20 Aug to 4 Sept 2023: Scotland

 

Glasgow 

We traveled from Belfast to Glasgow via ferry and bus and a train..  it was not a smooth travel day (I drove alone to return the rental car and came back to town on a bus, I tried three unstaffed gas stations all of which did take my credit cards; I finally found one, phew.  I returned the 'wee' car, found the bus, but had to rush back to get a water bottle in the back seat; I made it to town. Meanwhile, Scott and the kids closed up the Airbnb, the bus they intended to take was on a very infrequent Sunday schedule, so they trekked the 45 minutes to the train station.  I arrived before them to find that the 'ferry-train' tickets I had bought actually meant there is no train from town to the Port, the passengers make their own way there. Booooo!! Two taxi rides later (5 people are hard to fit in cabs) we made it to the ferry. Boo. Only silver lining is that Alex and I waited for the second cab which turned our to be a traditional British Black cab, Alex's first time riding in one (which of course, COULD have fit all five of us, had it come first.. boo, let's just forget about that travel day.  

Made it to the ferry from Northern Ireland to Scotland. 

Ok! Arrival to Glasgow - very positive first impression, a great, beautiful, light-filled train station, vibrant with people. And this time we had a short walk to our downtown apartment (just for two nights, a 'stoppver' city on our way to the Scottish Highlands.). We found dinner (another Nando's dinner :) and walked about the City.  

 

Loving the big, Glasgow train station entryway.

Loving even more, dropping bags and walking around the City after a long travel day.

Next day, we headed over to the University of Glasgow, bummer though, the University’s historic, Hunterian Museum was closed thar day, so we enjoyed the campus (in the drizzle, that’s summertime!) and then headed over to a spacious and well-curated free kids science museum (I admire all of the free museums we have gotten to see).  We admired the long line of people queued for a Banksy exhibit, found a great park, Katie walked a long way with Scott to buy another scarf (there are two teams in Glasgow, Celtics and Rangers; supporting one or the other club can indicate political, religious, or other affiliation [the most I could glean about the split is that Celtic team has Irish roots and its fans lean more heavily Scotland-independence] – the importance of team support came into more real terms when we went for a tour to the Scottish Parliament (in Edinburgh, later in the trip); as we passed the metal detectors, Luke had worn his Celtic scarf just for warmth that day; the security folks kindly told us that no one can wear such political apparel inside the Parliament building, which is a “neutral” area; we balled it up and put it under our jackets to comply, but I digress!]; and we finished the evening eating outside at one of those great looking sidewalk bars that I was longing to go to.. the kids enjoyed bar food, I enjoyed eavesdropping on the “work-date” couple who were behind us with my beer while Scott had to do a work call.  Great but very short time in Glasgow.

 

Katie in front of the Banksy exhibit museum we DID not get into (so so sold out) - Statute is of the Duke of Wellington with an iconic cone on his head.

At the Kelvingrove Museum.

In the very small Glasgow subway that went only a few places of interest.

Made it to University of Glasgow...

... but all the University museums were closed that day, boo. 

Ahh, but we finished off the quick Glasgow visit right. 

Edinburgh, first visit 

We traveled from Glasgow to Edinburgh to pick up our rental car -  we arrived in the very crowded Edinburgh train station and had a few hours before we had to keep traveling so we found a 'stash your bags' place so we could walk around the city. I had in my mind that scene from Trainspotting (that a good friend shared with me after the Holywell-incident) where a friendly and some may say clueless American goes into an Edinburgh pub to use the toilet and is mugged by that surly, Ewan MacGregor-crew.  So, I was walking the streets warily, holding onto my little credit card-phone case and my little boys' hands, very watchful-like..   There were many many buskers and other street performers getting closer to us.. like, a LOT of them.. as we got into the thick of the Royal Mile near Edinburgh castle, the crowd of potential scary hooligans became clear and I realized they were all.. university a cappella groups?   What is happening??!!  We had stumbled on a festival, the Fringe Festival, that goes on for a month; during the festival, apparently, hundreds of members of a capella groups stand on the sidewalks,  stuffing pamphlets in your hands to direct you to their shows.  Not.. scary.. hooligans, but harmonic-gangs, making music with their mouths.. we met one Arizona kid attending Oxford who was certain his group was the best one there.. of course we had to pop into a show, it was amazing, so fun to see unplanned live music! Oh Edinburgh, not scary at all!!

Ahh, I got no good pictures from the Fringe Festival, it was such a crazy day, but here we are right before we went into the performance. 

