And Now the Photography—My Top Ten

by | Dec 28, 2024 | Photography

I admit it. I have more than ten photos. But I just could not make up my mind. First, I sorted about 3,000 photos to find my favorites. Then, I broke them down and consulted my wonderful bride and my grandson. Both gave me some good advice. I got down to 28. Six of those were puffin photos from the Isle of Lunga in Scotland. One was easy because it was one of a kind, but the others were really good. Kathleen liked one to add to the top ten and Mason another, so with that, I give you my puffins.

A special note (and I will only say it once, I promise): Don’t forget that if you click the first shot, you can scroll through it with your arrow keys or by swiping. And please don’t look at my photography on a phone.

 

And now for the honorable mentions that aren’t puffins. I will put the locations I shot them in the captions. Again, please click the first one and view them in full-screen mode.

This brings us to the Top Ten. Let’s count down to #1. I have set them up as a single photo gallery, so you can click them to view them full-screen.

Number 10—Djupevatn Lake above the town of Gearanger in Norway. I did a quick pano to get the full wide angle. I heard from someone who was on the cruise before ours and, therefore, had visited this lake two weeks before us. They told me it was still frozen over with tons of snow. You really need to click this one to see it in full-screen mode.

Number 9—Eileen Donan in Dornie Scotland from above. This is Kathleen’s family castle. You see, her mother’s maiden name was McCray, and this is the ancestral home of the McCrays. You may recognize it because it has been in many films and is commonly known as one of the most photogenic castles in all of Scotland. I took a ton of photos of it from ground level, but I knew there was a way to get a shot of it from above. As we were leaving the grounds, I asked one of the parking attendants how to get to the ridge above the castle. He swore me to secrecy and gave me exceptional directions that enabled me to get this shot.

Number 8—Lisbon below the Hotel Portugal. We were having our last dinner with our good friends we travel with every October (Steve, Jamie, Mike & Cathy) in a restaurant on top of a nearby hotel when I took this shot of an open-air market about a block from our hotel. It isn’t often that I get two almost aerial shots in one year.

Number Seven—A political demonstration in Lisbon. I don’t think I have ever taken a newsworthy photo before. Something that covers the news that is happening wherever we are. I was walking back from Lisbon’s Pink Street when I crossed a bridge and saw this march below me. It was so unusual for me that I had to include it in my Top Ten.

Number Six—The Tulip Stairs in the Queen’s Castle Greenwich, England. This beautiful photo is all about the angle. I took about 20 shots of this staircase, but the best of them was looking up its spiral.

Number 5—A pastoral scene just outside Plockton, Scotland. We were driving down a very remote but beautiful road headed to Plockton, Scotland, where we were looking for highland coos. We had seen a YouTube video that there were coos in Plockton (if you don’t know what a highland coo is, wait until my number one photo shows up). But there were no coos. But there was a cow on the other side of the bridge over a creek that just grabbed me as I glimpsed it while driving by. Seriously, I had to jam on the brakes (thankfully, no cars within a mile or so) and back up until I could line up the shot. This shot has grown on me since so many people who have seen it told me they really liked it.

Number 4—Incredible Glencoe in Scotland. Besides being the scene of a terrible massacre of Scottish families by British soldiers in 1692, Glencoe is maybe the most beautiful place I have ever seen. As we were driving from Fort William back to Glasgow, we had two routes we could have taken. One was the quickest and easiest, but we had driven up that way a few days earlier. The other way was longer and went through Glencoe. We were tired from our week in the Highlands, but at the last minute, we decided to do Glencoe. On that route, there is a stretch of road with pull-outs for photographers like me to jump out of their cars and shoot the glorious scenery. I think I stopped at all of them. And the weather cooperated with an amazing combination of sun, clouds and blue sky. These mountains are magnificent in every way, and this would have been my number one shot, but like the puffins, I couldn’t decide between the hundreds I took that day. This one is my favorite. One more thing. Please click it to see it full screen—it needs the space to really understand why I love it.

Number 3–Puffins in action on the Isle of Lunga, Scotland. As I mentioned above, when I wrote about my puffin experience, I took a TON of photos that day. I want to say the total was in the high hundreds or low thousands. The hardest part was getting a decent shot of them flying. I lay or sat on the ground, focused on a particular area and shot at least 200 shots. In all of those, the flying puffins were either blurry or so fast that I missed them completely. This was also one of those times when I didn’t know what I had until I got back to our Bed and Breakfast that night and could look through the shots. I had no clue if I had that shot I wanted or not. It turns out I did. Out of those hundreds of attempted action shots, this isn’t the best puffin flying shot I got…it is the ONLY puffin flying shot I got, but it’s a good one, and I worked hard to get it.

Number 2—Isle of Staffa, Scotland. This is one of those photos that makes people gasp when they see it: This guy is so high on this cliff. I love it because it teaches me something as a photographer—you need humans for scale. I have two versions of this same exact shot. One with a human and one without. The one without is boring. The one with a human catches your eye and pulls you right in. Also, please note the naturally occurring basalt columns at the bottom of the cliff. That’s the reason that Staffa is so famous. You should see the cave below the cliff—WOW!

