Greetings from Greenwich

by | Jun 16, 2024 | Uncategorized

When we first found out we were embarking from Greenwich, I thought it was kind of cool—almost right in the heart of London. When we arrived in our Welcome Pickups car, our driver got there the fastest way he knew, but sadly, that was by driving through the worst parts of Greenwich. Neighborhoods that were crumbling, covered with graffiti and about every other shop looked vacant.

But once we arrived at the hotel, the rest of the village was spread out in front of us. Behind the hotel were the parts we had driven through; in front of the hotel was the section most visitors would tour, and they kept that in very nice condition. I don’t think I have mentioned what hotel we stayed in pre-cruise. We had chosen the DoubleTree by Hilton at London Greenwich. Why this hotel? Decent-looking rooms, decent reviews and about half the price of a downtown London hotel. Plus, I prefer being near the port so we can get there on the embarkation day without too much trouble. The hotel turned out to be very nice and a good value. We got our rooms with breakfast, which was a buffet and very good. The shower in our room left much to be desired. It was much too short for the rain shower head above, and the hand-held shower head hit me directly in the face and could not be moved to another position. Poor marks for that, but otherwise, it is very nice, and I would recommend it. I did mention not renting the room to tall people (because my brother had no problem in his room, and he is six inches taller than me), and they got back to me and said that was a great idea. Kudo for the response as well.

Back to our Viking Day in Greenwich. We were up early because our excursion needed to meet in the Star Theater at 8:00 am. And we weren’t even on the earliest excursion. We had chosen to do the included Viking excursion, just because it was included. For those of you who have not cruised with Viking, they include a shore excursion in every port. On our Med cruise in 2022, we weren’t impressed with any of the included tours we took. They are almost always one of two types—either a walking tour of a place close to the ship or tender port or a “panoramic” tour of the countryside. When you read a Viking description that says “panoramic,” you should immediately know that much of our tour will be by bus…or, in Viking speak, a “luxury motor coach.”

The wonderful Cosette…or if you didn’t like the tour, Sue.

Our Greenwich tour was a walking tour. Kathleen was still worn out and suffering from our Ted Lasso tour, so she decided to stay on the ship. Steve, Jamie & I went along. My plan was to take off on my own if the guide was anything like the ones we had had in the Med—talked so much it was like they were paid by the word. As our Med cruise went on, I started doing that. I would walk with the group until I was bored and then walk off on my own to take photos. I had usually researched the port enough to know what I wanted to see. This one was different. Our tour guide’s name was Cosette (like in Les Mis), and she was excellent. Just the right amount of comments, just the right amount of humor and moved at the right speed. When it was over, I told her I thought it was the best “included” Viking excursion I had ever been on. She walked us all over two miles worth of Greenwich, and we learned a lot. And I got lots of photos. She was also very good about telling us where you could go after the tour (due to time limitations, these were places she couldn’t take us), and that really helped me pick out places I wanted to shoot. So, I did the entire tour and then walked back to see the places she couldn’t take us and got the other shots I wanted.

Speaking of shooting, here are my morning tour photos. I hope you like them. Don’t forget: If you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And please…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Darn! I almost forgot. While I was at the Observatory, I took a screenshot of my phone’s compass. Check this out. I am at exactly 0 longitude, facing due north.

Then it was back on the ship, and Steve and Jamie met friends from Norwich for lunch at the local brewery. Kathleen and I grabbed lunch and I spent the afternoon writing the post you got yesterday and processing photos.

We had dinner in the World Cafe. They were doing a “English Dinner” featuring many dishes we had eaten at the Wensleydale Heifer and enjoyed at Paul and Gail’s. There was roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, trifle, treacle and lots more. It was good but nowhere near as good as the Howard’s B&B or the Heifer.

After dinner, it was time to sail out. The ship was scheduled to sail down the Thames to the sea starting at 7:45. While we were eating dinner, the Captain and three pilots sat down at the table next to us. We knew it was time to go when they stood up from dinner.

Leaving Greenwich differs from any sail away we have done in 35+ cruises. Usually, the seamen will slip the ropes and pull them in, and off you go. In Greenwich, because there is no pier and the ship is anchored in the middle of the river, it is moored to five huge buoys that are anchored to the river bottom. To bring in the ropes and untie the ship, a crew has to get onto each mooring buoy and untie the ropes. That became a long and entertaining process for those of us taking photos. I have a few shots to show you what I am talking about.