Highlands (we stayed in Aviemore)

We stayed in a town on the edge of the country’s largest national park called Cairngomes.  The town has a long main street that we could walk to and fro from our little suburban “planned” community, with restaurants, outdoor equipment stores, ice cream, fudge and other sweet shops, and a few hotels. The town is small, only a few thousand people and has a Tahoe quality with a lot of second-home owners and a whole lot of visitors and outdoor activities year-round. Here is some of the fun stuff we shelled out some pounds to do:

Horses - Kids rode horses, thankfully, I did not have to go with them, but… two returned with big smiles and one came back barely holding back anger-tears.  The kids were with one adult, just the three of them (another two who had horse-riding experience went with another guide for some trotting) and for some reason that they never figured out, their guide had Luke’s horse tied behind hers the whole time, so he never got the feeling of riding the horse “off leash.”  Upon seeing Scott and I waiting at the return point, he could not believe that his bad luck lasted the whole hour, like, he naturally thought she would take turns with each of them having a horse tied up but instead, he was stuck like that the whole hour and, after holding back his feelings for the whole 60 minutes, his frustration poured over.  I could not blame him.  And of course Katie and Alex’s enjoyment of the experience made it all the worse, what he had missed.  Bad luck ☹.

 

Happy start to the horse-riding activity... 

... but a sad return.. Luke in the green shirt is still tied to the horse in front.. 

Foot golf – Ha! This is a fun idea – 18-hole grounds where golf, frisbee golf, and soccer-ball golf all share a greenway and then have separate targets. Unfortunately, it was pretty rainy the night before so we all ended up with soaked shoes after a few holes. I also have some kind of weak ankles because I cannot continuously kick a soccer ball hard without some pain. I made it the first 18 holes and the guy at the desk, feeling sorry for our soaking or maybe taking some joy in it, told us we could just do the course again on our one ticket; the rest of the family happily started the course again while I dropped back to be the photographer and sometimes welcome/sometimes unwelcome sport-commentator.

 

Ready, set, KICK Luke! 

Hold it, all play must stop because we've spied some frogs who've set up shop inside of one of the foot golf goals.

Ok, back to the game!

Archery – Everyone had a great time at this activity.  I am calling this one a mom-win because it was sort of expensive and I thought, oh, I’ll book it and sit it out so we save a little money. Then I imagined myself, sitting on the bench and taking pictures for two hours while each of them shot arrows and took off my “parent-martyr-sign” and signed myself up too. And enjoyed it quite a lot.

I won the "make the smallest triangle you can" archery game (that was my only win and so that is the picture included here :)

Fishing – The kiddos all wanted to try fishing (they have tried with Scott’s Dad in WA).  The Park has some stocked ponds which was interesting – the breeding ponds are next to the fishing ones, just smaller ponds covered in nets to protect the young fish from getting seagulls and the like, until they are big enough to get caught by little kids!  I am not much for the fishing..  But, when Luke hooked one and Scott sprang into action to help him, I grabbed the net, got the little guy in there, and then, as we realized the fish had mostly swallowed the hook, I gave it my all the old onto the gasping and struggling fish while Scott used these pliers they gave us to get the hook out of the fish’s throat. Well, that was an experience. We threw the fish back into the pond and he floated, white-belly up.  Luke looked on while Scott assured him the fish would make it.  After a few minutes of much-needed rest, the fish swam away to get hooked by some other kid. Alex’s poor fish got the same treatment. Katie never got a bite, but after a couple other families caught fish, bashed them over the head with the stout, wooden stick that was part of our fishing “kit” (you get the choice on whether to toss ‘em back or take ‘em home to cook and eat), the kids had had enough and we headed home, going 2 for 3 on the effort.

 

Loch Ness – We drove a bit to Loch Ness because there was a big Highland games (culture and strength fairs held in various places in Scotland in the summer) nearby.  It rained in the am, but it just didn’t occur to me that they cancel anything for rain in Scotland because well, rain is just the way it is!  That was wrong, after driving a few hours, there was a sandwich board sign a couple of blocks before the fairgrounds that said “Games Canceled”. Scott and I looked at each other in disbelief…  We drove on and just like a few others who arrived, indeed, the games were canceled for the safety of some of the competitors in the “strong man” portion of the games.  Huge bummer.  The kids were super disappointed, but wait! There were crowds around Loch Ness, maybe we would stumble on something else  to do… Indeed, we happened to be in the area of Nessy on the very day of the largest search for Nessy maybe in human history! We found an area to stop the car, peered out into the loch for unexplainable ripples, and snapped photos… Ok.. this lasted about 10 minutes in the rain before we piled back into the car, but we did participate in the search.. You be the judge on the photos as to whether the shadows in the water are.. shadows or.. the CREATURE!  The great pictures aside, this day was a sad fail, so much driving, so wet, and Loch Ness is pretty much a two lane road the whole, long, north end with the only places to get out of the car jammed with Highland-game-would-be-attendees (like us). Sigh.

We set up our Nessy search next to another intrepid monster-hunter (seen here setting up his device to watch the water surface).

Observe the suspicious-looking shadows lurking behind this innocent-looking selfie..

 

Katie looks cold.. our day ended and we ruled the search Inconclusive for any Nessy sightings.

Two key battle sites. 

