Tag Archives: Scotland

My Last Scottish Tour

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I wanted to get in one last tour before I flew back to Atlanta, and had been eyeing the trip to the Ayrshire Coast, featuring Burns country and a trip to Culzean (pronounced “Cul-ayne”) Castle.  But it left from Glasgow, and that extra step—going to Glasgow—is what had prevented me from going on the tour any earlier. Did I really want to get up at the crack of dawn and catch a train?  But I put on my big girl panties and took the express to Glasgow for one last adventure.

I had picked up a sandwich and a pain au chocolat at Sainsbury’s for breakfast and walked to the Buchanan Bus Station and found a seat.  The pigeons were interested, and I can’t help it, I threw bread to them—they’re experts at looking so hungry.  But then they frenzied all around me, stepping on my shoes, flying onto my legs, flying to the garbage bin right at elbow level, trying to cadge some food.  One pigeon even perched on my index finger (until I shook it off) and another flew at my head!  The other people in the waiting area were as amazed (and frightened) as I was. What is it about pigeons that they attract as well as repel?  They are kind of charming, but maybe it’s the old idea that they carry disease. (Gross–I just Googled the diseases pigeons carry.  Why did I do this?)  But I kept feeding them as I waited for the bus to arrive.

And when it arrived, who should be our driver, but good ol’ Stewart! I was so happy to see him yet again, and the feeling was mutual.  The tour was small—there were only seven of us: four people from Australia (two were sisters, though one lives in Berlin), a couple from Aberdeen, and me. We bonded pretty quickly, but then Stewart is good about making everyone feel welcome and comfortable. I knew that it would be a wonderful day.

Whitelee Wind Farm

Our first leg of the journey saw us at the Whitelee Wind Farm, on the Eaglesham Moor, about 9 miles outside of Glasgow.  It was an unexpected stop, but something about all the wind turbines, with their graceful lines, and blowing blades, was compelling to watch.  The wind farm has 215 such turbines, with the capacity of 540 megawatts of power, and it’s the largest on-land wind farm in the UK.  It was a chilly and somewhat drizzly morning, so we all went inside to the coffee shop, and sat and chatted for half an hour over a cup of hot chocolate, until it was time to head out.  I would have liked a little time to visit the wind science museum, but it was also nice just to visit with the other people on the tour.  Sometimes it’s ok to forego museums.

Culzean Castle–I love how this picture came out.

Our next stop was Culzean Castle, home of Clan Kennedy (and later President Eisenhower, who was gifted the top floor), and fortunately, the drizzle had stopped.  The sun even popped out a little, making the Firth of Clyde (which feeds into the Irish Sea and backs up to the castle) seem bluer.  There was a bit of a walk through the woods from where Stewart dropped us off but it was pleasant, and when I got to the castle itself, I took a few moments to look out on the Firth and admire the soft waves.  The castle, which dates from the late 1700s, had a proscribed path to follow for touring, which took us through dining rooms and bedrooms and sitting rooms and even a room decorated entirely with pistols and other weapons—like, thousands of them.  (Turns out it’s the armory.)  Of course, the rooms were finely-appointed, with rich red carpeting and bedspreads, and paintings everywhere, including what I’m sure is a Canaletto painting of Venice.  The castle also had a couple of bedrooms with cradles made to look like small boats.  The kitchen was a bright yellow, and led out to a tiny gift shop where (of course) I bought a guide to the castle.

Outside the castle, I walked through the gardens which were nice, but not overly impressive.  They had a great lawn though, and I could imagine someone setting up lawn tennis there.  People walked their dogs and one family seemed to be fighting and shouting at each other in Portuguese, I thought, never mind that I was sitting on a bench seat and couldn’t help but to listen in. I wondered what they could be arguing about.  It seemed like the father was impatient with his younger son, the same younger son that was being bullied by the elder son.  Their mother was shouting at her husband to quit shouting at the kids (I presumed).  But eventually, they slipped past the wall to the garden and I had peace again.  But I was getting hungry, so I made my way back to the main entrance, where there was a café.

My lunch was comprised of “creamy macaroni cheese” (they don’t say macaroni AND cheese in Scotland, I’ve noticed), chips (fries), and a little salad.  I don’t really understand why you’d serve a starch with a starch side, but the chips and entrée were tasty, and the salad was small but good.  Afterwards, I poked around the gift shop but didn’t see anything that spoke to me, and I met up with the Australian sisters and we chatted some more.  They were eating jellybeans.

Stewart and the others arrived, and we got back on the bus and did a little touring.  We drove past Trump Turnberry Golf Course and gave it a universal Boo! And then we drove on something called the Electric Brae (known locally as “Croy Bray”), a stretch of road that appears to be going uphill, but is actually going downhill. (A “brae” is a slope, declivity, or hillside, according to the dictionary.) Stewart got out some water and demonstrated:  he poured the water on the ground, and it looked as if it were traveling upwards on the ground, instead of downwards. I took a picture of the sign, but for ease of reading, this is what it says (punctuation mine):

“This runs the quarter mile from the bend overlooking Croy Railway Viaduct.  In the west (286 feet above ordinance datum) to the wooded Craigencroy Glen (303 feet AOD) to the east whilst there is this slope of 1 in 86 upwards from the bend to the glen, the configuration of the land on either side of the road provides an optical illusion making it look as if the slope is going the other way.  Therefore, a stationary car on the road with the brakes off will appear to move slowly uphill.  The term “Electric” dates from a time when it was incorrectly thought to be a phenomenon caused by electric or magnetic attraction within the brae.”

 

Dunure Castle

Then we made our way into the town of Dunure (which sort of rhymes with—ahem—manure), to poke around the ruins of Dunure Castle, which dates from the 13th century.  There’s not much left—a keep, some outer walls, and a beehive shaped dovecote (or “doocot”) which appears well-liked by pigeons and gulls.  I climbed the stairs to the top to look out on the sea, and passed a fenced-off part of the castle, where an empty whisky bottle lay in the dirt and rocks.

Burns Cottage with vegetable garden

Afterwards, we were off to auld Rabbie Burns’ cottage and museum. We passed by Brig o’ Doon (the bridge over the river Doon), making me think of Brigadoon, the 1954 movie with Gene Kelly and Van Johnson). We listened to “Tam o’ Shanter” on the way—I think I understood maybe 20% of what was said!  The cottage was a long, cream-colored building with a thatched roof.  It was quite dark inside, but all around the walls were words that Burns had used (or made up?) in his poetry.  One wall reads, “This cultivated the latent seeds of Poesy” from a letter (I presume) from Burns to Dr. John Moore, in 1787. Part of the cottage would have housed smallish animals—goats and chickens, maybe sheep—part was an area for a butter churn and other household tasks.  There was also a kitchen with a tiny baby bed constructed into a wall.  I wasn’t sure where the adults slept.

On the Poet’s Path, a bronze mouse

The Robert Burns’ Birthplace Museum was a twelve-ish-minute walk away on the “Poet’s Path,” so after looking at everything in the cottage, I headed there. A few statues stood along the way, representing images from his poems, including a large mouse from “To a Mouse,” and a bench with “The Twa Dogs” (Caesar and Luath).  The museum, when I got there, was also decorated on the outside with Scottish language words that Burns had used.  Inside, again, the room was dark, to preserve the pages of books, ephemera, and portraits of Burns and his family.  To my mind, the room was too dark, so that you had to struggle to read the information cards on the wall, but it was kind of nice to see how appreciated Burns is, not just in Scotland but internationally (on display were copies of his work in Polish and Russian and maybe Chinese).  It does my poet-heart good to see another poet so beloved… even if that other poet writes in an almost unintelligible language (to English ears, anyway).

