April 2018 – A Traveling Fool

April 30, 2018April 30, 2018

Scotch Whiskey, Hairy Coos & St Andrews

As we approached The Glenlivet Distillery, we saw that a fold (herd) of Highland cattle (aka “Hairy Coos”) was approaching us. So we hung around to say “Hello”. This was a very domesticated group. They came right up to the fence, sniffed us and allowed petting. You don’t want to chase one down out in the country to try to pet it, or you can end up with a less than desirable experience.

I had only seen the ginger variety before, so I was intrigued by the fact that they also came in black, yellow, brindled and white. They were first introduced to Scotland in the Neolithic period and are considered one of the oldest cattle breeds on earth. They are definitely quite cute.

The Glenlivet is one of the first licensed distilleries in Scotland. They, and others, had been in existence since medieval times. But, in the 1820s, a law was passed requiring that Scotch Whiskey distilleries must be licensed to be legal. The owner of The Glenlivet, immediately applied for a license, upsetting the other distilleries. They had all hoped that the whole licensing issue would blow over eventually and they could all carry on illicitly as before.

This was our second time at this same distillery. So Mom sat out the distillery tour in the café. The mother of the other mother/daughter team on our tour also decided to sit out the distillery tour and joined Mom. I happen to like single malt Scotch, so I was willing to do the tour again to have the opportunity to sample the different varieties they produced at the end. I had tried the 12-year-old and the 18-year-old the first time. So I tried the 15-year-old French Oak Reserve this time. They didn’t offer either the 21-year-old or the 25-year-old on the tour. I had preferred the 18-year-old to the 12-year-old the previous trip. So I compared the 18-year-old to the 15-year-old French Oak Reserve. Although I favored the 15-year-old French Oak Reserve at the time, I have since become fond of the Founder’s Reserve. It is light with an orange fragrance and flavored with orange, pear and toffee apple. It goes really well with salmon.

We went on to Braemar where we originally were supposed to have a small tour of Balmoral Castle. They only let you into the ballroom, but it would still have been cool. However, Prince Charles had just married Camilla Parker Bowles and had decided to stop off at Balmoral Castle on the way to his own Scottish home. So we were unable to even see the castle as it is quite hidden from all roads in the vicinity. It would have been nice to have at least gotten some photos of the exterior. Instead, we visited Craithie Kirk, which is the church where the Royal Family worships when staying at Balmoral. The pastor welcomed us and gave us a brief history of the church. Queen Victoria’s servant, John Brown, is buried in the churchyard.

We ended up having lunch at an inn at a place called the Spittal of Glenshee (which I thought was a fun name) after a brief visit to Dundee. The inn looked like something from Norway, but the food was definitely Scottish. The RRS Discovery, which was the ship used by Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their expedition to the Antarctic, is docked in the harbor in Dundee.

After lunch we continued on to St Andrews, where we had more time than the previous trip. We could actually visit the castle this time. From the previous trip, we knew exactly where it was and how to get to it, so we didn’t have to waste any time trying to find it. But first, our tour director and driver had a little surprise for us. In a very narrow street, our driver maneuvered around until he could turn the full-sized coach down another very narrow street. Suddenly we emerged from between the buildings and drove across the Old Course between the 18^th hole and the first hole. Golfers nearly dropped their clubs as they stared (and likely swore) at us as we went by. The video camera still being so new to me, I didn’t have the presence of mind to pull it out and film our journey. Something tells me that this is not an everyday occurrence – except possibly for that particular driver.

Once they let us out next to the Museum of Golf, we legged it down the road to the castle. Because of its strategic position and its tendency to be captured by the English, the Scots ultimately destroyed it themselves to keep it from falling into English hands again. Although in ruins, it contains a bottle dungeon (aka oubliette), which was carved out of the rock on which the castle stands. The castle was built on a rocky promontory overlooking a sandy beach and the North Sea in the 12^th century.

After exploring the ruins, I wanted to zip down the road for a quick look at the cathedral ruins while Mom wanted to start back to where we were to meet the tour coach so she wouldn’t have to walk quite so fast – especially since she now used a cane. No problem. I could easily catch up to her and make it back in time. What we both forgot, however, was that I had all the money. When she got to the meeting point, she wanted to use the ladies WC. It was a pay toilet. I still feel guilty that my poor mother was reduced to begging for the change to use the facilities. After that incident, I made certain that, even when I was handling the money, she at least had a small amount of whatever the money was in that country. Fortunately one of our fellow travelers took pity on her and provided her with the necessary.