Number 1—My favorite Highland Coo on the Isle of Skye. This guy just called out to me. Actually, he is kind of tired of me. I have an entire series of shots of this guy posing, but this is my favorite. After being disappointed in Plockton when we didn’t find any coos, we were driving by a farm on the Isle of Skye with a small herd right near a fence. We pulled over, and I took quite a few shots. Our forever neighbor Lisa thinks it should be framed and hung in our house or maybe in hers. Either way, I agree. I love it, and I love pretty much all Highland Coos. They are glorious creatures.

Please let me know in the comments what you like or how you would have rearranged the order. I love discussion. 

Which brings us to the end of 2024. This will be my last post of a pretty darn good year with lots of travel, lots of memories and lots of photography. 2025 looks interesting but with a little less travel. We have nothing scheduled until July, when we head to Southern Africa to fulfill my one remaining photo milestone—shooting a safari. BUT…In the meantime, I do have a photographic project coming on January 1, but you will just have to wait until that day to find out about it. Thanks for sticking with me all year long. Travel safely.

That’s all, folks   —Porky Pig

 

 

How I create my photos

by | Jul 3, 2024 | Photography

I have had a number of people both here on my blog and on Cruise Critic comment…

  • Many of you have been curious about my photography process. You’ve asked, ‘How do I take my photos? What kind of camera do I use? What type of lens?’ Some of you even wondered if I’m using a camera at all or just my phone.
  • One of the most common questions I get is about how I manage to process and share my photos while on a cruise. It’s definitely a unique challenge, but I’ve developed a system that works for me.
  • Others also want to know any travel photo tips I might have.

My buddy Mike Preisman always has his equipment at the bottom of every page of his website. I don’t, so here are the answers, along with commentary (did you expect any less) about my photo process. This will get a little geeky for some of you, so please feel free to ignore this post.

My Gear

I have been a Nikon guy since I went digital. I chose Nikon because of one thing. My son-in-law had a Nikon, and I figured we could borrow each other’s lenses. This was back in 1999, and we have only done that once. Get the camera you like. Get a lens that works for you. I am part of a group on Reddit who are Nikon users. One of my biggest criticisms of those who are in the group is that they are too concerned with what gear to buy. More than half the posts are about what lens or camera body to buy.

I shoot a mirrorless Nikon Z7II. I have been using it since fall 2022. It’s the best camera I have ever owned (Don’t sweat if you don’t know what a mirrorless camera is.)

One of the things I get a lot of flack about from the Nikon groups is that I only carry one lens. I have seen people walking around ships or on the streets with a camera bag with 2, 3, 4 or more lenses. I just won’t do it. That’s too much to carry everywhere I go. I carry a zoom lens so that I can take large landscapes as well as close-ups and distant subjects. Up until just before this trip, I was using a 28-300mm zoom lens from Nikon. It was a great lens, but I needed a new one because it was from my old digital lens reflex camera, and I had to use an adapter to use it. That not only added weight to what I was carrying around but it was one more thing my images could be affected by when shooting. But Nikon did me one better and brought out a 28-400mm lens, and I love it! What an awesome camera and lens combo for a travel photographer. What am I getting with this lens? The ability to carry one lens.

The only other thing I feel important if you are a travel photographer is the right strap. I see people carrying these huge cameras either in their hands or around their necks. The only strap you get from a camera manufacturer is a neck strap. The only thing a neck strap does is give you a sore neck. When your camera and lens combo weigh almost five pounds, any chiropractor will tell you are nuts to hang that around your neck. So, I found a great strap years ago. It’s called a Blackrapid strap. It attaches to your camera on the bottom, where you screw the connector into the tripod mount. Then, it hangs off a cross-body strap (see the illustration.) and rides on your hip. The only problem I have with it is that mine is getting old, and they don’t have the exact same one I do because mine has a small pocket on the front that was built to put a flip phone in (that’s how old it is ?) and I keep my extra battery in there. I hate having it in my pocket, so I will probably have this one forever.

One last thing about camera gear: Don’t ever say this to a photographer: “WOW! I love your pictures. What kind of camera do you use?” Before you say that, consider this: Would you ask a chef of a great meal what kind of pan he cooks with? It’s the same thing as far as I am concerned. I believe I take great travel photos because I practice a lot, take classes and shoot great stuff. One of my favorite photographic gurus is Scott Kelby. When Scott was asked what gear someone should buy to be a better photographer, Scott told them not to buy anything but to spend the same amount of money to go someplace awesome. His mantra is, “If you want to take amazing photos, stand in front of amazing places.” I agree.

My Process

I have developed a pretty specific process for taking, rating, processing and improving my photos. First, I always shoot photos in RAW format. Ninety percent of photographers shoot in JPEG format. When I shoot in RAW, I get a digital negative. But that means that I can’t show you any photo I have taken until I process it. That takes time. I process all my photos through a process.