When I was finished with the museum I stopped in the giftshop and bought a couple of things, including a copy of “Tam o’Shanter,” thinking if I could see the words I could maybe figure out what is being said, a dictionary of Scottish words, and (of course) a museum guidebook.  Then I went to the café and drank a mint lemonade and ate a raisin shortbread (very tough).  And by then the museum was closing, and it was time to ride back to Glasgow.

Stewart very kindly dropped me off at the Queen Street station, and I promised that I would see him again next year (assuming I go back to Scotland to teach).  Then I caught my train and headed back to Edinburgh.  A delightful tour overall.

More photos

A graceful lady, Susanna, Countess of Eglington in the Culzean Castle Round Drawing Room

Twa Dogs 1–Caesar

Twa Dogs 2–Luath

The Meeting of Burns and Captain francis Gros, by Robert Scott Lauder (1789)

Twa Dogs bench

Culzean Castle Entrance and Armory

Painting of Culzean Castle, but no identification card

Scottish words in the Burns cottage

The Birth of Burns, by James Fillans (1836)

The Haggis Feast, by Alexander Fraser (ca. 1840)

Dunure castle from the inside, looking down on the kitchen?

Dunure Castle

Dunure Castle, closer up

Dunure Castle and walls

Culzean Castle up-close

The Electric Brae explanation stone

Culzean Castle LIbrary/reading room

Culzean Castle dressing room

Culzean Castle parlor

Culzean Castle pipe organ?

Culzean Castle Long Drawing room

Culzean Castle nursery

Culzean Castle kitchen

A Canaletto of Venice (I think) in the Blue Drawing Room

A purple flower in the garden at Culzean Castle

Culzean Castle grounds

Culzean Castle chandelier in the round drawing room

Culzean Castle walls

Culzean Castle day room

Culzean Castle grounds–I can’t remember if this is the gardener’s shed or the smoke house. It sort of seems like it would be a smoke house.

Culzean Castle State Bedroom

Culzean Castle State Bedroom fireplace

Robert Burns’ cottage kitchen

Robert Burns cottage dining room

Auld Rabbie Burns statue

Robert Burns’ cottage wall

Robert Burns cottage household activities room

Entrance to all grounds of Culzean Castle

The Ruined Arch to the viaduct to Culzean Castle

Ayreshire Coast/ Irish Sea

The Christening dresses of the Burns’ family in the “bedroom”

Outside of the Burns cottage

Some bawdy fun advice for men

The Isles of Mull, Iona, and Staffa

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A long day lay ahead of me on the weekend I decided to go see the Islands of Mull and Iona.  For one thing, the tour left from Glasgow, so I had to take an impossibly early train, which meant I’d have to leave even earlier to walk the mile to the train station.  And when I got there, the ticket machine couldn’t locate my e-ticket, and the ticket counter was dark and closed.  So I wound up having to pay for another ticket, which really ticked me off.  But in for a penny, in for a pound (£27 to be exact).  I needed to make the 6:07 train so that I could get into Glasgow on time; the bus was leaving at 8:30.  Despite the drama with the tickets, the train ride itself was uneventful, and I arrived in Glasgow at 7:30.  I walked (in the rain) to Buchanan Bus Station, and waited for my tour bus to arrive.

When the bus showed up, and I saw the driver was Stewart, I was delighted.  Stewart, you may recall, was the driver for my Speyside Whisky tour I took last year, the one where there were only 5 of us on the tour.  There were a few more people on this tour (ten), but Stewart remembered me and seemed as happy to see me as I was to see him.  I was suitably complimentary about his tour guiding to the other people on the bus, and I think that eased everyone’s anxiety.  We knew we were in for a good time.

Loch Lomond in the rain

Because the Hebrides are islands off the coast of the Highlands, the first day of driving was mostly stopping to visit Highlands-related sights.  But I did like the way Glasgow looked as we drove through it (industrial, shiny, and large) to get to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, our first (rainy) stop.  It was really just a bathroom/coffee break, but Loch Lomond gleamed in the rain.  I sheltered under a ledge at the coffee shop, and discovered a nest of five baby birds, maybe magpies, though I’m no birder.  They seemed hungry, and a parental bird flew to the eaves on the other side of the coffee shop, but these little babies were left alone, tweeting their displeasure.

Birbs!!!

Stewart and I chatted about whiskies and places I’d visited since I’d gotten back to Scotland while we waited for the other passengers to get their caffeine. He was interested to hear when I had arrived, and whether I was teaching Scottish literature again (which I am).  And he asked if I’d be coming back next year.  “I hope so,” I told him, imagining for a moment the Scottish books I would teach.  But then the moment was over, and we all hustled back on the bus.

We stopped a number of places, including Glencoe and the Three Sisters, which never get old to me.  Especially in the rain, the Highlands reek of Scotlandness.  Glencoe was suitably misty and broody, and The Three Sisters disappeared into the low-hanging clouds. I felt that wild call again, that primal spirit of place that Scotland holds for me, though I don’t know why.  If any place (besides Louisiana or Venice) should capture me, you’d think it would be Ireland—being as I’m Irish, and yet, I don’t have a compelling desire to go there again.  (I mean, I wouldn’t say no, if someone invited me to go with them—I’m not a lunatic!) Maybe the difference depends on my staying in Scotland as long as I have been—my affinity for the place has grown.

Achnambeithach

At the bottom of the glen, we stopped in Achnambeithach, a National Trust for Scotland heritage place.  It’s really just a white cottage at the base of the ben (that’s Scottish for mountain!), and I’m not sure why it’s a heritage spot, but the views are spectacular. Now that I think about it, maybe it’s not the cottage that’s the historical site, maybe it’s the bridge…hmm.  Anyway, you can look back up into the whole glen and be inundated with beauty.  The rain had let up a little bit, and blue sky peeped through some of the heavy clouds, making the dull, rain-soaked green of the mountains flash veridian. The light gleamed off the loch, and the stream that fed it bubbled.

Returning to the road, we ate lunch at the Glencoe Visitor Center (I tried cock-a-lackie soup, which was not my favorite, not the least of which because it was a chicken soup, and I don’t eat chicken), then drove through more mountains until we got to our first ferry stop of the trip, the Lochaline Ferry Terminal which would bring us to Mull. The trip over the Sound of Mull to Fishnish took maybe 20 minutes, and Stewart encouraged us to get out of the bus if we wanted to, although it was raining and between rain and sea spray, I’d just as soon stay inside, cozy and dry.  But others got out and apparently gawped at the many jellyfish in the water, which they were only too excited to talk about.  For myself, I was eager to be going to an island less touristy than Skye had been two weeks before, and couldn’t wait to see what Mull would offer.

Seals that look like rocks to me

And Mull delivered!  First, we saw some seals—I’d say they were sunning themselves, but actually there was no sun to be found, so they were merely lazing on a little islet.  We stopped to take pictures, but the distance made the seals somewhat indistinguishable from the rocks.  We stopped again at the site of three old wrecks, apparently hired by some wealthy gent in the early 1900s to sail around the world but they never left Mull, just sat there in the water and decayed for 100 years. We stopped to look at some Heilan coos, and a scenic overlook at Lochan na Guailne Duibhe. Then we drove up to Tobermory, where we would all be staying for the night.