After they finally got the lines off the ship, we were underway, and the sail out was very different. We were led out by both a pilot boat and a big tug. The best part of the sail out was getting to photograph the entire trip on the Thames. We went through the Thames Barrier (used to control the tides), passed another cruise ship , and went past the 02 tent and lots of parts of eastern London. I will let my pics give you the rest of the story on the sail out. 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 concluded last night. By the time we were down the river, it was close to 10:00 p.m., and that was way past my bedtime. So it was off to bed. I needed to rest up to do everything I wanted to do today on the first sea day we had ever expierienced on a Viking ship.

The Thames is liquid history. —John Burns

 

 

 

 

Viking Venus…We have embarked!

by | Jun 15, 2024 | Uncategorized

Yesterday was our embarkation day on Viking Venus. This 14-night cruise will take us to three additional ports in Great Britain and five ports in Norway, including the one way up north on the map (that I can’t spell and would take 20 minutes to try and get right) deep inside the Arctic circle.

Embarkation was a piece of cake. If you are taking a cruise with Viking from Greenwich, you tell the driver to take you to “the Cutty Sark.” This ship (which is on dry land) is directly in front of where you want to be dropped off. If you are coming on a coach, you will be about half a block from where you are if you are dropped by a car. You will be right at this spot as soon as you are out of your car. Two or three Viking people will take your luggage and send you to the next Viking person, who will be about halfway to the Cutty Sark. From there, you turn right and head into the back of the building directly next to the Cutty Sark. Inside, you get your sea pass card, and they send you to the “tender” that takes you to the ship. All along the way (about every 10 feet) there is a Viking person in red telling you where to go next. It is impossible to get lost.

Thankfully, Viking does not use its lifeboats at Greenwich as tenders. Instead, it hires the same type of boat we took yesterday—the Uber Boats (aka The Thames Clippers). Each boat holds about 200 people in decent seats. The best part is that the entire trip from dock to ship takes about five minutes. From the time we got out of our taxis until we were onboard, it was less than 20 minutes. Impressive.

Before I tell you the next step in embarkation, I would like to mention taxis and Ubers. We had been using Uber for everything on this trip until we checked out of the hotel to head to the ship. Because we needed room for our luggage we decided to take two cars, so we thought, why not ask the hotel to get us a taxi. Not a great plan. The day before, when we headed to the Ted Lasso Tour, we left the hotel and took an Uber to the Cutty Sark, where we boarded the Uber Boat. The total charge by Uber for four of us (UberXL) was $6.43, or about £5. When we took the taxis at the same exact distance later in the day, the charge was £13 for Kathleen and me and £20 for Steve and Jamie! WTF??? (Please excuse my French.) And we thought we would get one of those nice London Black Cabs you see everywhere, but I am pretty sure the hotel desk person called his relatives because two guys showed up who barely spoke English and had VERY ratty cars. Our driver even had a hard time finding the Cutty Sark/cruise terminal, even though it is less than a mile away as well as being the biggest taxi destination in Greenwich. So beware! Take an Uber. Download and learn the app before you go.

Once we finished our short tender/ferry ride, we were on the ship which is still moored in the center of the Thames. I need to mention here…keep your sea pass cards in your hands. We had to show the at least six times between the pier, the tender and the ship. It was crazy. Not bad, just crazy. Once onboard, they sent us to deck two forward to the Star Theater for our quick life jacket demonstration. One of the young entertainers showed us how our life jackets worked and then told us that once we were in our rooms, we should watch the video on our TV and then answer a question at the end of the video. By the time we finished that, it was 11:45. We had left the hotel at 10:50, so we were at lunch in the World Cafe (buffet) by noon. That’s what I call a great embarkation. We finished our lunch (the food was excellent) and headed forward to our favorite place on the ship, The Explorer’s Lounge. We sat down and had a single drink, and they announced that all staterooms were ready at 1:00 pm. Exactly as promised.

