Driving Back to Glasgow

by | Jun 11, 2024 | Photography

This post will be short. Mainly, because I didn’t expect to write it. I thought that yesterday (Monday) was just going to be a long car trip from Portree to Glasgow. And that’s how it was for our first three hours. Until we got through Fort William and turned to take a different route than we had come north on. We wanted to go through what is supposed to be one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland—Glencoe. BTW: When we stopped for lunch before we entered the actual Glencoe area, we saw some red deer. Here’s their three pics I got.

There are a lot of historical facts about Glencoe. It was the sight of a battle and a massacre and other stuff but for me, it will just have to be about the beauty. I am going to shut up now and show you Glencoe. We could only pull over for photos three times but suffice it to say that the rest of what you aren’t seeing was maybe even more beautiful. We just kept turning corners and saying, “Oh, my god!”

Here’s the pics. 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 it for tonight. I am just trying to catch up. Fell a day behind when we saw the puffins. We got into Glasgow and checked into our hotel last night. Had a nice dinner and then off to bed. Up today where I did a photo walk around Glasgow. We are back from dinner and about to sleep before we get up tomorrow and take the train to London to meet our usual traveling companions, my brother Steve and his wife Jamie. We will also be meeting new/old friends, Julie and Jamie, who are doing the cruise with us. I say new/old because Julie and I went to high school together back in Palm Springs (Class of 1971—go Indians!) but we haven’t seen each other in 50+ years. We have not met her husband Jamie but it should be fun having two Jamies on a cruise together.

I hope to do two posts tomorrow. An early morning one to round up my shots in Glasgow today and then one while we are on the train as a kind of a summary of Scotland—the highs and lows (not too many of those) so to speak. I will try and get that out before we are off the train. Depends on how good the rolling WiFi is. It’s a four-hour and 40-minute train ride so I will have plenty of time if the internet cooperates.

There are few places in my life that I’ve found more ruggedly beautiful than the Highlands of Scotland. The place is magical – it’s so far north, so remote, that sometimes it feels like you’ve left this world and gone to another.  —Julia London

 

Castles & Coos

by | Jun 11, 2024 | Photography

First, THE castle

On Sunday morning we again woke early at the Balintoy. We enjoyed one of Gillian’s great breakfasts (she makes a GREAT cup of coffee) and headed out to find two things—an extraordinary castle and coos.

A little Scottish history, as I understand it. In Scotland,  you have clans (extended families) and you have castles. Many of the clans had what is known as an “ancestral home.” For instance, the castle I wrote about two days ago in Armadale (where we had to run from the rain) was the ancestral home of the McDonald clan.

If you are not aware, my wonderful bride is of Scottish descent. Her mother was part of the McCray clan. The ancestral home of the McCray/MacRae clan is a castle you have undoubtedly seen numerous times in photos and films. It is, in all likelihood, Scotland’s most famous castle. It has been in multiple movies (a couple of James Bond films and a rom-com with Patrick Dempsey called “Maid of Honor”), and if it is not the most famous, it is undoubtedly the most photographed. Only Stirling Castle and possibly Edinburgh Castle are more famous but not more photogenic.

So, we needed to make a pilgrimage to Kathleen’s ancestral home. We had been to Eilean Donan in 2003 on our second trip to Europe and our first to Scotland. That was in November, and it was cold and rainy. We were looking forward to seeing it in June with better skies and to see if they had changed anything since we had been there before.

It took us about two hours to get there because, of course, there were things along the way I had to stop and take photos of to show you the incredible beauty that is Scotland. For instance, here’s our stops…another mountain, another waterfall and a vista that rocked.

We finally did arrive at Eileen Donan, and WHAT A ZOO! When we were here in 2003, we paid for entry (It was a small donation of a couple of pounds) and toured the two rooms that were available to view inside the castle. Most people stopped on the road across from the castle and took a photo. While we were there in 2003, we talked to one of the docents who toured us through the rooms, and she said they had expansion plans someday. No kidding.

