured like all the gardens in Scotland. From there, we got a cab back home, went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and are now waiting for the small load of laundry to wash and dry. We're expecting that will take about 5 hours.

The #1 tourist attraction

It is, of course, the Edinburgh castle which sits high on a hilltop. Luckily, the Hop On bus which we used for transportation today, takes you most of the way up. Having the no queue ticket paid off. We took the free short tour led by a young cute boy so we listened intently. He said there's been a structure on the site for 3000 years. The oldest building, St. Margaret's Chapel,  still standing is 900 years old because the rest had been razed by King Edward Longshanks (the hammer of the Scots) who said all insurgent Scottish structures had to be destroyed. 

One of the interesting structures is the prison where prisoners of war, including 15 American sailors, were kept  during the American  Revolution.  They were artisans who left several of their creations including an ivory-carved box and bamboo and straw caskets (the small boxes). All the prisoners became experts at creating forged bills; they carved the designs into mutton bones. They needed the money to get somewhere once they got out of prison.  There were carvings and graffiti  on the massive wooden doors including the first outlines of the Stars and Stripes carved by the Americans.

There's a large monument to fallen soldiers from WWI on. The structure is impressive and it contains books that list every service person who was killed. We found some McKees but we other two apparently have no Scottish roots.

View from the Castle

Castle Gate

I had written much more on this entry, including really exciting stuff like what we ate for lunch and dinner but, unfortunately, my computer does not usually connect to the internet for some reason. Therefore, I'm just posting this so everyone knows we're still in Scotland where it seems to never rain.

 

It's Sooo Hot!

Who would've thought? I didn't think going to Edinburgh was a beach vacation.   It's been sunny and around 80 all day. The young woman in the office at our apartment complex is telling everyone it's going to be 28 and in the same breath, telling them to walk to the Royal Mile because it's just a 20 minute mile. She obviously didn't look at us when we returned from walking in the heat--sweat running down our burnt faces. Seriously. There's not a cloud in the sky.

It was a little rough getting here. We were supposed to fly to JFK and then to Edinburgh. Because of inclement weather in New York, we received emails this morning saying our plane was canceled and we were rerouted through Chicago. We actually had less travel time than we would have on the flight but the seats we got were horrid.  We got upgraded to Comfort on Delta from CVG to ORD which is, of course, a 55 minute flight.  Then, Delta had booked us a flight to Edinburgh on United.  Naturally, the United flight was already almost full so Lola and I got middle seats and Mickey got a seat on the aisle but all the way at the back of the plane.   If we had gotten the Delta flight, we had booked an exit row.  The plane was hot, we really were packed in like sardines, it was impossible to sleep (not that it's usually possible). At least we didn't have an extra stop. Also, surprisingly, both planes were on time.

Since we got here at 8 in the morning, we were unable to check in but we were able to leave our luggage at the apartment complex and let them know we were in town.  They told us we could definitely check in at 3 but the room might be available earlier. We put our suitcases and jackets in the lockers and decided to walk to Waverly Bridge where we got the Hop On/Hop Off bus since frankly, it's too hot to walk.  I have never seen a Hop On bus system like this one.  There are actually about 5 different bus tours and you can go on any or all the routes. Most cities do have a couple routes but these buses have different colors and tour names. You carry 5 brochures to figure out which bus to take.  We had decided to get onto the least crowded one and never hop off. It gave a nice overview of the city.  Tomorrow we'll find a hop on location and get dropped off at the castle where we have "no queue" tickets that are part of the purchase of the bus tickets.

 As everyone says, this city is truly beautiful. And old.  Edinburgh Castle dominates the landscape. Here is just one view that we had while walking. We saw it from many angles on the bus and it is one of the stops. Since it's at the top of a mountain, we made the decision to be driven there tomorrow.

Edinburgh Castle

Sir Walter Scott Monument

We opted not to climb the Scott monument which is only 287 steps.  We just waved to the people walking around the top. This monument is advertised as the largest monument to a writer in the world. The park where this is located is huge and today, because of the weather, the benches were full of people and the grass was full of people sunbathers. It's clear this isn't the usual weather pattern.

We are staying in the West End which is not as touristy as other parts of Edinburgh. We're going out to find a restaurant now and shop at Tesco for coffee and breakfast goodies. Scones (pronounced skons)!!

Revived! We ate at a nearby Italian restaurant, a Johnny recommendation--Frizzante Prossecario. We had a delicious mussels appetizer.  Lola had Spaghetti Jonny (no relation)  which is seafood in a very light pesto sauce. I had wild boar ravioli with sausage and Mickey had veal prosecco.  All were delicious. They even talked us into profiteroles since there are 3 in the order. They were covered in chocolate mousse.  This restaurant is very close by and, as hard as it is to admit, another stellar Johnny recommendation.

After the big dinner, we went to Tesco and then walked back to the apartment. It was still light--it gets dark at 9:38. This truly is the day that seemed to go on forever but we're here--it's Scotland...and it's soooo green.

Summary of Trip

We--Catherine Rahmes, Joyce Rimlinger, Mickey McKee--are traveling to Scotland on May 25. We will visit Edinburgh; Inverness, where we'll take a tour called "Around Loch Ness" (the loch, not the monster); Glasgow.  After Mickey goes back to the US to work, Joyce and I will fly to Romania where we'll stay in Brasov and visit the Dracula Castle, and Sibiu, where we'll attend the International Theater Festival and see Nicole Wiesner and other Trapdoor Theater company members for a day or two.  Stay tuned!!