While in the USA, the currency is dollars and cents, in the UK it is pounds and pence. The pence have the nickname of “p”. I’ll bet you can guess where I’m going with this – she didn’t have a “p” to….

“Hairy Coos” outside The Glenlivet Distillery

A closer look at the Highland Cattle. Is the one whispering to another?

Grave of John Brown (Queen Victoria’s Highland servant) at Craithie Kirk

Entrance to St Andrews Castle (the tower with the bottle dungeon can be seen)

April 16, 2018

“Kidnapped”, Murder & A Battlefield

When the tour group reached Loch Lomond, there was a kilted piper playing “Amazing Grace”. I pulled out my video camera and began filming. Since I was new to this, I wasn’t yet paying strong enough attention to what was happening in the periphery and didn’t notice two women converging from the left and the right until they were right in front of me – between my camera and the piper. I let out a four-letter word that has been captured on video for all posterity.

Our Tour Director, in addition to being a free spirit, was also quite a looker. Many (most actually) of the women on the tour were flirting quite openly with him. Once in a blue moon, a male tour director or a driver has been quite interested in establishing a liaison with at least one lady on the tour (I once had a driver pursuing me fairly aggressively). But this was not one of those times. It wasn’t long before he was seeking refuge with Mom and me. We were about the only women not vying for his attention. We both had boyfriends at the time and neither one of us has ever been the “one-night-stand” type. We definitely had more fun with him than any of the others as he relaxed and shared his humor and knowledge with us.

When I was a kid, I had read Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped”. The main character in that novel, David Balfour, is sold by his uncle to a ship’s captain who is supposed to take him to the American Colonies. This is because his uncle wants David’s inheritance. The ship gets shipwrecked near the Isle of Mull and David escapes, along with Alan Breck Stewart (who was a real, historical figure). They get separated for a bit and then get reunited to flee across Rannoch Moor, as suspects in a murder (for which, in real life, Stewart was a suspect). Rannoch Moor is quite bleak and haunting.

From Rannoch Moor, we went to Glen Coe. This was a glen formed by volcanoes. In 1692, some of the Campbells and some English forces massacred several of the clan MacDonald after being given hospitality for the night by the MacDonalds. It was unheard of to harm anyone who provides Highland hospitality. So most of Scotland was up-in-arms over this. It was supposedly punishment for not swearing loyalty to the new King and Queen (William and Mary) of England by the imposed deadline. Despite this horrendous massacre, it is a beautiful area, with a three peaked mountain called the Three Sisters.

From Glen Coe, we traveled up the Great Glen, which includes Loch Linnhe, Loch Lochy and Loch Ness, stopping off at Fort William. Fort William is where you can catch the “Hogwarts Express” out to Mallaig. We also stopped off at a World War II Memorial near Ben Nevis (the tallest mountain in the British Isles). It too was once a volcano.

After a quick visit to Loch Ness, we continued on to Culloden Moor. This time the battlefield was in the process of being cleared so that the clan graves could be seen. The memorial was in pretty good shape by this point and it was easy to get to it. They had a small visitor center where we were able to watch a video about the battle. They included a visit inside of a small cottage on the moor where twelve clanswomen were trapped and burned by the soldiers. This visit was the only time I saw that. They were looking for contributions towards creating a state-of-the-art visitor center and refurbishing the entire battlefield. I took one of their brochures and sent them some money – not a lot, but something to help at least a little.

That night, we stayed at a really lovely Victorian hotel outside of Grantown-on-Spey. It had once been a group of houses that ended up being connected together and turned into a hotel. Mom and I took a walk to the river and had a lovely time out in the Highland countryside.

Interior of small cottage on Culloden Moor, made rather gorey with fake blood

April 8, 2018

Back to Scotland: Stirling Castle, Linlithgow, the Trossachs & Loch Lomond

It took a couple of years before I had another vacation. But in 2005, we went on a 21-day trip to Scotland, Wales, Ireland & Northern Ireland. We chose the trip because we would be able to travel to Caernarfon, which was where my mother’s maternal grandmother’s family was from. Since we had only bypassed Stirling Castle in 2003, we arrived in Glasgow a day early to take a day tour to Linlithgow Palace, Stirling Castle and a boat ride on Loch Lomond.

This was the trip where, in order to get from the gate where our delayed flight from Minneapolis arrived to the gate from which our connecting flight to Glasgow was departing, while going through the European Union entrance process at the airport in Amsterdam (Schiphol), we ended up literally running to the gate, just as they were getting ready to close it. I ran ahead while Mom followed as best as she could. I figured that, if I made it to the gate, I could ask them to wait for her. Fortunately we made it. Unfortunately, our cases didn’t. We were able to check in at the hotel right away and we had our carryon luggage, which included my camera. So, we let the hotel know that our bags would be arriving on a later flight and headed off to get some lunch and explore for a while.