Second, when shooting, I go back and forth on my camera between my Program mode and Manual mode. When I am in full sunlight and have lots of light, I shoot in Program mode, on my camera that’s pretty much as close to automatic as you get. When I shoot early in the morning or late at night or in low light/bad weather, I want complete control of the camera, so it’s manual for that. And once in a blue moon, I will switch to one of the other two modes. If I am going to shoot action (maybe my granddaughter’s softball game), I switch to Shutter priority to ensure I freeze the action. When I want to isolate a subject, I might switch to Aperture mode to do that.

So I shoot photos and then put them in my MacBook Pro. Yes, that means I carry around a full-size laptop with me. I mentioned that my camera weighs almost five pounds, but my camera/computer bag weighs nearly 35 pounds. I try never to carry it but to always move it on top of either my or Kathleen’s carry-on roller bag.

As soon as I have time, I copy the images to a folder for that day, and then I open Adobe Bridge. Most photographers use Lightroom to process photos, but I started doing photography when I was a graphic designer, and we like Bridge. You can use any software; you just need one that lets you see the entire photo on a full screen. I go through my photos pretty quickly the first time. When I shot the 600+ photos on the day we were in Gearanger I needed to have a quick way to get through them. I call what I do “photo triage.” I go through my pics in pretty much a hurry. And when I see what one I like and want to come back and look at again, I hit the five key on my Mac. If I see a photo that I might like if I worked on it, I hit the four key. If I see one that goes into a specific category (like photos with family in them) I hit the three key. This adds a rating to the photo.

Then, I go through each of the ones tagged with a five and process them in the Adobe app Camera Raw. First, I set the white balance and exposure, and then, if the photo warrants it, I might add some clarity or vibrance. I also might up the sharpening. And if the sky is dead (that happens a lot), I might dehaze it a little.

Once I have done all the 5s, I look at the 4s again. If any are one-of-a-kind shots that I have to have, I will do my best to fix them. After that, I might work on the family pics, but I often transfer them to another folder to work on when I get home because I hardly ever use them on my blog.

Now I have all the Camera RAW files the way I want them; I have to turn them into JPEGs so they can be uploaded to the web. Luckily for me, there is a wonderful extension for Bridge and Photoshop (and I believe you can use it in Lightroom as well) called Image Processor. All I have to do is select all my five photos and tell Bridge to run them through Image Processor. The extension created a folder called JPEG within my existing folder and turned them all into high-end JPEGs. But I am still not done at this point. This whole process takes about 10 minutes of automated work on 50 photos.

I then open up an amazing piece of software called Topaz Photo AI. This is the most fantastic software ever because it goes through all the photos in the JPEG folder and looks at them to see what might be improved, and then it uses AI to fix them. It is amazing with noise and sharpening. Just amazing. But this takes a little time—about 20 minutes for 50 photos.

Lastly, I have to shrink the photos. I could upload the original Topazed photos, but they are HUGE! The average size of the JPEG file after being run through Topaz is more than 15 megabytes. If I had to upload those size files, I would never have gotten a single picture online to add to the blog. And to see them in all their glory on a digital screen, you don’t need the high resolution. This means that they must be shrunk. To do that, I created a script in Photoshop to do that. It opens the larger file, shrinks it to a smaller size (usually about 2 megabytes) and saves the file. It is quick, and I don’t have to do anything while it runs. Fifty photos take about two minutes. Amazing.

Now I can start writing my post and adding the photos. But when do I do all this on a cruise? First thing in the morning. I am not a big sleeper. I get to sleep right away, but my need for sleep is less than most. I usually get by on six hours. So that means I am generally awake between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. I grab my laptop and head up to the upstairs of the Explorer’s Lounge, sit on one of two couches, take my shoes off, put my feet up and sometimes I process photos and then write and design the post. Hopefully, I get done with it before Kathleen wakes up around 6:30 and texts me that she is up and out of the shower. I also squeeze in some time in the afternoons.

If you liked the photos I posted for this trip, I invite you to take a look at my portfolio. Just click the link in the menu bar above to see my best stuff.

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.  —Aaron Suskin

Sea Day

by | Jun 17, 2024 | Photography

Good day, all! There’s not much to report today as yesterday was a sea day, and I gave my camera the day off except for this photo of a lonely, abandoned oil platform in the North Sea. That’s the only photo I took all day long. (The photo on the top of the page is a pano I took of the Observatory in Greenwich the day before.) But today, we were in Edinburgh, and we had a beautiful sail-in to the port of Rosyth early in the morning, so I hope to have some great pictures for tomorrow.

I want to write a short report about a sea day on Vikings. Yesterday was my 22nd day on a Viking Ocean ship, and it was my first sea day. You see, our cruises in the Med were all port days. So, I had no clue what would happen on a Viking sea day. Yesterday I found out, and the answer is…not a lot. The Daily was full of some lectures, trivia right at lunchtime, some entertainment around the ship, and that’s it. No waterslides, go-carts, ice skating, belly flop competitions, or fully-dressed water volleyball matches against the officers. We got none of that. And that’s why we sail Viking. We aren’t looking for that kind of thing. We wanted what we got. A day of rest (especially for Kathleen and I, who have been on the go for 16 days). It allowed me to work on all those photos I posted yesterday from Greenwich.