When we pulled into the car park today (see, I have stopped calling it a parking lot already), there were already more than one hundred cars there. When we got to the brand new Visitor’s Center, gift shop, and restaurant building, we paid our £14 per person admission (and that was senior pricing) to tour the castle. You would think McCrays would get in free ?. On the way to said building, we must have passed more than 200 people.

Of course, I took a BUNCH of photos of Scotland’s most photogenic castle. Eileen Donan sits at the intersection of three lochs (Loch Long, Loch Duich and Loch Alsh), so it has played a significant role in protecting much of Scottish real estate. And it is the position of the castle, on a tiny island at the intersection of these lochs, that makes it so photogenic. So, without further ado, I have for you here my ground-level take on Eilean Donan. 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…

I would love to show you photos of the inside, but there are numerous signs and numerous docents telling you NO! Suffice it to say it combines Scottish history and Pirates of the Caribbean. Many documents, artifacts and exhibits mixed in with kitchen scenes with mannequins dressed in period clothes trying to stop dishes from falling off a shelf. Seriously. Let’s say some of it went a bit too far. And getting through the place took some time as it was PACKED! Nothing like our November 2003 visit when we had been the only ones there. I am glad to see them so prosperous, but I am also sad to see people treating it as the Scottish version of Disneyland.

Once we had toured the interior of the castle, we went to the restaurant and grabbed a latte and some Scottish shortbread. Then it was off to the gift shop to find the first coo we were to see that day. You see, we were on a hunt for two kinds of coo. One would be a tiny piece of pottery and the other a full-size coo. We got both. The first one we found was in the gift shop. Whew!

Kathleen had seen a very cute ceramic coo at the Balintoy. And when we asked Gillian where she had purchased them, she was pretty sure she had done that at a pottery shop in Uig. The same Uig where we had had lunch the day before. She said it was on the backside of the big car park. We had parked on the front side of the big car park and never seen it. That meant if we didn’t find it in downtown Portree or someplace else, we were driving the 50-mile round trip to Uig to get one. Sadly, we didn’t find it in the Eilean Donan gift shop. Thankfully, Kathleen found one she liked even better!!!! Check that off our list. Now we just need to find the real thing—a live coo.

In researching the trip in Scottish FaceBook groups I had learned that there was a little-known place you could drive up to on a tiny one-lane road to take a photo from above the castle. We asked one of the car park attendants and he was nice enough to give us explicit directions (but swore us to secrecy) and off we went. His directions were right on the money and these photos are the result. My best shots of the castle— either this year or in 2003.

When we were up at the top we had one of those fun travel experiences. The night before we had seen a group of six people eating in the Rosedale when we were having dinner. We could tell by their accents they were Americans. And where should we run into them again? At the top of this hill. They admitted they had not found out the location from the secret guy in the car park but that their guide (who we got to meet) had driven them there. We talked and joked and I took their group photo and the guide was a huge help to get us on our way.

On to the real coos!

For those of you who are not sure about what in the heck I have been writing about when I talk about coos…coos are Scottish Highland cows. In the wonderful dialect that people speak in Scotland, they become coos. They are different from regular cows. They have to be the shaggy, hair-in-their-face kind of cow. You have undoubtedly seen them (if you have ever followed a Scottish FB group or anyone Scottish on Instagram—as they celebrate Coosday every Tuesday). We had not seen a single one yet except when driving at breakneck speed to get to Balintoy and make our dinner reservation.

Having seen a YouTube video taken in the small, nearby village of Plockton, that featured numerous coos we decided to head that way. And our SatNav (no longer a GPS to us) took us on quite the ride to get there. It was supposed to take us on an A road (one lane in both directions) but ended up taking us through some scenic countryside on a B road (one lane in ANY direction). I did get some decent photos on the way. Especially this one that Kathleen spotted for me. You can actually see a regular cow in the distance in the first pic. I couldn’t decide which photo I liked better, cropped or uncropped, so you get both.