 

Tobermory

The wrecks

Tobermory is a lovely fishing village, where fresh fish is on the menu at all the local restaurants.  The buildings are each painted different colors, like Portree on Skye, and I was staying at the very end of the harbor, in a little red cottage apartment that was ghastly expensive. (Because Rabbies claimed they couldn’t find me a place to stay—even though I booked the tour two months in advance—I had to find my own accommodation, and this was what was available.)  It was clean, with a comfortable bed and wonderful black-out curtains.  The downside of Otter Apartment (besides the fee) was the doorlock situation—which is to say, I couldn’t figure out how to lock the door when I left the building.  But fortunately, no one felt inclined to enter the apartment while I was out.

I would have liked to have eaten at the Mishnish Restaurant (the yellow building in the photo above), first opened in 1869 and a Mull institution, but silly me, I hadn’t made reservations.  (I am not used to making reservations at restaurants, but that seems to be a thing you do here in Scotland.)  So after being turned away by a concierge with a pitying look, I got a few items at the local Co-op grocery instead, and made a passable dinner of mint-yogurt potato salad, Doritos, and a Coke Zero.  Then I crawled into bed, read a little, and went to sleep.

Old stone bridge

Stewart picked me up a little before 9 the next morning, the last person on the bus before another day of touring.  We drove along the single-lane roads of Mull, thousands of foxglove plants purpling the hillsides—so lovely, and so deadly, making a photo stop at an old stone bridge dating from the 1800s. All the burns and waterfalls collected in a river that ran beneath the bridge.  When we arrived in Fionnphort we took another Ferry to the Isle of Iona, but this time Stewart stayed behind with the bus, because only inhabitants of Iona can have vehicles on the island.

A nunnery window

Nunnery walls

I ate lunch at the Argyll Hotel, whose dining room was decorated in pleasant seascape blue and gray—another nondescript cheese and chutney sandwich and a bowl of soup.  But because I ate lunch instead of hot-footing it over to Iona Abbey (a poor choice, considering the quality of lunch), I didn’t get a chance to look at it, and I’m sorry about that, because it appeared lovely from the ferry, and it is a Christian pilgrimage site. Iona is where St. Columba established a monastery in the 6th Century, when he came over from Ireland, and it’s the place from where Christianity spread in Scotland. Since I missed the Abbey, I went to the ruins of the Nunnery, took photos, and then called Mom to catch up with her.  (She was fine.)

The big activity for the day was taking another ferry to the Isle of Staffa—really just a boatride in an old, dusty tub that took an hour.  The Atlantic swells impressed me, tall as they were, but I was seated inside, so I didn’t feel them as much as others who were sitting at the back of the boat did.  One guy mentioned to me that he loved the rolling so much, and the next time I looked at him, he was fast asleep. The ride was loud—the engines booming—but we saw some seals before we arrived at the Isle of Staffa, and it was beautiful.

Cliffside, Isle of Staffa

The rocks form natural steps (not that you’d take these steps, because you’d take your life into your hands) and long columns, almost as if someone chiseled the side of the island to look this way. The island name of Staffa is from the Norse meaning “pillar” which makes sense. What I didn’t know was that in order to see the puffins, which apparently settle here in the summer, I’d have to climb up this itty bitty, windy but very scary tall stairway to get to the top of the island, and all I could think was I’d get halfway up there and have a panic attack because I do not do heights well at all.  So I stayed at the little boat launch and read or watched the tidal pools.  The air was seafresh and salty and I saw some jellyfish congregating in the tidal pools.  The wind was terrific, though (another reason I was scared to scale the wall), and so I pulled up my raincoat around me to keep the wind at bay.  The other option was to go to Fingal’s Cave (which everyone said was amazing) but that also required walking on a very narrow step path right above the water, and I just imagined I would slip.  (I had on my sneakers, but honestly, I am just clumsy, and I didn’t want to risk a fall.)

Fingal’s Cave

Our boat arrived after another hour, and I climbed onto a seat toward the back this time, where the Atlantic swells were huge. The ship bounced so much that sometimes it felt like I were on a rollercoaster, and the other passengers “whoooed” with every swell. But it was fun, and I saw several puffins flying in the air, so I didn’t feel too deprived about missing them on Staffa.  They flew so quickly they just looked like stripes of orange and black.

By then it was late in the day, when we got back to Mull, and we drove up to Tobermory, but not until after we’d stopped again at the stone bridge, where a herd of Heilan coos were congregating in and by the river.  With the sunlight hitting the water just so, the cows looked as if they had been painted there.  But the smell was realistic enough: the path that took us to the cows was awash in cow paddies, so I was extremely careful where I stepped.

The nice weather of the day gave way to more rain, so when I got back to my apartment, I zipped out to a food truck for fish and chips, and slinked back, a little damper, with dinner.

The last day of the trip began early enough, and we had to make our way to yet another ferry, this one from Craignure to Oban, another rainy passage.  Because the ferry had been overbooked the day before and was still backed up, Stewart couldn’t get our bus on the 11:00 ferry—he was shunted to th 2:00—but we went as passengers of the ferry.  It was a huge ship, ginormous.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a ship that big, with multiple decks, several coffee shops and a diner.  I thought about getting something from the diner, but I didn’t really see anything I wanted (and I did not fancy another drab cheese and chutney sandwich), so I wandered the decks and got an iced latte in one of the coffee shops in the stern of the ship.  Let’s be honest, this latte was basically a large glass of milk and a shot of espresso.  And it was delicious.  That’s the kind of latte I like—mostly milk!  Once I added sugar to it, I was hard-pressed not to suck it down in two sips. (I’m mostly kidding.) After I’d finished, I decided to head out on deck (even though it was raining) and watch the water.  I had hoped to see whales or dolphins, but I suspect they didn’t want to come out in the rain 😊.  I enjoyed the air, wet as it was, and stayed outside till I grew cold.

Oban, with McCaig’s Tower (the Colosseum-looking structure) in the background

Oban, where we docked, was great.  Yeah, it was raining like hell, but I really enjoyed what I saw of it.  I walked the high street for quite a distance, and stopped into Oban distillery to see if I could take a distillery tour but the answer was no. (They only take 16 on a tour, and I was #17.) I ate at Nories Fish and Chips for lunch (established in the 1960s), and then wandered down toward the water where I found the Oban Chocolate Company.  Its reasonable prices encouraged me to buy a small bag of truffles, and a bag of white and milk chocolate cats.  I wandered some more and watched the harbor for a bit (hoping for dolphins, but alas), and got some icecream, then made my way to the other side of the harbor where I knew Stewart would pick us up.  There was still an hour to go, but the rain was relentless, so I holed up in Costa Coffee, and waited out the rain.

When Stewart arrived, I said, “I went to Oban distillery, but they wouldn’t let me on the tour.”

Stewart said, “That’s no’ right. D’you go to the tastin’ bar and have a flight?”

“I would have,” I said, “if I’d known about it.”

He shook his head, as disappointed as I was.

(I’ve yet to try a dram of Oban whisky, but then I haven’t really stopped in any bars.)

Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe

Pretty much after that, all that was left of my Mull and Iona tour was a stop at Inveraray (where I called Mom again), a stop at Kilchurn Castle ruins, and then the ride back into Glasgow, although we made a picture stop in Glen Croe, near Loch Lomond.  At the base of the glen is an old military road, but we were on the “new” road at the side of the bens, where large metal nets ridge the mountains to catch boulders and falling objects.

As I was getting off the bus, Stewart told me that he hoped he’d see me next year, with my husband, on the Islay whisky tour, and I hope I can arrange that, because Stewart is a great tour guide, and even though I don’t like peated whiskies (which Islay is famous for), I’d be thrilled to get reintroduced to them with Stewart’s guidance.  I’ll have to see if I can contact Rabbies next year to find out when he leads the tour, assuming that a) I teach in Scotland again, and b) I can arrange it. Even if I don’t think I’d enjoy the whisky, I’d enjoy seeing Stewart again.  And if C could come with me, that would be even better. (Get your passport, C!!!)

More photos:

View from Nories Fish and Chips

Loch Fyne in Inveraray

Loch Fyne

Loch Fyne

The Vital Spark in Loch Fyne, Inveraray–I love the composition on this one.

Kilchurn Castle with lowhanging clouds

Sheep on Loch Awe

Loch Awe

A hotel on Loch Awe, to the left of the Kilchurn Castle ruins as you look at them

This looks like I took the picture in grayscale, but really, it was just how dark and dreich the day was.

Oban

The Inveraray Inn (could you guess?)

Oban

Oban

Oban

Oban

Oban

My fish & chips at Nories

Oban

Oban

The ferry to Oban

Me getting very wet on the ferry to Oban

A lighthouse on the ferry to Oban

Isle of Mull, when the sun came out for a bit

Funny clouds in Mull

Mull

View from the Stone bridge on Mull

View from the Stone Bridge

Heilan coos

View of the Stone bridge from cow-distance

A sudden squall over Mull

Heilan coos in the river

Coos!

Coo

Coos

The beach near the Lochline ferry stop

The beach near the Lochline ferry stop

Isle of Staffa

Staffa

This flight of stairs doesn’t look that tall, but the picture is deceptive.

Tidal pool at Staffa

Ospreys (?) on Staffa

A better glimpse of the staircase on Staffa

I have no idea where I took this. It’s pretty though, innit?

Tobermory

A little cottage by the ferry

Glencoe

The wrecks

Tobermory–my Dad said he was going to try to paint this in watercolors

Tobermory

Tobermory

Fife and St. Andrews

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Fishing village in Fife

The trip up the northeast coast of Scotland was a new experience for me.  I’ve seen the west and the Highlands quite a bit, but the east hasn’t been on my itinerary.  That is, until I took a tour into the fishing village at Anstruther Harbour and then walked around the ruins of St. Andrews.

 

The sea wall

The fishing village was lovely, although I didn’t get a chance to wander it much because I wanted to walk the sea wall.  It reminded me so much of the way sea walls have figured in British television shows (like my favorite Vera) or any of a few Austen adaptations—their timelessness appeals me, as if I could be walking through the centuries as I walk the wall, the coast and waters unchanged.

The lighthouse at Anstruther Harbour

As I made my way back from the point across from the lighthouse, I passed a man with a very squat bulldog who tramped through a large puddle in the cobblestones and I laughed because the dog seemed so surprised and happy by the happenstance.  I said to the man, “A fine braw dog you have there!”

He said, “That’s no’ a Sco’ish accent. Where are yeh from?”

“Well, my family home is in Louisiana,” I answered, figuring to tell him I live in Atlanta would sound needlessly generic and uninteresting.

“Louisiana!  The States!” He claps his hands in delight, and the bulldog barks. “ I’ve no’ been there, but I hear Louisiana’s quite bonny.”

“Oh, yes,” I enthuse, “very bonny.”

“I shuid like to go there some day.”

“You would love New Orleans,” I told him, because that’s the only city anyone cares about in Louisiana. (Or possibly, the only city that anybody knows about.) “Everyone does.”

“Well, guid day to you, lass.”

“And you.”

He walked in the opposite direction with his dog, and I headed back to the village, stopping once in a while to see if I can see any fish in the harbor, the water being a beautiful clear emerald color even at the mouth of the harbor that leads out into the sea.  (Spoiler alert:  I saw no fish.)

St. Andrews and St. Rule Tower

Back on the bus, we drove a while longer to the town of St. Andrews which was celebrating graduation day.  Everyone was wearing regalia (if they were graduates) or big smiles (if they were parents).  The professors were wearing regalia too, which reminded me a little of my own Ph.D. regalia, mouldering in my chest of drawers back home (in Shreveport).  I never got to wear it because when I graduated with my Ph.D., I blew off graduation and hooding so that Kirsten and I could go to the British Virgin Islands because she had won a trip there on the radio. A fair trade, I have to be honest.  But I digress.

I wanted to go somewhere good to eat for lunch, having mostly eaten banal sandwiches in all the places I’ve visited, but with so many graduates and their families around, it was hard to find a place that wasn’t jam-packed.  Close to the ruins, though, there was a little café that I stopped in—I got the only table available.  My cheese and chutney sandwich was pretty nondescript, but the butternut squash soup was more or less tasty, though it clearly had too much chicken bullion in it. I also drank a bottle of fizzy, and enjoyed a “lemon ice tea” which I think was from a mix.  So when I say I enjoyed it, I mean quite the opposite.  It was weird-tasting.

After lunch, I continued my walk to St. Andrews Cathedral which, like so many of the medieval buildings in Scotland, is undergoing perpetual construction, so parts were walled off.  What a grand cathedral it must have been in the 13th and 14th centuries, with its sweeping arches and its many-stoned kirkyard!  The welcome sign says “Join the pilgrimage to the largest and most important church in medieval Scotland,” and this is true, since it was the seat of the medieval Catholic Church.  It fell into disrepair during the Reformation, and was burnt down a couple of times.  What is interesting about this too, is that when parts of the wall fell down, they were used for building purposes elsewhere in Fife.  Unfortunately, the church was abandoned until the 1800s, and by then it was crumbling mess.  But since then, the ruins have been granted protection and are cared for, available for everyone to enjoy (for free!).

After I poked around the ruins for a while (and bought a guidebook, of course—I’ve accumulated quite a number of these National Trust for Scotland books at this point), I found a nice spot to sit with the sea in the background. The sun was beating down, though the sky was blue as topaz.  An elderly couple were sitting on a bench nearby, ruminating on their grandson’s extremely busy graduation itinerary, and complaining it was too hot to walk.  (It was warm, for sure, but a breeze blew.) I thought about going for a walk out to a promontory overlooking the sea, but I couldn’t remember when we were supposed to be back at the bus rendezvous, so I got up and walked back to where I thought I had been dropped off.

But the thing is, I couldn’t remember where that was. This is very unlike me; I usually take careful account of my location especially when the possibility I could be left behind exists.  I thought the rendezvous was by the World Golf Museum (which was situated across from an open public golf course where it only costs £1 (!) to play), but it looked different from what I remembered.  To be honest, I got kind of panicky and worried that I was going to miss the bus, thinking I was in the wrong place altogether, and omg, what would I do if I were left alone in Fife? How would I get back? So I dug out a phone number for the Rabbie’s tour people and called them.  The lady assured me I was waiting in the right place, which took a huge burden off my mind.  And when the bus showed up, I got a chance to chat with the driver and we commiserated over the weather of the previous summer, and exclaimed how un-Scottishly-nice the weather was being for the trip today.