-       We visited Battle of Bannockburn site - 1314, battle between Robert the Bruce & England’s King Edward II, battle came after the one made famous in Braveheart; at Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce wins and Scotland is independent for 400 years, until 1707 – In 1707, Scotland’s and England’s parliaments negotiated a unification treaty.  This stemmed a bit from Elizabeth I dying without a direct heir and her cousin James VI, who was King of Scotland, then becoming King of England (he was then both King of Scotland and King of England so why not unify?) and the negotiations also made good business sense for English and Scottish trading interests, but I digress, and

-        We also visited the Culloden battle site - 1746 battle, final Jacobite battle and the last major battle fought on UK soil. The English Royal Army traveled to Culloden to confront Bonnie Prince Charlie; the Prince’s father James was called the “Old Pretender”; the Old Pretender had a claim to the throne – his father was James II, Catholic king in England who was so disliked that nobles sprung the Glorious Revolution in 1688 that brought his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange to the throne. Fast forward 50 years, William and Mary die without an heir; Mary’s sister Anne (Protestant) rules and dies without an heir and Parliament brings in German cousins (Hanoverian) to rule.  The Young and the Old Pretenders see that the Hanoverian King George II is not so popular. The Old Pretender is too old, so his son the Bonnie Prince Charlie mounts an army with some French support and a lot of Scottish support (among those who did not love unification, are Catholic, and also think that the correct lineage for the throne is through James and the Stuart house, not through the German cousins); they land in Scotland and win for several months but the English catch up to the them in Culloden and it is sort of a bloodbath.  Bonnie Charlie escapes and lives out his days in Italy.

It was very interesting to go on tours in both of these sites and experience how the guides portray these historical events, having in mind the 2014 failed referendum for independence in Scotland (55/45%) and the more recent proposals for another vote (post-Brexit).  Needless to say, the guide at Bannockburn described the win with some excitement and happiness (and the big Robert the Bruce statue was something to behold) while the guide at Culloden described the massacre of the Jacobites a bit more solemnly.   

We approach the Robert the Bruce tribute.. 

...and enjoy trying on amour at Bannockburn battle site.

.. and visit the more solemn Culloden site (it was solemn, ignore Alex's big smile). 

Jumping for the branches in front of the Jacobite 'field hospital'. 

Of course, Culloden also has armor, it is Scotland!

Edinburgh, real visit -  We returned to Edinburgh for a few days before our Italy flight.  We visited the Edinburgh Castle, took a tour of Scotland’s Parliament (we learned a lot about which decisions are devolved to Edinburgh versus those that stay in London; AND this is where we learned that you cannot wear soccer-team paraphernalia inside the government building) and we finally attended a Highland game, the Blairgowrie and Rattray games, that was not rained out.  Alex and Luke were pretty much done with the Games within an hour (“it is so boring to WATCH people do things! We want to do something ourselves!”), but Katie and Scott enjoyed finding an ancestral Scottish clan (they joined the MacEwen clan which turned out to be pretty much all Americans, hahah!), watching the Ardblair Stone lift competition.  After Alex, Luke, and I participated in the whole games tug of war, it was time to go home.

Edinburgh Castle.

Walking the Royal Mile.

Enjoying the views.

Inside the Scottish Parliament - No, this art behind the kids is not meant to look like whisky bottles.. but rather, like people, the people the MPs are meant to think of each time they vote. 

Alex pointing to the Parliamentary mace, a gift from Queen Elizabeth II in 1998 - Our guide said that opening the case for the mace means Parliament is in session and that someone wishing to delay debate could theoretically grab the mace and run out of the room. He said this has not happened .. yet.. 

Proof that we had some fun at the Highland Games.. 

Luke's face says.. fun is kind of over.. let's go..

We were in Scotland a long time..  some other photos below for posterity.. :) 

Neolithic burial site.

Ommmmmm...

At Cawdor Castle (still used by the Cawdor family); visited because the kids are reading Macbeth.

Passing the time trying to learn to whistle, on the walk to and from town.

The tiniest distillery, making gin from the waters of Loch Ness!

Enjoying the view of a lake near Aviemore after dinner.

Old schoolhouse at Highland Folk Museum where we learned, among other things, that Highland kids survived the winter by getting greased up with animal fat, having paper layered onto their bodies, then getting sewn into their woolen underwear (which had strategically placed holes for doing your business) and they would not undo the stitches until Spring.

Highland Coos. 

Really excited that this old storehouse has a Lyons Extract advertising sign left up. 

Really REALLY excited to shop at this re-enactment of a, early 20th century hard candy shop. We tried rhubarb creme, Irn-Bru, and lemon, among others. 

Luke trying his hand with the ink well on the original desks.

Alex, after I got him into the traditional tartan wrap.

The Jacobites have one last stand against the Williamites! 

We hopped on our tiny plane to Pisa on a beautiful, sunny day in Scotland (maybe the best weather we’d seen since our arrival, sigh, unlucky weather in Scotland.)  

Ryanair plane to Pisa!