Ask me again how I like it in about a week when we have two full days at sea. But in the meantime, we have three straight port days, so I am not sure when you will get the next post about Edinburgh. I need to work on the photos now, so I will sign off and say that the weather here in Edinburgh has been good to us and that as many times as we have been here, we still love this city.

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.  —Jacques Yves Cousteau

London, Lasso, Lunch & A Mystery

by | Jun 14, 2024 | Photography

Yesterday was very different compared to our previous 14 here in the UK. It was our first full day in London. I almost didn’t post about it, but then I decided to use it as an example of how I plan our travels and why I sometimes stress when we are out. I can see plans getting messed up.

So, let’s start with the main goals of the day. One was to tour Richmond, a suburb on London’s far, far west end—beyond the West End you think of when you think of London. The one that’s like Broadway in the USA. That is funny since that other West End is where we wound up late last night. And the biggest problem is that we are staying in Greenwich, a suburb on the far, far, east end of London. And London traffic sucks. I mean really sucks.

If you know me, you know how much I love the television show Ted Lasso. This show literally changed my entire outlook on life. I use it regularly as therapy. If I have a terrible day, I watch an episode or two of Ted Lasso. I love Ted as a TV show as much as I love Princess Bride as a movie. Ted Lasso is set in Richmond, and if we were to come to London, I would have wanted to see Richmond. And I would like to take a Ted Lasso Tour of Richmond. I was able to find a tour company that does tours based on movies here in London called Brit Movie Tours. They have a Harry Potter tour, a Game of Thrones tour, etc. We booked it, which meant I had to coordinate getting us from one extreme end of London to another. It also meant I needed to avoid some of the more usual ways of making the transit. With Kathleen’s back and knees, I had to avoid stairs and a ton of walking, so that meant no Tube. And the idea of a two-hour-plus Uber ride from Greenwich to Richmond was just too much.

To top all this off, we also made plans to see a West End musical last night. So, with the four of us depending on my travel planning expertise, I found some interesting (I think) ways to traverse London, miss a bunch of the traffic, see the city from a different point of view and not kill us in the process…which I almost did. I am saying right now that this schedule was too much, especially for poor Steve and Jamie, who were still mostly in California during this time. Seeing a musical in the West End when their bodies told them it was 4:00 am is not fun. So, in the future, one big thing per day. Not one in the morning and one at night. The night before, I sent the four of us a text with the schedule for the next day. I thought I would show you what it looked like.

Ted Lasso/Theater Day Schedule

  • 7:15 Breakfast
  • 7:55 Take Uber to Greenwich Pier
  • 8:23 Take Uber Boat (RB1) to Blackfriars. 
  • 9:14 Transfer to Putney Boat (RB6) to Putney Pier
  • 9:57 Arrive Putney Pier
  • 10:00 Take Uber to Richmond Station/The Quadrant
  • 11:00 Ted Lasso Tour begins at Richmond Station/The Quadrant
  • 13:00 Ted Lasso Tour ends
  • 13:10 Lunch
  • 14:05 Take Uber Boat (RB6) to Greenwich
  • 15:45 Arrive at Greenwich Pier and take Uber to the hotel
  • Rest and relax for 45 minutes
  • 16:30 Take Uber to Ivy West End (time dependent on traffic) for dinner
  • 17:30 Dinner at Ivy West End
  • 19:30 Kathy and Stella Solve a Mystery at The Ambassador’s Theater
  • 20:00 Take Uber back to the hotel

So, a little explanation. In London, they have a service I had yet to hear of before, The Uber Boat. You book it on your Uber app, you meet it at one of about 30 stops on the Thames, and it takes you from one side of the city to the other on a catamaran-type boat that, in some places, moves pretty fast and in others, not so much.

Of course, the schedule didn’t go perfectly. It was pretty much doing great right through until we were supposed to head to dinner at the West End Ivy. My only complaint (Mulgrew time) was that the second Uber Boat was almost 20 minutes late…but your faithful travel planner had planned that time into the schedule…so we actually arrived at the tour meet-up spot at 10:50 am for an 11:00 a.m. tour. Also, when the second Uber Boat arrived, something was VERY wrong with the sewage system on board. I mean, gaggingly wrong. One of the worst smells I have ever smelt. This meant I sat outside for most of that trip. Luckily, that meant some river-level photos of London. I will let you judge that for yourself. Here are the photos I took on our way west. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Ted Lasso

When we arrived in Richmond on our VERY stinky boat (we actually got off at the furthest west stop, the Putney Pier and then had to take an Uber car to Richmond), we were met by Bruce, who would be our guide to all things Ted Lasso. From this point (if you are not a huge Ted Lasso fan, you can skip forward…and never speak to me again ?), otherwise, here are some photos of the tour and how they relate to the show.

After we finished our Ted Tour, we went off in search of lunch. During the tour, we had walked by this small (really small) Italian place that smelled like a little bit of heaven. Actually, it smelled like Steve and my Italian grandmother’s kitchen on Christmas Eve. We had to go back and see if we could eat there. We could! Sadly, I had eaten much of my lunch before I remembered to take a photo of it. So if you like plates of half-finished pasta, you will love this. Suffice it to say, I inhaled this sucker. One of the best plates of pasta I have ever had.