We finally got there and were rewarded with exactly ZERO coos. The video had shown a whole bunch along the roadways, but they must have been at Coo church (after all, it was Sunday) because they weren’t out anywhere we could see them. So, sadly, we decided to head back to Portree. That route took us over the Skye Bridge, which is an architectural marvel. Had to get pics of that and when I did, I saw this cool lighthouse under it so I got one of those.

After crossing the bridge and driving back onto the Isle we were still looking for coos. Lo and behold— just outside the village of Sconser, we saw them—COOS! I quickly pulled off, grabbed my camera, and started shooting. Hope you love coos because here they come. I call this gallery The Many Faces of the Scottish Coo. 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…

Like the puffins on Lunga, I shot about 300 photos of the Coos of Sconser. Luckily for you, the rest are just for me to look at with fondness ?.

After our coo encounter, it was back to Portree. Kathleen for a nap at the Balintoy and me for a walk to the village, where I hit some decent weather and got some great photos of the downtown. Here they are in all their glory.

That does it for our third and final day on the Isle of Skye. We were headed back to Glasgow the next morning (a six-hour drive). More about that tomorrow…or maybe later today.

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland.  —Alexander McQueen

A Full Day of Northern Skye

by | Jun 9, 2024 | Photography

Saturday morning, after a wonderful breakfast at the Balintoy Inn, we were off for our first full day on the Isle of Skye. This is a day I believed I would find stressful. Today, I would be driving a lot of one-lane roads. If you have never driven in rural Scotland (and I am sure anywhere in the UK), you run into one-lane roads. These are roads where there is literally one lane. Not one in each direction, but one lane. You drive along until a car comes towards you, and then you look for a sign that says “Passing Place.” If it is on your side of the road, or you are being courteous, or in the case of us, you want to go slow, then you pull over and let the other car pass you. On the map of our journey, from about The Brother’s Point all the way around to Uig, it was a one-lane road.

But it turned out to be an incredible drive. From the time we hit the first stretch of one-lane road, we were traveling under 30 miles an hour. Not to mention that the Scottish drivers we passed all seemed to understand that we were travelers and not used to driving on that kind of road. I should also mention that you want to go that slow not only because of the one-lane road but because those one-lane roads are full of some of the most enormous potholes known to man ?. If you got into some of them, you might never get out.

The scenery was amazing. Our first big stop was to shoot numerous photos of The Old Man of Storr. This is a one-of-a-kind rock formation just to the north of Portree (before the start of the one-lane road). Now might be an excellent time to show you photos of our first few stops. 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…

Heading north from The Old Man, we stopped at different places to get out, walk around and take photos. We saw more waterfalls, a beautiful coastline and constantly changing weather. These are the shots that I got prior to hitting the one-lane roads.

From this point on, it’s one-lane road. Straight around the top of Skye until we reached Uig. As you can see, this is where the one-lane starts.

We soon found out that cars weren’t the only things on the road either. In a quick change from our usual media, Kathleen took a short video of some of the creatures we ran into on this part of the trip. Please excuse the voices and the camera work. It was a really bumpy road.

[videopress JEAfgfrg]

It took us around an hour from the time the road turned into one lane until we got around to Uig, a small town on the west coast of Skye. We stopped there for lunch for a very nice burger and…chips. I can’t believe I am going to say this, but I am really tired of “chips.” For those who have yet to travel to the UK or watch Ted Lasso, a chip is what we in America would call a large steak fry (what we call chips are crisps here). You know the kind of fry I am talking about. Big and thick. Supposed to be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. You get them here with anything that they would serve regular french fries with at home, including the ever-popular fish and chips. I think they are perfect in most places, but they are getting old at this point and have just become a great conduit to get ketchup into my mouth. And in Uig, the ketchup (served only in tiny packets—so wasteful) was sour. Yuck. Usually, when I see something comes with fries, that’s an incentive to order it. With chips, that’s now a reason not to.