Inner wall of the King’s and Queen’s quarters, Falkland Palace

The last stop of the day was Falkland Palace, which was lovely and inexpensive (only £6 to enter), but unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to  take pictures inside—and there were watching eyes.  Falkland Palace was the “deer cottage,” where James V and his wife Marie de Guise (mother of Mary Queen of Scots) honeymooned during the construction of the palace, and was the place where James and his fellow courtiers would go hunting in the fall, especially once construction was completed.  What I liked about the palace was that it was relatively small, with a few rooms tastefully reproduced as they might have looked in earlier centuries.  What I was less keen on was the circular stairways with small, shallow steps that my foot didn’t even quite fit on.  At the end of the palace walk-through, we ended up in Falkland’s lovely gardens, which were peaceful, floral, and full of bees.  A nice way to end the day.

I liked this trip overall because it was low-key.  Some of the trips I’ve taken have been go-go-go, but this was more leisurely (my panic attack not withstanding), and I enjoyed it.

More photos:

St. Andrews

Anstruther Harbour boats

St. Rule Tower

Fishing village view

Outside St. Andrews’ walls…I really like the composition on this one.

Fishing village at Fife

Falkland Palace outer wall

Arches at St. Andrews

Roses in the garden of Falkland palace

Roman Britain

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Hadrian’s Wall

I decided to take a day trip down to see Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England.  It was strange:  as soon as we crossed over from the Borders, the land grew flatter (but still with periodic hills) and more farmy.  I was going to say “less interesting” but considering I’d never seen England before, that seems a rather ballsy or condescending thing to say.  Everything is interesting once—or it should be, the first time you see it. The emptiness of the land appealed to me.  Aside from the sheep and the occasional stone wall, the north of England is wide and green, but there’s not much in the way of habitation.

Hadrian’s Wall with a Roman lookout on the hill

A constant wind blew, the sun was a little over-warm, and hardly any clouds laced the sky. As I carefully picked my way through the grass and path (to avoid the preponderance of cow patties and pellets of sheep dung), I made my way to the wall and was once again amazed to think that anything from 1900 years ago could still last.  (And yes, I know there are older ruins throughout the world, but I wasn’t focusing on them.)

In my class, we had been reading Kathleen Jamie’s book of essays, Findings, in which she writes, among her discussions of nature and human coexistence, about how what humans make durable now are throw-away items like plastic bottles (she also focuses on a discarded doll head). Plastic doesn’t go away; we invest our durability in garbage, basically.  The wall, on the other hand, was made to outlast invasions and to protect the people, and yet it works with the land in its purpose.

The fact that parts of the wall still exist demonstrates how humans can adapt to the natural world without spoiling it.  Of course, much of the wall is gone—the stones used for other walls or huts or claimed by the earth again—but when you see the wall, you feel connected to the past but also to the land.  The wall moves with the landscape—at least, the remnants do, and its durability is something that at once seems both amazing and invisible.  It’s easy to see the wall as just another stone wall in the fields, used to pen sheep into certain territories; it takes on significance when you know what it is, and know its history.

Afterwards, not far away, we visited Vindolanda, the remnants of a Roman fort.  The tour guide told us he’s nuts about the fort and the museum where items such as pottery, jewelry, leather shoes, bones, coins, and weapons have been catalogued.  Seeing it from a distance is quite remarkable because it looks almost like a giant stone maze—except the stones are maybe knee-to-waist high—so you could totally find your way out of the maze with no problem. 😊

The mausolea

I wandered a little bit through the stones, and they impressed me because each area had a specific purpose such as the butcher’s shop, the temple to Jupiter, the bath house, and barracks, but I confess I spent the majority of the time there eating lunch, looking at the museum (especially the jewelry—I’m nothing if not predictable), and visiting with other women on the tour as we all journeyed up from a hellacious hill and needed to rest and recoup. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in the stones, it’s that they were kind of just…there.

Rebuilt Hadrian’s fort and wall

What was more intriguing was that restorers had rebuilt a section of Hadrian’s wall and the fort in wood and turf as well as stone.  The guidebook suggests that the Romans made parts of the wall in wood because they were hurriedly trying to keep out marauding tribes.  And so this recreation is kind of an experiment—to see just how long it would survive.  The guidebook also mentions that the turf wall has sunk a bit because of marauders too—this time, rabbits.  Which kind of makes me laugh.

Jedburgh Abbey

The other major site of interest we visited was Jedburgh Abbey (in Scotland), which—of course—was also under reconstruction so you couldn’t wander in it, but as with Melrose Abbey the day before, admission only cost half price.  I liked the Abbey, but there was no wandering around the entire church so you could only see it from the one side.  But I found a quiet garden bench and enjoyed a little snack there in the corner, feeling contemplative and peaceful, and wishing a little bit that a poem would come to me.

Enjoy the photos—although there’s not much to see but broad English vistas.

The Vindolanda cafe

Hadrian’s Wall, kind of overgown

The English sky. These clouds look like flying saucers to me.

Somewhere in the Scottish Borders

Moffett ram statue…it does’t have ears.

Moffett High Street

Roman lookout on some hills. At the bottom you can see a couple of people for scale.

More Scottish Borders

My Vindolanda Lemon Fanta

English Hills above Vindolanda

English Hills behind Vindolanda to the east (?)

Fort Wall at Vindolanda

Fort wall

Rebuilt stone fort for Hadrian’s Wall at Vindolanda

Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian’s Wall with cows

Hadrian’s wall in the right foreground with a Roman lookout on the hills behind

English sheep

Looking at Scotland from England

More Hadrian’s wall

Looking at England from Scotland

English border stone

Scottish border stone

Jedburgh Abbey

Jedburgh Abbey

Jedburgh Abbey garden

Jedburgh Abbey

A Scottish wind farm. Scotland is 100% carbon neutral and produces enough renewable energy that they can power the country three times over.

Rosslyn Chapel & Melrose Abbey

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I don’t remember much about Dan Brown’s potboiler The DaVinci Code, other than it posited that Mary Magdalene absconded to France pregnant with Jesus’s baby, and that was some kind of big reveal.  Not for me, of course, who had been studying women’s spiritual writing, and reading books like Merlin Stone’s When God Was a Woman or Charlene Spretnak’s The Politics of Women’s Spirituality while I was working on my Ph.D. I had also read The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which indicated as much, and I wrote poems about her, including one about her pregnancy.  Just call me a heretic.

Rosslyn Chapel

I also don’t remember how The Rosslyn Chapel fits into Brown’s story, but it does, apparently, and so I took a trip out to see it.  It was an interesting place, because while it was erected in the the 15th century, there was a big gap between when it got a lot of use as the chapel for the Earls of Rosslyn, and when it was closed down for being a house of idolatry, on account of all of the carvings (though from what I can tell, most seemed religious in theme to me).  For two and a half centuries, the chapel sat vacant, windowless, and was basically given over to the damp and plantlife.  Then along comes Queen Victoria, and she falls in love with it.  So begins its restoration.  It gets a new narthex (a shallow foyer) and they install a pipe organ.  It gets cleaned up and looks pretty good for a while, but the damp comes back.  So long about the 1950’s, someone has the “good” idea to cover EVERYTHING in the church with a cement slurry, which paints over the colors and details till everything is a muted gray mush, but stops the damp.  To my mind, the carvings weren’t all that because you couldn’t really see the relief anymore—although there are tons of them. They were probably quite amazing before this “restoration.”