Then an Uber to the Putney Pier, the Uber Boar (Damn! We got the stinky one again), Uber to the hotel and get ready to go out again.

The Theater

This is where we almost lost it. I had budgeted an hour to get from the hotel to the Ivy Restaurant in the West End, which was across the street from the theater. According to Google Maps, we only needed 45 minutes, but I didn’t build in how long it would take to get an Uber. The ones in the morning had been there in minutes, but when we went to get an Uber to leave at that time, the Uber app told me that the closest driver that would accept our drive was 25 minutes away. To be fair, he was only two miles away, but in the London traffic, it took him 25 minutes to get to us. Seriously, 25 minutes to go two miles. By the time he got to us, we were already 10 minutes behind schedule. My biggest fear was that they would give our table to someone else, and since I had booked them through Open Table, I didn’t have contact info to reach them to let them know we were on our way.

Thankfully, our driver made a better time than we thought he would, arriving only 14 minutes after our reservation—a good thing because they only hold them for 15 minutes. We got to the desk, and I overheard the hostess tell people in front of us that the next open table was at 9:15 p.m. But our table was waiting, and we had a great meal before we adjourned to the theater just across the street.

What did we go see? Well, when you want to see a show in the West End, you pretty much have three choices. One is one of the older, established shows like Phantom, Mama Mia, or Wicked or the longest-running play in history—Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap, which has been playing continuously in the same theater since 1951. Seriously, Kathleen and I saw it there in 2003. It’s still going strong. We really wanted to see something new, so this one was out.

Your second choice is the new shows, which have limited runs and famous actors starring in them. We would have loved one of these, but they sell out in minutes if not seconds.

We went with the third choice, a new musical. Lots of them open and don’t do well. Some open for the first time in the West End and do GREAT. Lion King comes to mind. The one that we could get decent seats to is a brand-new musical about two girls with a murder podcast. It’s called…

...Solve a Murder! And it was a hoot. Great music and a superb cast of seven who kept us laughing and crying for 2.5 hours (with an interval) and a fun plot. We really enjoyed it, and Steve actually made it through without falling asleep for too long. I am truly sorry I forced them to have this long day when they weren’t fully recovered from their jet lag. After that it was just back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. As I write this we are waiting until 10:45 a.m. to check out of the hotel and head to Viking Venus for the second half of our journey. More tomorrow.

There’s nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.  —Vivienne Westwood

 

#1 in My Beautiful Book

by | Jun 12, 2024 | Food Experiences, Photography

We have been to a lot of places. At last count, we have visited 52 countries. Norway next week will be our 53rd. Up until this trip, I was utterly convinced that the most beautiful place in the world is New Zealand. We were blown away by the incredible views of nature when we visited on our trip Down Under in 2009. 

But after this trip, I have changed my mind. Scotland is the MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE on earth. Seriously—have you seen my photos? Of course, I don’t mean the cities as much as the country overall. I was becoming increasingly convinced as we traveled through the countryside, but when we went through Glencoe the other day, I realized this was it. The most beautiful place on earth…at least for me. I know that many of you would prefer a warmer climate, but for me, give me the constantly changing weather of Scotland.

I say this with the knowledge that we live in the Pacific Northwest, where the natural beauty is also amazing, but it’s what man has done that has tarnished Seattle and the Northwest for me. All of the places we have been I can never remember saying to myself, WOW and WOW and WOW, so often.

So, let’s sum up our trip so far and give you some honest recommendations about hotels and restaurants.

First, this has been an awesome trip so far, marred by only my catching a cold. And I am thrilled to say that other than an early-morning cough and a slightly runny nose, I am cured. We have had the best time. Where we stayed and what we ate had a lot to do with that so here’s a recap and recommendations.

Lodging

Nights 1-3: Leeds, England

  • Hotel: Howard Bed and Breakfast—Leeds
    • Bed: Excellent
    • Room size: Great, but no closet space left for us to use ?.
    • Hosts: The best of the trip. They not only took great care of us at the B&B, but they picked us up at the train station and then later toured us all over Yorkshire and took us back to the train station. 
    • Breakfasts: Excellent and plentiful.
    • What they did best: They made us feel like we were part of the family.
    • Things they could improve: Less stinky cheese.
    • Problems you will have in staying there: You can’t book this place. You have to become friends with owners, and then you stay at their house, they stay at yours, you cruise all over the world with them, and then you get to stay there…again.
    • Would we stay there again? Only if the hosts from there come to see us first. It’s their turn.