After lunch in Uig (please don’t ask me how to pronounce it), we drove up above the town and shot this set of photos I used to create my panoramas (I don’t use my phone for panoramic images. I prefer using my Nikon and taking multiple shots which I then stitch together in Photoshop.) Here’s the town, down below. As you can see, this is not a metropolis.

Following Uig, we headed back to Portree for an afternoon of shopping and just hanging out. I got to shoot a few pics of downtown. It reminded me of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, a town we visited a few years ago and will return to next week on our Viking cruise. The Antlers Inn (you can see in the photo) is where we had eaten the night before.

That concluded our day…except for a nap for Kathleen, a bunch of photo processing for me and dinner at the Rosedale Inn, where I had the best seafood dish I have had in ages. I mentioned yesterday that the food here has been amazing, and last night (our last dinner in Portree) had also been that way.

It doesn’t matter if it’s soggy or it’s sunny, there are so many lovely roads and awesome rugged countryside in Scotland – that’s what makes it.  —Edd China

From Oban to Portree–a transition day

by | Jun 8, 2024 | Food Experiences, Photography

I tried to come up with a wittier headline than that but it really says it all. The Isle of Skye is drop-dead gorgeous. Of course, there are some who would find a tropical island with lots of sun much more to their liking but for me, give me Scotland.

Move to Skye Friday

I almost forgot that the last post only got you to the end of a very long Thursday. On Friday we were up, fed and on the road…leaving Oban by 9:30 to drive north and a little west to the ferry at Mallaig. On the way, we drove through some lovely countryside and stopped for a few photographs. We stopped for lunch in Mallaig just before we boarded the ferry. Here’s a map of our drive on Friday.

We had done our research on a number of Scotland travel groups on Facebook and one thing we had learned was you better have ferry reservations before you go or you aren’t getting on. We had ours and there were a few cars behind us who didn’t make our trip. They got to wait and hope they could get on the next boat two hours later. Below are our final shots from the mainland and the village of Mallaig. 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…

The ferry ride took about 45 minutes and then we arrived in Armadale…finally on the Isle of Skye. We stopped briefly to visit Armadale Castle and Gardens where we had our best example of Scottish weather yet. We entered the castle grounds and walked a very short distance to the castle itself. I shot about 15 photos. At this point I had been looking out to sea and at the castle in beautiful, warm sunlight.  I told Kathleen to wait for a couple of minutes while I went out to shoot the castle from in front of the lawn. In the time it took me to reach the front of the lawn and turn around to shoot the photos (about two minutes) a huge rain squall moved in and I yelled at Kathleen to get back to the entrance or get soaked and I took the shots and ran. In less than those 120 seconds it went from beautiful sunshine to POURING rain. By the time we got back to the entrance gift shop, we were soaked.

From Armadale we drove north to our home for our three days on Skye, the Balintoy Bed and Breakfast. The three nights are the longest consecutive stay on the trip (until the cruise next week) and we are glad they are here at this very small bed and breakfast. The owner Gillian has been wonderful pre-trip with lots of very valuable info. Things like telling me that if we didn’t book tables for our three nights here we would not get into any restaurant and would be forced to eat dinners from food stands…if we were lucky. She was so right. I had made reservations for all three nights and at every place we have been (we are on our third morning as I write this) there have been signs saying, “Sorry, we are booked full!”

The Balintoy also has the largest room we have had on this trip so we get to spread out a little. The breakfasts are excellent and light. We needed a couple of days of granola, fruit and yogurt instead of the protein-heavy Scottish breakfasts in Glasgow and Oban. We were also able to get some laundry done. We have been out for more than a week now and there were a few things that needed washing to get us through until we board Viking Venus on the 14th. Kathleen had found the Skye Laundry Service online before we left. They pick up a good-sized, full bag of laundry and return it to you clean and folded the next day for only £20. Quite the deal for a busy traveler. Ours was picked up yesterday and we will get it back today. Until then we are touring naked ?. Not really. I wanted to see if you are still paying attention.