A surreptitious  from-my-purse photo of a boring ceiling in Rosslyn Chapel…the only photo I took of inside 

But I enjoyed the chapel.  I even went down in the crypt where there was a brilliant stained glass window, though not much else.  I would have taken a lot of photos, but there was a sign saying no photography, and me being a (mostly) goody-goody, I complied.  I did take a sneak picture from my purse, which just got a boring part of the ceiling, and I snapped one of the stained glass window because there were only two people down in the crypt with me to object, and they were busy taking their own photos (but it came out kinda bad).  Turns out I was like the only person on the tour who didn’t take lots of pictures.  I feel sheepish.  I should just have taken the pictures of the inside and beg forgiveness if I got caught.  Oh, well.

Walter Scott’s favorite view

This is the first tour I took where we actually went south, to the rolling hills of the Scottish borders.  Earlier in the day, we stopped at a couple of places.  One was a favorite look-out and writing spot for Walter Scott, which overlooked three hills, which at one point had Roman occupation, and they named the hills “Trimontium”—not a particularly originally name for “three mountains.”  The air was fresh, and sweetened with wildflowers.  There were many bees!

William Wallace

Then we drove a little further to see a statue of William Wallace.  Our tour guide was unimpressed with the statue for its many inaccuracies.  For one thing, the statue’s gear is wrong—he wouldn’t have had an oval shield, his sword was too long, his armor on his arms wouldn’t really protect.  For another, and most egregiously, he was wearing his kilt backwards!  The front of a kilt is supposed to be flat; it’s the back that’s pleated (where here you can clearly see pleats in the front). But what I liked about the statue of Wallace was that it faces nothing but a treed valley.  Like, if you didn’t know the statue was there, you’d miss it.  It’s a hidden monument, which you can only get too by taking a walk in the woods (danger! danger!) scented with wild garlic and heavy with cow parsley.  Fortunately, I did not come to any mishap on my walk.  The ground was level.

We stopped in a little hamlet called Melrose for lunch.  I had a cheese and tomato toastie that I bought for breakfast but then didn’t eat, and I found a bench facing the Melrose Abbey so I enjoyed quite the view.  Melrose Abbey is famous for being the site where Robert the Bruce’s heart relics are buried, a heart which he wanted carried to the Holy Land during the Crusades, to expiate the sin of killing another king on sacred church grounds.

After I ate, I went around to the side entrance of the Abbey, paid my entrance fee (which was only half the usual cost since the Abbey is undergoing renovations—everything in Scotland seems to be undergoing renovations!), and wandered the cemetery and took pictures.  I really liked Melrose Abbey because it’s also ruins, and it must look quite wonderful to walk through when the fencing is down.  Apparently, when it was being built, there were masons who decided to make carvings of naked women in lascivious poses which weren’t discovered till much too late, just because the masons could and they weren’t being closely supervised.  I don’t know, I thought that was pretty hilarious, because when this was a whole church, it must have been spectacular and holy.  So a few sexy statues would really amp up the ambiance. 😊

I found a graves stone with the date of 1695 on it, and another of 1810, but most of the stones were lichened over or too weathered to read.  The place was still and peaceful, and the tour guide let us have an hour and twenty minutes for the stop, so I could leisurely gaze at the Abbey and walk around as I pleased.

I was really happy with the tour guide in general.  He regaled us with lots of interesting information, and seemed really happy to be on the tour—like night and day from last weekend.

Oh!  And I forgot to mention that two of the people on the tour—Bob and Linda—were from Marietta!  That’s too crazy!  I would have liked a chance to talk with them more but we all went separate ways at the various stops.  Still, can you believe, running into people living in the same town as you?  It really is a small world sometimes.

Tomorrow I’m off to Hadrian’s Wall, so be sure to tune in for my next post if you’re curious about that.

Enjoy the photos!

The Victorian addition to Rosslyn Chapel

Rosslyn Chapel side wall

A dedication to the Earls and Baronesses of Rosslyn at Rosslyn Chapel

Melrose Abbey

The back left of the abbey. This guy WOULD NOT GO AWAY, so I finally just shot the pic with him in the way.

Melrose Abbey

Close up of the “mouth” (my word) of the abbey.

The mouth of Melrose Abbey, a little further away

The date reads 1695.

The front of Melrose Abbey with a grand (but unglassed) window

More abbey

The first date on here is 1810.

Detail of the grand window

Another view of the mouth of the Abbey

Front view of Melrose Abbey with cemetery in the foreground

I love these three arches.

The gently rolling hills of the Borders

Yet another view of Melrose Abbey

After I toured Rosslyn Chapel, I got this Ginger Beer. You can’t see it, but a dumb bee flew into it and decided it wanted a drink. Then it got stuck in the bottle, so I had to dump it out to free the bee.

Loch Ness & the Highlands, 2.0

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I thought taking a two-day tour to Loch Ness and the Highlands would prove to be twice as good as last week’s one-day tour, but I wasn’t as impressed with the tour this time.  Don’t mistake me, I loved seeing both sights again, but the tour itself was lacking.  For one thing the tour guide had the personality of a flaccid noodle; whereas the other tours I’ve taken the guides have been chock full of stories and history and chatter, this guy was sparing to the point of laconic in his speech.  For another he didn’t seem to have a real itinerary, which offended me.  He kept asking the tour group what we wanted to do.  (I was like, dude, this is your country—you show us what we should see.)

A burn (little creek) in the Three Sisters. That little blue thing at the bottom is a tent!

 

We hardly stopped our drive at all.  We did go to Loch Lubnaig and the Three Sisters in Glen Coe again, but there were other places we might have stopped even for just a few minutes to take pictures. We stopped in Ballachulish at the Clachaig Inn where I made a fine lunch of (vegetarian) haggis, tatties (potatoes), and neeps (turnips), but it was a surprisingly heavy meal that I couldn’t finish.

Urquhart Castle, with Loch Ness in the background

And then we drove to Urquhart Castle, a little south of Inverness.  I know I said, “Once you’ve seen one castle, you’ve seen them all,” and I kind of stand by that statement, but I love ruins, and this castle definitely qualified. There wasn’t much to see since it was half knocked down but ruins speak to me in a way that preserved castle buildings don’t.  And the setting, of course, was lovely, as the castle was on the banks of Loch Ness.

The other people in the tour decided to take a boat ride, but as I took a boat ride on Loch Ness last weekend, I didn’t want to repeat it.  And it was just as well.  It started pouring.  I felt so bad for the rest of them because they got soaked, while I enjoyed some extra time in the gift shop and café, perfectly dry.

“Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries ‘Hold! Enough!'” (Inverness Castle)

 

And then it was on to Inverness.  I didn’t see as much of Inverness as I wanted.  Once I got to my B-and-B, Eskdale Guest House, I was kind of super tired and just kind of conked out in my tiny single bed right next to the radiator.  In the morning, I saw a little bit more of the town, but I didn’t get to visit Inverness Castle.  I thought it was closed, because of the time we got to Inverness the night before (6 p.m.), but actually it’s not open to the public.  I was disappointed because I really wanted to see the castle where I thought MacBeth would have lived (although he was King from 1040-1057, and technically the first castle was put up in 1057, so he didn’t live there after all), but I still wanted to see it.  The current castle was put up in the 19th century, and it’s veneered with lovely red sandstone.  And it’s in great-looking condition, though there was orange plastic fence all around it because they are doing repairs.