 

Nights 4-5 and 11-12: Glasgow, Scotland

  • Hotel: Grasshoppers
    • Bed: Subpar on the first part of our stay and better on the second. The first bed we had needed to be replaced. When you sat on the edge of it, it felt like you would slide right off. On their website, they call their beds, “kings.” Not by US standards. They are basic queens to us. We sleep in a king at home. This is NOT a king.
    • Room size: First stay, a typical small European experience. Second, stay in a bigger room that we liked a lot better. Both bathrooms were the same, adequate size.
    • Hosts: The people there were very helpful. We had to have our keys remade about six or eight times, and they never complained. Not sure why I had such problems with my keys but it might be my magnetic personality ?.
    • Breakfasts: Excellent and plentiful. Complete choice of everything you could want for breakfast, from baked beans to granola. They did have the BEST whole grain bread for toast. I could eat that by the loaf. The only fall down here was cold plates. It would be best if you never had to put their excellent scrambled eggs on cold plates. 
    • What they did best: For me, it’s their location. Since they are above Glasgow’s Central Station, we got off the train, walked out of the station, around the corner, went up to the sixth floor, and we were there. When we left to come down to London, we walked out of our room at 10:00 am, and we were on the train at 10:15. Try that in an airport. They also had the absolute BEST water pressure on this trip and great bath towels—big and absorbent. I could still be in the shower if we hadn’t had to catch the train. Did I mention the free, always-available cakes and ice creams?
    • Things they could improve: Use hot plates in the breakfast room. And get a new mattress in 603.
    • Problems you will have in staying there: Book early. But realize they don’t open booking until six months prior. By that time, I had all the other hotels on this trip booked. Also, please note that the entrance at street level is difficult—a few steps to climb to get into the building before you get to the elevator. Tough with heavy luggage. 
    • Would we stay there again? If we were going back to Glasgow by train, we would. Doubt that will happen but you never know. We can recommend Grasshoppers very highly.

Nights 6-7: Oban, Scotland

  • Hotel: The Manor House 
    • Bed: Just fine, but a “double bed,” not even a Queen. Keep that in mind. It was cozy.
    • Room size: A typical small European experience in a historic inn. The bathrooms were adequate in size, but because of the dormers on the roof, the shower ceiling was very low.
    • Hosts: The incredible David took such great care of us. When he learned we would be missing breakfast due to a tour, he made us a sack lunch we could take with us. Both nights, we were regaled with stories over a round of whisky.
    • Breakfasts: Due to our early tour on the first morning, we only ate breakfast once. It was just fine, if a little fancy. When I am out on vacation and may miss lunch, I prefer a heartier breakfast. Theirs left much to be desired in terms of quantity. Worst bread of the trip. The toast was like eating warm Wonder Bread.  
    • What they did best: One word: David. He made our visit.
    • Things they could improve: It shocked me at breakfast in the classiest hotel we stayed in to be given the flimsiest paper napkins I have ever seen. Kleenex tissues have more substance. For a place like this not to have linen napkins? No excuse. They could also get better bathroom linens. Of all the places we stayed, these were the worst. 
    • Problems you will have staying there: If you are tall like me, book a ground floor room. The dormers in the upstairs mean that the showers in the bathroom will have no headroom. Not only did I have to bend over in the shower (no jokes here please) but I kept banging my hands into the ceiling when I was trying to apply shampoo.
    • Would we stay there again? Yes, but only if David is still there and we have a downstairs room.

Nights 8-10: Portree, Scotland

  • Hotel: Balintoy Bed and Breakfast
    • Bed: Excellent.
    • Room size: The biggest room we stayed in on this trip. We loved all the extra room. It is well laid out and well furnished. 
    • Hosts: As good as David was at the Manor House, Gillian positively affected our entire trip. She is the best. We corresponded before the trip, and she gave us some great advice that paid off while we were there. She’s the one who told us to book restaurants at least three months early. I can’t stress enough that you need to do this. She was exactly right. She also would check in with us at breakfast every morning about what we were doing that day and the best way to get there. She became less of a host and more of a friend as the three days passed. She always asked about our touring and dining on the previous day so she could pass the knowledge on to future guests. 
    • Breakfasts: Excellent. Done as a light buffet. And the BEST COFFEE on the entire trip. Strong and hot. She brought an entire French Press to our table…just for us. We always emptied it.  
    • What they did best: One word: Gillian. We also loved the location. It was about a mile from downtown, so it was very quiet but still easy to get to. 
    • Things they could improve: Not much. But one little thing that would be an easy fix—some small shelf in the shower, please. Lining up our shampoo, conditioner and soap on the shower floor was a pain. Just a hanging rack from the shower head would work. See how minor that is? This place was great.
    • Problems you will have in staying there: It took a bit of back and forth to make the reservation. I do wish that the Balintoy took credit cards, but they only accept cash or bank transfers. With much help from Gillian, we finally got the bank transfer thing to work. I still prefer having the safety of a creed card. 
    • Would we stay there again? You bet we would—in a minute.

Dining

Because of Gillian’s recommendations, I booked restaurant tables for dinner every night we were in Scotland other than the one night we did our 15-hour tour in Oban. I couldn’t get any restaurant to book after 8:00 p.m. and we couldn’t be sure we would be off the ferry by then. As it turned out we weren’t off until around 8:30 p.m. and there was nowhere that still had a kitchen open (It’s a small town).

