Stirling castle
Typical Scottish village
Just wanted to write in a little more
detail of our trip so far to Scotland – and my thoughts about it
here.
I haven't been able to write much
because much of the time, the internet is sketchy or non-existent, or
I simply don't have time. We've been so busy going from here to
there – and since I'm the one who planned everything, it's up to me
to know the schedule, the directions to where we are going and what's
on for the next day. It can be a bit overwhelming.
We've had great weather – well, great
for Scotland. We haven't seen much sunshine; it's been cloudy every
day, but there has been very little time in the rain. The
temperatures have been cool; I wear practically everything I
brought.....but that's okay as I'll be shedding most after we hit
Italy.
We flew into Glasgow, tired, after
having been flying all night long and arriving early in the morning
Scotland time. Took a bus to the train station and then a train to
Edinburgh, then a cab to the B&B. We rested up by the next day
and took the bus into town to tour the Edinburgh castle. Wow! The
buildings were all SO beautiful – stone, stone, stone and ornate.
I was amazed at the condition of the buildings and how clean the city
was. The castle was the first I've ever toured and we toured many
areas in it; saw lots of historical displays of weapons and grand
views of the city. We walked the Royal Mile. The next day, we
headed to Stirling by train – but ended up on the wrong train. We
didn't find out until the conductor came thru to collect our tickets.
The train we were supposed to board was on the same track but ahead
of the train we boarded and wasn't well marked – so we made a
mistake. We ended up getting off at one of the next stops and taking
a cab all the way to Stirling. I-yi-yi.
We picked up our rental car and Bob had
an interesting time learning to drive on the opposite side of the
road, plus dealing with a stickshift. He picked it up pretty fast,
tho the traffic circles (of which there are many) make driving a bit
tricky still.
After eating – we headed to Stirling
Castle and toured it. The best part was getting a guided tour from
this very thin Scottish man with a long nose, grey hair tied up in a
ponytail sporting a thick Scottish accent. He was funny and concise
and gave a great synopsis of the history of Scotland and this castle.
From there was stayed at this B&B out in the country – much
farther out of Stirling than I had thought, but the drive was
beautiful, out in the countryside with cows and sheep on the
hillsides.
We decided to head back into Stirling
the next morning to finish up the things we had planned to do the
previous day – going to the William Wallace monument and to the
Bannockburn battlefield. Both were wonderful to see and unique. At
Bannockburn, we got involved in this 3D battlefield game, where Bob
was Robert the Bruce and had to strategically plan the battle; I was
an officer on the English side and could place my archers in certain
places, etc. It was pretty unique. We left there and drove 3 hrs up
to Inverness, seeing more of the Scottish countryside. Our B&B
there was right on the River Ness across the bridge from the center
of town – so that made it easy to get around and find restaurants
and walk the town. The following day, we all needed a day of rest –
and basically just took walks around town and along the river; I went
into various old churches and buildings, and we ate at a good Italian
restaurant of all places! Sidenote: We've all had a sample of
the “Scottish Breakfast”, which consists of eggs, baked beans,
black pudding, bacon, haggis, and a potato pancake of sorts.
Its....well...interesting to say the least.
Saturday morning was the day we took
off fairly early (9am) for a 2.5hr drive to the Braemar Gathering in
Braemar. The small town is in the middle of a National Park. The
drive was just incredible – through green rolling hills, high
mountains, steep roads, sheep covering the hillsides, small rock
bridges; just amazing territory. We happened to see one of those
Hairy Coos laying down by a fence and we stopped and took some
pictures of him. He got up and looked at me and started scratching
his head on a fence post. Wow – what a big head he had – and
horns out about two to three feet! But cute...
It began to drizzle as we got closer to
the games, but just lightly. Entering the field – it was smaller
than a high school football field with stadium benches practically
all around it – you could see several events going on at the same
time. Things like throwing the caber (a 20' long pole), throwing
weighted stones, throwing the hammer (a 56' weight thrown up over a
high horizontal pole up to 16' off the ground). People would cheer
on the contestants and yell when they either made it or “awwww”
when they didn't. Another event was the sword dance competitions
which young children dressed in traditional Scottish dress would
dance over a sword. Bob's mom said she knew that dance as a young
girl, so it was fun for her to see this. About 15 mins after we
got our seats, it started to rain hard – then POUR. It poured for
what seemed like an hour, then lightened up a bit before coming down
hard again. All the while the games continued. Every half hour, a
bagpipe team would enter the arena and play a song or two – another
competition. It was chilly, but fortunately we had our umbrellas and
wore a decent amount of clothes – so were okay. Around 3pm, the
Queen of England arrived in a car – a couple cars came on the field
and drove right past us. She got out and walked up to a special area
they had for the royalty there. I hadn't realized it until the end,
but Prince Charles was also there. (Saw him in a vehicle when they
left.) The funny thing was, we'd had all this rain and clouds and
drizzle – and the exact moment the Queen arrived, the sun came out
and it was just beautiful and warm for the next hour or so. The
games ended around 4:30 and we walked back to our car – and as we
did, the rain began again and wind started to howl. Perfect timing,
Scotland! Our drive back was also quite beautiful, going back the
same way, but seeing it the opposite direction.
The following day, we checked out of
Inverness and stopped at the Loch Ness exhibit, having driven all
along Loch Ness. Quite a beautiful loch. Didn't see the monster
tho. But the exhibit was informative, showed how people can err in
identifying things, but also left it up to you whether there is some
kind of animal in there still. They sure have spent tons of money
trying to prove it's existence! We then took the Road to the Isles
– one of the famed drives in Scotland. It was just amazing. We
saw mountains and rocks and sheep and clouds with the sun peeking
through – it was gorgeous. We stopped at the Eilean Donan castle
for a tour as well. It used to be a MacKenzie castle back in the
1200s, so that was neat to do. It was one that had a moat and stone
bridge to go across to it. We also drove the main road up through
Portree on the Isle of Skye, staying in Uig for the night.
This morning we drove the Trotternish
Peninsula on the Isle of Skye – a 50 mile or so loop that had –
again – spectacular scenery. You could see islands in the
distance, sharp steep cliffs, and green, green grass – and of
course, SHEEP. We then came back to Uig, boarded a ferry and took it
to the Isle of Lewis, where Bob's mom's grandparents lived and
married. Tonight she met with a distant relative who has lived on
this island and intimately knows her family's history – and we are
meeting more relatives tomorrow evening at their house, after going
up to the church they married in and seeing the houses they lived in.
It's been an amazing trip so far.
Scotland is very clean, very green, and did I say, full of sheep?
Scott has had fun interviewing as many Scots as he can as to whether
they want to be independent from England or not. The vote is coming
up September 18. As it is here in Scotland, he had gotten a pretty
much equal vote Yes and No.
Sorry this is so out of order but it's all the time I have for now!
William Wallace monument
Edinburgh castle