Who dis? It me!

The trip home was not exciting.  We made several stops for walks-in-the woods, which, if you know me, wouldn’t be my first choice.  One stop was at Loch an Eilein, in  Rothiemurchus Woods, and this was a pretty little loch.  I took the path beside the loch, but wanted to get a good picture from a different vantage point than the pictures I took initially (which, let’s be honest, were mostly about the ducks), and of course, I stumbled over a root and went down like the proverbial ton of bricks, getting mud all over my jeans, tearing holes in my sneakers, and fouling up my knees and legs and arms something fierce.  It never fails. This is why I don’t go hiking.  (Because the woods always try to kill me.)  And then, to add insult to literal injury, in trying to get back up, I fell again.  I was disgusted and filthy, and was glad to get back on the bus.  Then we stopped at another walk by the Tay River (?) and the river was quite pretty, but I didn’t walk too far because my ankle was throbbing and I knew that I was tempting fate to go into the woods a second time. So I found a picnic bench and watched the water.  We also stopped at the scenic Cava Cairns, big piles of stones used for burial and other religious purposes.  Actually, I kind of dug them.  One of the other people on the tour took my picture at the center of one.

The best part of the trip back was stopping at Dalwhinnie distillery, where I tried a flight of whiskies which were paired with festive chocolate truffles.  I didn’t have my camera on me, or I would have taken a picture of the drinks, but of the three of them, the 15-year, the Winter something brew, and the Distiller’s choice, I was partial to the 15-year.  It was raining and cold then too, so the whisky poured a little fire into our bellies.  Of course, the last thing I needed was three “wee drams” on an empty stomach, but fortunately I wasn’t driving.  Or required to stand upright for any length of time. 😉

A church missing its roof in Dunkeld

Afterwards, we stopped for lunch at Pitlochry and I ate fish and chips at McKay’s Hotel. The haddock was perfectly fried and crispy though it needed salt. I wish we had longer than an hour because Pitlochry’s High Street was full of cute little shops I would have liked to look in.  I might have considered skipping lunch, but the whisky was strong with this one, and I needed to offset the booze.  And then we stopped in one more place (Dunkeld) for another walk, where I saw a lovely church in the process of being restored.

In writing this down, I guess we stopped a quite a few places after all, more than I initally remembered, but because the tour guide didn’t really bother telling us about anything, it seemed like kind of a wasted few days.  I guess I’d have liked fewer walks in the woods, and more actual stops at things to see.  But everyone else seemed to enjoy themselves so perhaps my attitude was crappy.  And maybe I expected too much—but after the last few tours, I guess I was a little bit spoiled.

I still have a few more weekend tours planned, so I’m hoping they will be a little more energizing and interesting than this weekend’s.  But it was good to get back to the Highlands.  I just kept thinking how great it would be to live there part of the year (winter). I could so see myself in a little semi-restored farm house, with a sheep out back and a cat at my feet, where all I would do is drink hot tea, eat fresh scones, and write, write, write my heart out.  Maybe some day.

Hope you enjoy this new batch of pics!

Urquhart Castle

Lunch at Clachaig Inn–tatties, haggis, and neeps covered in a tasty brown gravy

Loch Ness, from Urquhart Castle

Urquhart Castle

Urquhart Castle keep

A view of Loch Ness from Urquhart Castle. In the middle left, you can see signs of tree farming. For every tree cut, Scotland plants 2 more.

A friendly gull

A lovely field at Dunkeld

A train bridge at the Hermitage, near the Tay (?) river

The train bridge from a further vantage point

Loch an Eilein… For this view, I injured myself. You’re welcome.

Mama duck at Loch an Eilein (Rothiemurchus Woods)

As soon as I sat down, these ducks came out of the water to see if I had anything to feed them. Sadly, I did not. (Loch an Eilein)

View from the center of a cairn in Cava Cairns

Ring Cairn, at Cava Cairns

Another view of Urquhart Castle

Another burn in the Highlands

Low hanging clouds in the Highlands (Ballachulish)

Inside of the Clachaig Inn, where I tried veggie haggis

Three Sisters (well, two of them, at any rate)

Another two of Three Sisters

Glen Coe, looking north

A sunny day at Loch Lubnaig

Glen Coe Mountain (from the back)

Glen Coe Mountain, with even more clouds

A view of Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street on the ride out of town

Weekend Sightseeing (Is Exhausting)

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Portobello Beach

This weekend was a busy one for me—I packed a lot of living into two days.  On Saturday, I took a bus out to the seaside, specifically the Portobello Beach Promenade.  It was cold and blustery, but there were plenty of people (and dogs!) playing in the sand and several people had their feet in the water.  There was even a couple of lunatics up to their waists in the North Sea.  The temperature wasn’t quite 60, so I can only imagine how cold the water was.  They didn’t stay in the sea long.  (Not surprising).

The truest ambrosia

While I was there, I stopped at the Shrimpwreck for lunch, and tried a fish finger sandwich, made of battered fish, French fries (on the sandwich!), tartar sauce, and mushy peas (also on the sandwich!).  It was good.  And those of you who know me IRL will understand how thrilled I was to drink a Lemon Fanta, the drink I fell in love with when I went to Italy several years ago (and one that is not available Stateside).  It was a perfect lunch, accompanied by entertainment: the Portobello volunteer clean-up crew dancing to the B-52’s “Rock Lobster.”  One of them wore a crawfish “fancy dress” costume, with a placard that read “No Fear! Be queer!” on the back.  Another one of them wore striped pants, and had a red-painted face and dreadlocks.  Not exactly the colorful characters of a Venice Beach scene, but they definitely had a boardwalk vibe going on.

Altar at St. Mary’s Cathedral

Afterwards, I came back to the apartment for a few hours and rested.  (I don’t know about you, but every time I go to the beach—in any capacity—I get tired.  I wonder if it has something to do with the sea air.)  Then I took another bus ride to the vigil Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral (since I knew I would be out all day Sunday, and I didn’t want to miss church). It is lovely inside, but not what I think of when I think of a cathedral—it was certainly more elaborately decorated than St. Columba’s from last week, but it isn’t stately in the way cathedrals usually are.  It’s like, if a typical cathedral is a thoroughbred, then St. Mary’s is a workhorse.  It gets the job done, but isn’t magnificent to look at.  It’s just a nice, big church.

The Kelpies, by artist Andy Scott

Sunday I walked down to Waterloo Place (just over the bridge from the Royal Mile) to take a sightseeing tour outside of the city.  The first—and best—thing we saw was The Kelpies monument, outside of Falkirk.  You can’t imagine the scale of these horse heads—they are massive, about 100 feet high, and made from steel.  I would have liked to have longer than 25 minutes to visit them, though, because that was hardly enough time to go to the bathroom, see The Kelpies and then duck into the gift shop.  I loved them at first sight.  Of course, folktale kelpies are horrible creatures who lure unsuspecting people to get on their backs and ride them into the ocean where the horses drown them and feast on their bones.  But these kelpies were certainly wonderful to look at.

