In 2009, my friend Tommie (who I have known since we were in high school) and I decided we should go to Scotland together. We are both of Scottish ancestry. She still lives in Texas and I have lived away from Texas (NYC and Minneapolis) for several years. So we got on a conference call with the tour company I used the most at that time, and booked the best, most thorough, tour of Scotland I had experienced up to that point – Scottish Highlands and Islands.
On the plane from Chicago to Heathrow, I sat next to a couple from Seattle. The wife had been three years old towards the end of World War II when her family fled northern Germany for Dusseldorf as the Allies were coming in. Their part of Germany was being taken over by the Soviets. A couple rows behind us was a man from Easy Company (“Band of Brothers”). I didn’t catch the name, but we all applauded him.
Tommie got into Glasgow about an hour later than I did and we met up at the hotel. Mom and I had stayed in that same hotel on a previous trip, so I remembered the area pretty well. We took a walk up to Sauchiehall Street and had lavender tea with treacle scones, jelly and clotted cream upstairs at Bradford’s Tea Room. A very pleasant way to spend the afternoon.
That evening, we met the rest of the group. Our tour director was named John – a very smart, funny, interesting man. He knew a previous tour director that Mom and I had just a few years earlier (Matthew) and claimed that he was “barking mad”. I felt that it took one to know one. He was pretty darn eccentric himself. Our driver was Alistair, who Mom and I had on an earlier trip. A very nice man and a great driver. We had 44 people on this trip – 20 from the US and 24 from other places (Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
Our first stop the next morning when we actually began the tour was at Alloway. This was the birthplace of Robert Burns. He was born in a small cottage, which we toured, in 1759. I might have mentioned in an earlier blog that some people in Scotland can speak three languages – English, Scots Gaelic, and Scots (which is a mixture of old English and bits of Scots Gaelic). Burns wrote his poetry in Scots. If you don’t think you are familiar with him, he wrote the lyrics for “Auld Lang Syne” which is sung by most of the world on New Year’s Eve (called Hogmanay in Scotland).
After lunch in Gretna Green (which I had visited before), we dipped down into England to visit Carlisle. The castle there was built in the 1100s, using some of the stones from Hadrian’s Wall (which wasn’t protected then as it is now). Carlisle Castle was a military post from the 1100s all the way until 1959, making it the longest running military installation in the world. Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned there for a while in 1567. They tended to move her around a lot.
After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which was the final battle of the Jacobite Uprising to place Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne of Great Britain, several Scottish prisoners were held there in the Keep. The song, “Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” was composed by one of those prisoners who was condemned to death. The “high road” is over land (alive), while the “low road” is in death. Our group spent a little time sitting in the cell, silently and in the dark, where these men were held.
Our hotel for the night was a very old building with a cozy old pub with settles. A settle is a wooden bench, with arms and a high back, which can usually accommodate from two to four people. It is often set near a fireplace to help keep the heat in that space. I find them very cozy. The bartender introduced me to a drink called “Pimms & Lemonade”. Pimms is a citrus-flavored liquor with spices. English lemonade is a clear, lemon-flavored soft drink. What we call “lemonade” in the US is “lemon squash” in the UK.
The following day was my first introduction to Hadrian’s Wall. I had read about it and gone by it before. But this was my first chance to get up close and even be able to get up on top of part of it. The wall stretches across a narrow portion of England for 73 miles (originally 80) and was begun in 122AD. The stone portions of the wall originally ranged from 16 to 20 feet in height and could be as wide as 10 feet. It was a pretty formidable wall. Some of the remains still are.
At the time it was built, the main people to the north of it were the Picts. This was considered to be an unconquerable group. They tended to paint themselves blue, had a lot of tattoos, and would strip naked when they went into battle, screaming at the top of their lungs. The Romans decided not to deal with them and just put up a wall instead of trying to rule them from scattered forts. The wall is fully in England and has never been on the Scottish border. At the time, Scotland as a country, didn’t yet exist and the Scots themselves were not yet in the area.
Cawfields Milecastle is the part of the wall we visited. It is next to a quarry and can be walked upon. Most of the wall cannot be walked on, but some portions are designated as being strong enough to handle all of us tromping all over it. It was raining when we arrived and the ground was muddy. But we slogged our way through to get to it and spent some time walking gingerly on it and taking photos of it. It was slippery. After getting back on the tour coach, we continued to drive along as close to the wall as we could as we traveled east. At one point, we could see Housesteads Fort way up on a very steep piece of land. I would finally visit that part of the wall in 2016.
We arrived at Jedburgh at lunchtime. Tommie and I decided that we would dash over to the ruins of Jedburgh Abbey and explore them, then grab some lunch to take onto the coach (if we didn’t finish it before we got on). The abbey had been built in the 12th century. After William Wallace’s victory at Stirling Bridge, the English sacked the abbey in retribution. The Scottish Reformation in the 16th century spelled the end of the abbey although the monks were allowed to live there until the abbey was essentially condemned in the middle 1800s. We were more interested in seeing the abbey than sitting and having a real meal. We knew we would be having a very good dinner that evening, so a sandwich for lunch on the run was fine. We actually did pretty well on time and were done with our sandwiches before we got back on the coach.
At Abbotsford House, we were the last group to be allowed in as Princess Anne was expected. Abbotsford was the home of Sir Walter Scott after he became rich and famous. We could visit the entrance hall, Scott’s study, the library, the drawing room, the armory, the dining room, and the chapel. Photography was not allowed indoors other than in the very small and plain chapel. We were told that when he became ill with typhus, Scott was set up in the dining room instead of his bedroom. He died in the dining room. We had time to spend out in the garden as well before we needed to pile back onto the tour coach.
At Edinburgh, we checked into our hotel, which was the George — the same hotel where Mom and I had stayed the last time we visited Edinburgh. It had changed owners and had been completely redecorated. Gone was the old-fashioned Victorian décor in favor of a more modern style. I preferred the Victorian. Tommie and I were housed on an upper floor in the newer wing and could see Edinburgh Castle in one direction and the Firth of Forth in the other. We got ourselves prepared for the next day and dressed up a bit for our optional tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia followed by dinner at the Balmoral Hotel.
The Royal Yacht was built in 1953 and was decommissioned roughly 40 years later in 1997. It was a private and stylish way for the royal family to travel around the world when making state visits or taking the family on vacation. It was also built to double as a hospital ship when needed. It is docked in Leith Harbor next to a shopping mall.
Next time, Tommie and I take a bus to Rosslyn Chapel on our free afternoon to explore the chapel, its Templar legends and connection to “The DaVinci Code”.