Nights 1-3: Leeds, England

  • Night one: Howard Bed and Breakfast—Leeds
    • Delicious chicken dish. Lots of other great stuff to go with it.
  • Night two: Murgatroyds—Leeds
    • Really good Fish and Chips. Kind of a big family restaurant out by the airport. The fish was excellent. I am tired of chips. But I wasn’t when we had these, but could someone make crispy, thinner chips… please?
  • Day three: Lunch at the Wensleydale Heifer in Wensleydale
    •  had eaten dinner at the Heifer when we last visited Paul and Gail, and it was just as good then as it was this time. A HUGE lunch. Absolutely would go again, and you should too if you are ever in the area.
  • Day three: Howard Bed and Breakfast—Leeds
    • Dinner was just cheese, crackers, olives. No one wanted anything more. But then they brought out the stinky cheese. If you eat there, skip that.

Nights 4-5 and 11-12: Glasgow, Scotland

  • Night one: Banca di Roma
    • One of the best meals on the trip. How much did we like it? We went back again on Day 11. It was a nice break from local food to have some high-end Italian. Best appetizer of the trip. A four-item dish with some of the best chicken I have ever had. I have to learn how to make it. For entrées, Kathleen had eggplant parm, I had a bolognese sauce made from octopus. Not as good as it sounded but still delicious. 
  • Night two: The Ivy Cafe-Glasgow
    • Fun and quirky. Delicious shepherd’s pie. We would eat there again. We are eating at another Ivy with the same basic menu in London tomorrow night.
  • Day ten: Ardnamurchan
    • This place identifies itself as a “traditional Scottish restaurant.” That does not mean you have to eat haggis. I had a venison stew which is one of the two best meals I had on this trip. It tasted like candy…it was that good. My lovely wife had a lamb shank and I got to taste it. It was also amazing…but not as good as my stew.
  • Day eleven: Banca di Roma
    • See my note above. Still, the best appetizer we had. This time we had an entrée for two that was a delicious pasta dish but they gave us way too much.

Nights 6-7: Oban, Scotland

  • Night six: Ee-Usk
    • Even though it has a really different name, this place was outstanding. Kathleen had the halibut and I had a seafood salad that had more seafood than salad.
  • Night seven: No place
    • We couldn’t find anywhere to eat after we got off the ferry at 8:30 p.m. so we starved to death. The rest of this trip was finished by our doppelgängers.

Nights 8-10: Portree, Scotland

  • Night eight: The Antlers Inn
    • Just a good place for a quick meal. We had a big lunch in Mallaig so we just wanted to have a quick bite. This place was perfect. The best thing about dinner was the great service and the talk we had about the awesome music with the servers. It was a fun and memorable night. One of those you love to have when you are traveling. 
  • Night nine: The Rosedale Inn
    • As good as the seafood salad at Ee-Usk was, the seafood linguine at the Rosedale was better. And Kathleen had a gnocchi that rocked. It has sweet potatoes in the sauce and it made it taste just perfect.
  • Night ten: The View Restaurant
    • This place was tied for the best restaurant with the Banca di Roma. It has a gorgeous view (of course it did) but the food was amazing. The bread service came with an unexpected surprise—pickled walnuts. They are awesome! I immediately thought I needed to make it myself but when I looked up the recipe it turns out it takes A MONTH TO MAKE IT because the walnuts have to ferment. I think I will just buy it by the jar on Amazon. Our entrées were also amazing. Kathleen had the chicken which she really liked and I had “shins of beef and spring garlic risotto.” WOW! To find this kind of food this far north in such a small town was phenomenal. 

That about covers the food and lodging. Just a few more kudos to award. Except for some photos of the dishes of renown. Enjoy and feel free to look at these on your phone. That’s what I used to take them.

Best Scotland surprises:

  • How well I adjusted to driving on the “other” side of the road. The first couple of days Kathleen was freaking out because I was driving to close to the left curb. But after some much-needed direction from her I wised up and things improved. Until the last day when I actually bumped a curb with my rear left tire. I think it jumped out at me ?. 
  • How awesome the food was. Be honest, when you think of British and Scottish food, you don’t think of great cuisine, right? Well, that changed for me on this trip. All our food was amazing…except the chips.
  • How incredibly beautiful Scotland is. I knew it was beautiful, but WOW! There, I said it again.
  • How small Scotland is. Getting from one place to another took us no time at all. We were able to drive almost two-thirds of the country in six hours or so.. Try that in California and you will still be in California and have a ways to go.
  • How many fewer tourists we saw compared to what we expected. Pretty much every day (except returning from Portree to Glasgow) the traffic was just fine. Sometimes the car parks could be a little full but the downtowns of Oban and Portree were not that crowded. 
  • There were no midges. The pest of Scotland did not show up. We brought midge spray, we planned to wear dark clothes so as not to attract them, we did our research but no midges. Kathleen thinks that’s because the wind was always blowing and the temps stayed low.
  • The Scottish weather and how fast it changed. You could literally be in bright sun one minute and two minutes later be in pouring rain. And it kept going back and forth for the entire trip. On most days (as you can see in my photos) I had plenty of great weather to shoot in. In fact, I preferred the big fluffy clouds to a flat blue sky. We are so happy we are doing this trip and not the Med where the temps have soared into the 100s this week.