Loch Lomond marina

The next thing we did was visit Loch Lomond, of the eponymous famous folksong, and the surrounding farmland was green and lush and dotted with white sheep like confetti.  I could have wished that the tour drove around the perimeter of Loch Lomond, but we were confined to a little bit of shore where the boats were tied up.  There was a path around the marina, which I walked some. Mostly I watched the ducks who were sunning themselves on the banks.  The loch was as picturesque as you can imagine—the beginnings of the Highlands in the background, the sun glinting off the water in golden waves, the boats floating gently around their anchors.  And the air was so fresh!

A mama sheep. Very ewe-nique.

Our next stop was for lunch in a little hamlet called Aberfoyle. At the café I ordered a cheese toastie (kind of like a grilled cheese but not exactly) and a bowl of carrot and lentil soup, heavy on the carrots. I chose to sit outside and people watch, although the people weren’t all that interesting. Their dogs were, though.

There was a sweet shop next door, and I bought a package of homemade butter shortbread that literally, deliciously disintegrated on your tongue.  And then I headed over to the big wool shop, and figured there would be too many things I’d want to buy inside (like yarn, which I have no room in my suitcase to take home), so I skipped it, and went around back where they kept some sheep. Their pens stank (as you might expect), but the sheep themselves looked so cute.  They got into a bleating contest—it reminded me of a sheep opera (because you know, that’s a thing) (it’s not really) (but it should be), as they each tried to outdo the other in their “singing.”  I really wanted to put my hand out to pet them—which we were allowed to do—but the caveat that “These animals bite” kept my hands firmly on my side of the fence.

Stirling Castle

The awful Stirling Heads

Stirling Head art close up (yuck)

After lunch we headed to Stirling to visit Stirling Castle, the birthplace and home of King James VI.  I didn’t actually get to see the palace itself—I couldn’t figure out where it was—but I walked around the castle battlements, the dungeon, the chapel, the Great Hall, and the hall of the Stirling Heads, which are these large, wooden, medallion bust images of various people James wanted to commemorate.  And they were just horrible, creepy, weird pieces of décor, probably about 2-2.5 feet in diameter, and several inches thick. I know they served a purpose, but I really couldn’t get over how ugly they were.  I am probably revealing myself to be a philistine, but they were nothing like I was expecting. (They had really been talked up by a tour guide.) In my head I was imagining something magnificent; the reality was quite something else. But the castle itself was impressive with amazing views of the countryside from its sheer drops.  What was coolest about the castle was that Mary Queen of Scots was crowned there.  And, I think no matter who you are, Mary’s tragic life resonates.  At least, I always found her life story to be compelling, if sad. (I might actually have read her biography at some point, because I seem to remember a whole lot about her.)  Still, I didn’t need two hours at the castle, and wandered back to the garden to wait until it was time to get back on the bus and return to Edinburgh.

Castle gardens

I finally got home around 7 and I was exhausted.  The tour was longer than I was expecting.  I thought we’d be back by 5, but it was closer to 6:30; I should have taken a little nap on the bus (I usually take naps on Sunday), but I didn’t want to miss seeing any of the countryside. Just in case there was something amazing.  (I did get to see a glimpse of The Kelpies on the way back, so I count that as a win.)

I enjoyed the tour over all, but I was the only single traveler.  Everyone else had family or friends to visit things with, so I was kind of lonely.

Actually, if I were to complain about visiting Edinburgh at all, it would be because of how lonely I am.  Maybe I should pretend I am Mary Queen of Scotts in her prison cell; perhaps that would make the loneliness a little more bearable.  But even Mary had her little terrier dog for company.  I have no one.  (Weep, weep, sob, sob.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed all the pictures.

A view from Stirling Castle

Another view from the Castle

My First Week in Edinburgh

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I was reminded yesterday that when you’re in a new country, everything is interesting. Based on my experiences so far, I don’t know about that.  For me, I have mainly spent the first week in Edinburgh adjusting to the crazy amounts of daylight (4:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.) and the daily wind and rain.  (I’m so happy I brought a lined raincoat, and I Amazoned a new umbrella since I forgot to bring one.)  I have spent a good amount of time locked up in my flat, preparing for my class, but I’ve also taken some long walks, trying to get the lay of the land.  And I have drunk a metric butt ton of Scottish Breakfast Tea.  Which is like English Breakfast Tea, only it uses a really complicated dialect. 😊

Friday, I did a cursory visit to the National Museum of Scotland, which is a fantastic natural history museum with a huge atrium and tons of natural light.  I will go back and do a “deeper dive” in the exhibits, but I mainly looked at the science/technology hall, the hall of design, and the world cultures hall.  I visited the museum with the coordinator of the Scotland Study Abroad program, and we didn’t have a lot of time there because he also wanted to go to Clarinda’s Tea Room, on the Royal Mile, which was fussy and frilly (in the best way) and full of tea-related décor.  I had a scone with butter and preserves.  I was expecting more of a biscuit, but this scone was sweeter than that, but very crumbly.  Afterwards, we walked back past some bagpipers and drummers and Richard went his way, and I went mine…right into a freak storm.  Imagine a day where it’s bright and windy and gorgeous.  And then come the clouds like a galloping herd of gazelles.  That storm soaked me to the core, and of course I wasn’t wearing my raincoat.

In the rain, a man with a large backpack bumped into me (don’t worry, he wasn’t a pickpocket), and then as I passed the Museum again, he put his hand out for me to shake it and asked who I was.  I was so shocked, I told him.  He said his name was Sam and he was looking for a Tesco (a grocery store).  There was one right around the corner, and I thought he was going to go toward it but he went the opposite way.  It was a little strange.

Saturday, I tried doing laundry and found the washer to be beyond my intellect level.  Then I went for a walk in Holyrood Park.  There’s an entrance close bywhere I’m staying, so I walked over to it, and it turned out the entrance was a steep set of stairs down to the street (Queen’s Drive), and about 10 steps down it, I said to myself, “Self, if you go down these stairs you’ll have to come back up,” and while I was debating this shaggy sheep dog came out of nowhere.  He looked pretty good so I wasn’t worried he was lost, and then as if from mist, his owner appeared.

“Rolo,” he said, “quit botherin’ th’ lass.”

“Oh, he’s not bothering me,” I said, putting my hand out to pet Rolo.

“In tha’ case, quit botherin’ me dog.”

With that, the man and Rolo passed me going down the stairs, and after being flummoxed for a little bit at the surprising turn of events, I followed at a discreet distance.  I walked up the hill a ways (not the big hill, the one that puts you on top of Arthur’s Seat), and then down a grassy knoll.  I tried taking some selfies, but it was so windy my face was all scrunched up and my hair had its own postal code.  I sat on a convenient rock until I was ready to face the 400 steps back up to the park entrance.  I’ll have you know I died about 6 times on the hike back up the stairs.

Yesterday, I spent the day reading for class, but all day I wanted to go to church.  I just couldn’t get motivated for the 9:30 Mass.  Fortunately, St. Columba’s church had a service at 6:30, so I walked south till I got there.  It was definitely a no-frills service… no music and a homily that contrasted our relationship with God and the Trinity to this kid at his grammar school selling stick insects (don’t ask). It was a tenuous connection at best.  I was glad I went—it let me see a different part of town.  Next week I think I’ll try St. Patrick’s.

So, that kind of catches you up on my visit so far.  Not overly exciting, but I’ll have more exciting plans in my future I’m sure.