The hotel was in a different part of the city from when we were there in 2003. So we weren’t close to George Square. We were close to an interestingly named thoroughfare – Sauchiehall Street. The Kelvingrove Art Museum was still under renovation, but some of its exhibits were being housed in an art gallery on Sauchiehall. A fair amount of the street was also pedestrian only with lots of restaurants, cafes, tea houses, shops, etc. After lunch and the art gallery, we walked around for a while, exploring that part of the city. Once we figured that our luggage might be at the hotel, we headed back. It not only was there, but they had already placed it in our room! We reorganized to get ready for the next day and arranged for a taxi to take us to the bus terminal (from where our day trip was leaving) in the morning, had an early dinner and relaxed with some wonderful British television before going to bed.

The information I had gotten from the tour company that was running the day trip spelled out exactly which spot we needed to be in the terminal to get our tour bus. Easy. Our group included a couple from Iceland, who had flown the two hour flight from Reykjavik just to spend the weekend in Glasgow, hanging out and doing some shopping. We also had a threesome from some Eastern European country who didn’t speak any English. The first part of the trip was driving to Edinburgh to pick up some more folks there. We got five. So we just had a total of 12 on the trip.

When we got to Linlithgow, the palace was mostly a ruin. But it was a royal palace for a couple hundred years. It was begun in the 14^th century and greatly rebuilt and enlarged in the 15^th. Mary, Queen of Scots, was born there in 1542. In more recent years, the palace was used as Wentworth Prison in the series “Outlander”. We didn’t spend a lot of time there. Just took some photos and moved on.

We had much more time at Stirling Castle. We arrived just in time for lunch. Then we began exploring. Stirling Castle is one of the largest castles in Scotland, so there is a lot to see. Like Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle sits on top of a large crag. The difference is that the crag Stirling Castle is on was never a volcano. Although a few structures date to the 14^th century, most of the present castle was built in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Located near the center of the country, Stirling has always been strategically important and has seen its share of battles.

The first place we headed for was the Great Hall. This building had been restored to its former glory a few years before our visit. The hammerbeam ceiling had been restored and the exterior of the building had been limewashed with a golden color. Only a couple rooms of the Royal Palace were open to visitors. They had not yet been restored. We explored the buildings in the inner courtyard, which included the Royal Chapel. Then we went for a walk along the top of the walls, taking in the views. We could see the stone version of Stirling Bridge (the original on which William Wallace defeated the English in battle was wooden) and the Wallace Memorial off in the distance. We came down from the wall to visit the Great Kitchen, which had already been restored, along with mannequins and representational foods.

Naturally, the castle is reportedly haunted by a Green Lady (thought to be a servant of Mary, Queen of Scots) and a Pink Lady, thought to be Mary herself. She really gets around. Her ghost is said to haunt several places in Scotland and even a few in England. We both really liked Stirling Castle and were glad we had taken the extra day.

Near Stirling is a village named Doune. It is known mainly for two things – Doune Castle and the manufacture of pistols. It is said that it was a Doune pistol that fired the first shot of the American Revolution. Built in the 14^th century, the castle has been very important in the history of Scotland and, more recently, in the history of film and television. Much of “Monty Python & the Holy Grail” was filmed at Doune Castle, with various parts of the castle standing in for nearly all of the castles in the film. It has also been Winterfell in “Game of Thrones” and Castle Leoch in “Outlander”.

We passed through Callander on our way to Aberfoyle for an afternoon break. By this time, although I did not yet have a digital camera, I was getting a disc of my photos along with my prints when I had my film developed (so no more scanning in photos for this blog). I also had purchased a video camera that filmed directly onto a mini-disc that I could play on my DVD player at home, watching whatever I filmed on my TV. I looked for and didn’t find my little dancing owl friend. Either he was no longer there or he just wasn’t in the mood for dancing that day.

Our final stop of the day, before returning to Glasgow, was Loch Lomond for a boat ride on the loch. I love going for boat rides and I was especially pleased to be riding along on one of the most famous lakes in the world. In all my trips to Scotland so far, this is the only one where I have had the opportunity to take a ride on Loch Lomond. There were villages, the occasional lone house, some mansions and a couple castles along the shore. The weather was pretty good, so we had a very pleasant outing and chatted with our new Icelandic acquaintances.