Biggest bad surprises:

  • How many people in Scotland (especially Glasgow) still smoke. It was everywhere. Every doorway, every street corner, and every place we went (thankfully not indoors) there were people smoking. We know that people smoke more in Europe than in our Pacific Northwest but this was much worse than we had seen in Greece, Italy and Spain two years ago. 

The one Scottish experience I never want to have again:

  • Trying to use the facilities on a 30-foot boat moving 25 knots an hour on a water surface with six-foot swells. I still don’t believe I survived that with my body intact. A close second would be waiting for a city bus for two hours in downtown Tobermory.

The one Scottish experience I really would love to have again:

  • This is a toss-up between my experience shooting the puffins on Lunga and just driving through Glencoe. After struggling through Fort William traffic I almost told Kathleen that we should just bag Glencoe and drive back to Glasgow by the shortest route. Thank heavens I didn’t.

For me, this sums up Scotland: beauty everywhere, great weather and wonderful people. I am happy to be married to a woman of Scottish ancestry so we have an excuse to come back someday…I hope. I would truly hate to think I won’t see the beautiful place again.

I am attached to the west coast of Scotland – it’s gorgeous to look at and challenging. You have to contend with the possibility of being blown away or rained on. And in the summer months, you can be eaten alive by midges.  —Clive Anderson 

One Last Day in Glasgow

by | Jun 11, 2024 | Photography

Before I start, I have to tell you about the photo above. This is the view out our hotel room window here at Grasshoppers in Glasgow. The hotel sits on the sixth floor above the Glasgow Central Rain Station. Those panels in the foreground that look like solar panels are actually skylights in the station below. Across from our room, we think those are apartments, but we aren’t sure anyone lives there as we have never seen any movement and only one light, and that’s a work light. But no matter what they are, we found the whole thing very interesting, and I had to include a shot of the view, now on with the actual post.

When doing our planning almost a year ago, Kathleen and I had discussed how much time we wanted to spend in Glasgow. We have been to Edinburgh three times in the past and have spent about seven days total there. We could easily spend three or four more and still not have seen or done everything we would like to. It is one of my favorite cities in the world.

So when discussing Glasgow, we decided we wanted at least two full days here along with the transition days when we came up from England, before we drove north, when we got back from up north, and today…when we take the train to London. We thought that two full days would make us want to come back again. In retrospect, one day would have been enough. We found Glasgow kind of boring. Yes, it has a very nice hotel, some great restaurants and beautiful murals, but to be honest, that’s about it.

I mentioned on our first full day that we had taken the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour. Usually, when we do that, we take the entire tour and then return to the places we want to see again. We didn’t go back to anyplace. Just nothing intrigued us enough. There were a few things I wanted to walk to and take photos of, but I got those (show them to you in a minute) but; looking back on it, if I were planning this trip again, we would have stayed an extra day in Portree or gone up to Inverness (even though we have been there before) and then driven back, dropped the car and taken the train to London the next morning.

I am not dissing Glasgow—it’s just not our cup of tea. It is a grimier, more industrial city than Edinburgh and seems to be centered on shopping and museums. Edinburgh is a museum. I could walk the Royal Mile for hours. I am looking forward to stopping there next Monday during the cruise.

Now, on to the walk I took with my camera and the photos. After breakfast at the hotel, we went out to do a bit of shopping. Kathleen had forgotten to bring a hat, and since we are headed to the part of Norway that is beyond the Arctic Circle by the end of next week, she thought she might need one. So we were off to find her a nice, warm knit hat. Found it. Back at the hotel, I dropped Kathleen off, and I was out for a five-mile walk. Have camera, will travel. But first, here are a few pics while she and I were out walking that I liked.

The one place I had seen on our bus tour I wanted to explore more of was the Cathedral and the Necropolis. In case you don’t know exactly what a necropolis is, the dictionary that’s built into my Mac says that it’s “a cemetery, especially a large one, belonging to an ancient city.” Why did I want to see this necropolis, you ask? Well, a few years ago (quite a few years), we were huge fans of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, a native Glaswegian. As a special program, Craig brought a few guests (Kristen Bell, Michael Clark Duncan) to his hometown and filmed a great deal of the special in the necropolis. I don’t know why I recalled that, but I do remember that it looked quite interesting, so I decided I had to see it, and since it was right behind the cathedral, I figured I might as well see that too.

Along the way to and from, I saw more of the incredible murals that Glasgow is famous for, and I wanted better shots of them than I had been able to get off the top of the bus. So here are the pics with captions. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That’s about it for our last day here in Glasgow. As I write this, I am sitting in the “sitting room” at Grasshoppers Hotel, looking out the windows at the view I started this post with. It’s 5:45 a.m., and Kathleen (like most normal humans) is asleep. We have tickets on the 10:18 a.m. train to London right downstairs. In fact, if I listen very carefully, I can hear them announcing the next train. It’s really kind of cool. I think I will leave you with one final photo. This is a panoramic shot from inside the station itself. Our room is above those windows on the left. I LOVE European train stations. For some reason, they just do it for me.  And since we will have more than four hours on a train from that station, watch later today for a summary of our time in England and Scotland.

The great thing about Glasgow is that if there’s a nuclear attack it’ll look exactly the same afterwards.  —Billy Connolly