We have precisely the same stateroom as we had on Viking Sky two years ago in the Mediterranean—5030. It was like coming home. It’s a Penthouse Verandah, which is slightly bigger than your standard verandah stateroom—338 square feet as opposed to 270 square feet. Besides our one-time upgrade to a Neptune Suite on HAL and our stateroom on Celebrity’s Flora in the Galapagos, this is the nicest stateroom we have ever been in. After three weeks in the Med in this room, we feel we are back home again. BTW: we weren’t actually in this room because we were on Viking Sky, and now we are on Viking Venus. But Viking builds all their ocean ships to be pretty much exactly the same, so if you have been in one of their staterooms, you can be very confident that you will have the same one on another of their ships.

We were in the stateroom for a very short time when our luggage arrived. This, too, was pretty impressive since it had to come over by barge. It was not far, but still, it had to be put on and taken off a barge. When the luggage got there, we quickly unpacked, took all our dirty laundry and headed to the deck 5 laundry! YEAH! Clean clothes. We were the first ones there and started two loads immediately. After two weeks on the road, it was great to have 99% of all the clothes I had with me, clean and dry. If you have not used Viking’s laundry before, There is one on pretty much every deck with staterooms. The washing and drying are free, as is detergent. So you pop them in, set a timer on your watch, go back to your stateroom and then return to change them or bring them back. We were sure glad we got there first because there were a lot of people like us who had been in the country for a few days or, in our case, weeks and needed clean clothes.

After laundry, Kathleen took a quick nap, and I headed to the Promenade deck to do a little walking. The Promenade Deck on a Viking ship is deck 2. And four times around, it is a mile. I did a quick three so I could shower and be up in the World Cafe for dinner by 6:15. It felt great to get out and walk for exercise. We have been walking a lot, but you saunter when you walk on a tour. When I walk on the  Promenade Deck, I walk for speed. And I love that the Viking Ocean ships have a deck that goes completely around the ship.

We had dinner at the World Cafe (buffet), and the food was excellent. Contributing to my happiness was finding an entire seafood section of the buffet, where they had mussels, seafood salads, poke, halibut ceviche and more. All of it was delicious. Throw in a roll and two breadsticks, and I was all set. So far, through two lunches, a dinner and a breakfast, the food has been delicious.

After dinner, I got kind of Victor Mildrew again because, by this point, it was 8:00 p.m., and our room wasn’t made up; we had not met our stateroom attendant(s). To top it off, Steve texted and told me that our excursion for the morning (today) was at 8:00 a.m., but my excursion ticket said 8:30. The ticket also said to check the meeting place in the Viking Daily. The only problem was that since our room had not been changed over, we didn’t have a Viking Daily yet. But never fear; there is one in the Viking app. So we go our phones and look up the excursion to see where we were supposed to meet, and it said, “Check your ticket for the time and place of the tour.” We went back to the ticket, and it said, “Check the Viking Daily.” WTF? (Again, please excuse my French). So I called the Explorer Desk that handles shore excursions, and she told me that “you can find the time and meeting place in the Viking Daily.” I explained to her that we don’t have a printed copy yet, but we had checked the Viking Daily on the Viking app. She tells me, “Oh, don’t bother with that. The app is hardly ever correct.” Seriously? Then why have it? We finally got it all figured out, and we went on the excursion. More about that tomorrow. Today I just want to get this online.

Tonight, we sail for Edinburgh at around 7:00. This should be a great sail out as we are pretty far up the Thames. Our guide told us today that when she does big ship tours, the closest they can dock to London is Tilbury, a 90-minute drive to Greenwich. That’s three hours total in both directions. YIKES! I don’t care if it is on a “luxury motor coach;” no thanks!

We start our cruise with an overnight here in London/Greenwich, so that means later, I will have some port info for you as well. I just wanted this one to be about our embarkation.

BTW: we did finally meet our stateroom attendant and his assistant, and as Kathleen and I both believe, their tardiness in getting to meet us and turn our room over has much less to do with them than it does that they have more than 30 staterooms to take care of. When we started cruising, most stateroom attendants handled 10 or 12. I am not sure how Viking (or any cruise line) expects them to be able to meet that many guests between boarding and bed that night. Another case of staff shrinkage.

One last thing. On our previous Viking cruise (21 nights in the Med), I had a real problem with the beds on Viking Sky. Well, I am VERY happy to report that the beds on Viking Venus are wonderful. I slept like a baby last night. I didn’t wake up until 6:15, which is late for me. YEAH!

You can find tranquility, you can find party, you can find new friends. I’m a cruise convert.  —Guy Fieri

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