We had dinner at The Antlers Inn which is located inside the Portree Hotel in downtown Portree (the largest town on Skye) and made our plans for our drive around the island on Saturday.

I want to stop for a moment to say that not only have we had great food here in Scotland but the people in the restaurants have been awesome. The servers have taken VERY good care of us, the other patrons have been fun to either watch or talk to and all our dining experiences have been outstanding. For instance, The Antlers Inn had superb background music. We asked our server what it was and she said she loved it too but wasn’t sure. She rushed off to ask her manager who came out and we had five minutes of discussion about the music. That kind of thing. People just being people. That’s what travel is all about. But we do have to admit that many times we have needed subtitles on this trip. Scots have one of my favorite accents but the farther out from the cities you go, the deeper it gets and sometimes we will just look at each other and smile. I know that this means that one day I will end up eating haggis or blood pudding but I would rather do that than insult someone by asking them to repeat it four times, or to slow down. We usually get it by the third ?.

See you tomorrow (or maybe later today) with the story of our first FULL day on Skye. It was beautiful.

I come more to Scotland than I ever used to, so I feel more connected to it, more part of the zeitgeist. You know when you realize you have a choice and I’m choosing my homeland. It’s funny: when you get older these things creep up to you.  —Allen Cumming

Thirteen hours, three islands and WOW!

by | Jun 7, 2024 | Photography

There was no post yesterday because we had the longest day of the trip so far (and probably for the rest of the month). We had booked a tour with West Coast Tours out of Oban that took us to the islands of Mull, Staffa and Lunga in the Treshnish Islands. And the longest day of the trip, means the longest post I have written in ages.

Daybreak in Oban

Our day started at 5:45 when Kathleen jumped in the shower so we could be ready for me to drive her down to the ferry landing to catch the ferry to the Isle of Mull at 6:55 a.m. I need to mention that although we booked with West Coast Tours, they don’t do all the transportation. The part of the tour they do is the boats that take you from Mull to the other islands. So you start with a ferry ride that anyone else could take. They do get you tickets for this ferry but they e-mail them to you. You never see anyone from the tour company until you get to the small boats. It was us and about 350 other people aboard the ferry, many heading to work or other activities on Mull. Only about 40 of the people on the ferry were doing the tour we were doing. The ferry took us from Oban to the town of Craignure on the Isle of Mull.

Here are photos I took on the ferry ride headed to Mull. 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…

From there we caught the island bus (basically it was the city bus for the entire island—anyone could take it–it was not a “luxury motor coach”) to drive down the island to the village of Torbermory where we boarded the tour companies’ boats to head to the islands we really wanted to explore. Luckily for us, we all fit on the city bus and got down to meet their boats on time. And the tour company had purchased seats on the bus for us in advance—round trip.

From Torbermory (more on this quaint village later) we departed for our tour of the Isles of Staffa and Lunga. Depending on the weather and the sea conditions they visit one or the other first and last. We got Lunga first, then Staffa. That was fine with me because I was there for Lunga and her famous…PUFFINS!!!

Every moment on board these boats (when they were in motion) was like riding a mechanical bull. We were bounced and trounced and banged around. Moving on the boat, once you were seated, was a total adventure. Using the facilities on the boat was more than an adventure, it was kind of a nightmare. But as you can and will see from the photo above and my pictures below, it was worth it. Here are a few photos I took off the bouncing boat on the way to Lunga.

Lunga Bunga!

When you disembark a boat on Lunga, they attach a floating dock to the boat and the boat rams the floating dock onto rocks along the shore then you walk out to end of the floating pier and get off on to dry rocks. Then the boat pulls off and waits for two hours or so until it is time to pick you up again.

I almost forgot to mention one of THE most important things that happened yesterday…the weather was PERFECT! No rain, lots of big fluffy clouds and a blue sky for them to float in. For photography, it was a dream day. Haven’t had another like it since the Galapagos. Before I show you my photos from Lunga, I have to tell you that there are a lot of them. I took almost 1200 photos yesterday. Many were the result of me holding down the shutter to take multiple action photos of puffins flying. I probably shot 500 of just those, so it really isn’t that many. Especially when you hear that out of those 500 action shots, I got one I liked. Yup, ONE! But I really like that one. I am breaking these Lunga photos into batches. here is the first one—my puffin gallery. 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…

Next up are photos I took of the island itself. Landscapes, fauna and such. We were there for two hours and I shot just about everything I could think of shooting.

One thing I didn’t mention was how difficult it was to climb off the rocks. On our way up the gentleman in front of me tripped and started falling backward. His head was headed to some big boulders. I grabbed his backpack and his daughter who was walking in front of him grabbed his hands and we were able to get him back on his feet without fully falling down. Whew! I have always had a much harder time going downhill than uphill. so I made sure to come down much earlier than the rest of the crowd. Still, it got a little iffy at the end of my trip down.

Stimulating Staffa

After two hours on Lunga, it was off to Staffa which was all about geology as opposed to birds. Staffa has two very large caves and some amazing columns that reminded me very much of Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, just across the sea to the west. When we were in Northern Ireland and visited the Causeway we were told a myth about the Causeway being built by an ogre who wanted to attack Ireland from Scotland. When you see Staffa, you might agree he started there. Here are the photos. 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…

It’s been a long day in Tobermory

That headline is sung to the tune of  “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” for you folks who want to sing along ?. But it really sums up our time in Tobermory. It was the only hiccup of the day. When you get off the boat, the tour company is kind of finished with you. All you do is board the local bus (you already have your return ticket) and head back to Craignure to catch the ferry (you already have your ticket) back to Oban. The only problem is they don’t tell you that the bus doesn’t leave for two hours. At this point, you are exhausted from the hiking and the bouncing boat ride and all you want is dinner and bed. But you have to hang out in this very beautiful and quaint village for two hours. It wasn’t late enough to eat dinner yet (did I mention that when you take this tour, they tell you to bring your own lunch–we were lucky because when we told David at the Manor House the tour we were doing, he told us that he would make us up sack lunches to take with us since we wouldn’t be eating breakfast–WOW, that’s service.)

Back to our Tobermory time. We wandered a little, took photos (of course), got some postcards (yes, we still send those although if the price of stamps keeps going up, we won’t be mailing them until we get home) and just sat and waited. To be honest, we really weren’t sure who would take us back, (there were four buses parked with no drivers at different times), when we would go back or how we would get there. I say how because by then there were a lot of locals not part of our group who wanted to take the bus as well. Some with very large dogs so now they had more than 55 people and dogs than they could fit on one bus. They ended up having to take a second bus. So finally around 6:15, we were off to Craignure to catch the 7:35 p.m. ferry. While we were in Tobermory, I did take some pretty pics and here they are. 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…

Finally, off to Oban

We finally got back to Craignure, boarded the ferry and headed back to Oban to a nice dinner in a restaurant of our choice. David had told us we should be fine just walking into someplace around 8:15 when the ferry got in. Sadly, on this one thing, David was wrong. Every restaurant we walked into had people eating but we were told, “Sorry, our kitchen closes at 8:00 p.m.” So no supper for us. That’s OK, we have been eating well on this trip and I was still trying to work off the lunch in Wensleydale we had with Paul and Gail, not to mention the amazing dinner at Banco de Roma in Glasgow. So we grabbed a taxi for the short ride to The Manor House and were off to bed. We got back there about 9:00 p.m. so this day had been a 15+ hour excursion. We were wiped. But not enough to miss having a whisky with David at The Manor House before bed.

I almost forgot, here are a few late photos I took on the ferry ride back to Oban.

Whew, I bet it almost took longer for me to write this, and you to read it, than it did for us to live it. Thanks, so much for sticking with it. And if you didn’t read all the way to here, shame on you ?.

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains. —Walt Whitman