7/21/07 – Edinburgh

Saturday dawned gray and it didn’t take long to start raining. We got the all-day bus pass, thinking we might want to ride into town, and out a couple of times. The bus dropped us on Princes Street, and we navigated by viewing the castle. Between the visible and distinctive spires and domes of castles and churches, plus my picture map, we did pretty well keeping ourselves oriented.

We went down into the castle gardens, and made our way over to a volleyball game that was going on, in a sand court. The group was none other than the Scottish Volleyball Association, and it was a playoff between a couple of co-ed teams. Eric took some pictures, because our eldest daughter had told us to find her a hot Scotsman. One that could play volleyball, we felt, would suit even better.

We worked our way around the castle, which is built high upon cliffs. During “the ’45,” the Scots chased the English as far as Edinburgh, where Cumberland holed up in the castle, so in a way, that fortress (and Charles Stuart’s greed) was the downfall of the Scotts.

Finding ourselves at the top of “The Royal Mile,” we started working our way through the shops. There is a lot of schlocky stuff in those shops, as well as some nice things, and we didn’t make it all the way down to Holyrood House, because our agenda was to try and navigate laterally to the Grassmarket, an area which had been recommended by Brown.

We did see a couple of pipers on the Royal Mile, which made my day. I would very much have liked to see a whole troop of them, but alas, it was not to be.

We cut over to the Grassmarket by way of the Cowsgate. The Grassmarket is a nice kind of plaza, filled with pubs. One of them was called Maggie Dickson’s. The Grassmarket has been a market area for centuries, but also was a place of execution (by hanging). Maggie was hanged for her part in a murder, and then revived when she was accidentally dropped after being taken down. She recovered fully, living our her life with the moniker of “Half-Hangit Maggie.”

The place we chose for lunch was “The Last Drop,” which, contrary to what one might think, doesn’t allude to drink, but the noose. The signs in the pub said that it still maintains its original layout and décor. At the end of lunch (haggis, with neeps and tatties), Steph stated that she had had enough sightseeing in the rain, and would go back to the hotel at the earliest opportunity. We got a recommendation from our waitress for a pub where local musicians come every night to play. It was called Sandy Bell’s.

We wandered down a couple more streets in Eric’s quest to find wind-up toys, but never found one. And it was pretty miserable in the rain, so after visiting one final schlock store in a mall, we got Steph headed back toward the bus, and attempted to find a pub with live music.

It seemed that Sandy Bell’s was about the only one, but it was a long walk from where we were, so we took a cab. It was a £5 well spent, being a short drive, but it would have been a long, wet walk for two already soggy people.

Sandy Bell’s was the highlight of our visit to Edinburgh. Another one of a kind place, it only serves drinks and “crisps” – no food. When we came in, a trio was playing, seated at a table near the back – a fiddle, mandolin, and bass. But as they were playing, a man wearing a kilt and carrying a guitar came in and struck up a conversation with another gentleman at the bar.

“Ye’re lookin’ fine today.”
“Aye, ye should try it sometime.”
“Och, ma legs’re too skinny.”

Eric asked the man in the kilt if he could take my picture with him, and the response was sure, and that he could take as many others as he wanted, while they were playing.

Brian (the kilt-wearing man) ended up playing with John (the fiddler) and Freddy, who had been playing bass with the previous group. We got to talk with them a lot, and found that only one of them (John) plays music professionally, and he travels around the world with it. His group has played at Wolf Trap before, and was coming back to the States that fall. We gave him our contact info, in hopes that we would hear from him.

We stayed there for quite a while, listening and visiting, having a couple of the local brews, and then buying the band a round, before finally leaving.

It was a long walk back to Prince’s Street and a late night, but time and effort well spent. We felt that we had ended our trip to Scotland on a good note (no pun intended).

7/20/07 – En Route to Edinburgh

There is not much to be said for Friday – just a lot of driving. We navigated through Inverness like champs, and the open road was no challenge. We stopped briefly at the same Highlands Welcome Center we had visited on the way up, where we took advantage of the cheap Internet connection to shoot off a quick email to assure everyone we were still alive. For one usually as connected via cyberspace and cell phone as myself, it has been strange (and wonderful) to suddenly drop off the face of the earth.

Hitting Edinburgh was a bad, bad experience, since we had not done our homework in regard to the location of our hotel. Since it was located on Glasgow Road, we thought “How difficult could that be to find?” Talk about famous last words! With Eric in a lather, we ended up in Leith (the port area). We strolled into the Holiday Inn and threw ourselves on the mercy of the people at the front desk. After navigating through Edinburgh with their directions, we found out that Glasgow Road was none other than the M8 – the very same road we had taken out of Glasgow at the beginning of our Scottish visit.

Eric and I had thought we would take the bus (£1) into town to check it out, but ran into a technical problem involving the outlets by our beds, which had a wacky configuration. It was kind of like a European plug, plus a ground, and no adaptor we had would fit it. The front desk finally scrounged an extension cord from the electrician, which solved our problem, as we stretched it across the room.

By the time this was over, the wind was out of our sails, and we just went to the bar for a drink, and retired.

7/19/07 – Oot and Aboot

Thursday was a low-key day for everyone to do whatever they wanted to do locally. None of us was up to making another long expedition to west coast isles. I had had a few tartan scarves put aside for the girls at Campbell’s tartan shop in Beauly. This shop, which was an absolutely beautiful storefront, was run by two sisters, and their brother, all named Fraser. Although the two ladies were quite charming, our host laughingly described them as looking like “two storks in tartan.” Ms. Fraser the younger helped me find three scarves in MacDonald (McBride), in three different versions of the plaid – dress, everyday, and the ancient colors and after making a few other purchases, we left. I have to observe that not only is the shop beautiful, but the ladies working there made us feel very welcome, and were happy to answer all our questions about Scottish dress and custom.

After we left the shop, Eric asked me if I wouldn’t like a sweater. So we turned back around and Ms. Fraser again helped us. Although everyone who knows me, knows how I hate winter, this lovely sweater will certainly make it easier for me to bear the approach of cold weather this year.

Eric and I then went out to Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle again. We saw a very good film at the Loch Ness Center about all the scientific research that has been done. In short, there are dozens of things that could happen on the Ness, which would look like body parts of a large creature surfacing. That being said, the presence of such a creature has not been totally ruled out, and therein lies the mystique.

After a final trip to the Castle, we headed back to Knockbain Schoolhouse. Fred and Page took the group out to a local inn for dinner, then we came back for our “wee dram” and turned in, knowing that we had to make an early start for Edinburgh the following morning.

7/18/07 – Skye, and Other High Places

Wednesday was the day that we went to Skye. When we got to Kyle of Localsh, where the bridge to Skye is located, we stopped for lunch, and I had my first encounter with haggis (plus black pudding). The shop actually gave us a small sample to taste, while we were trying to make up our minds, but I was the only one with the moxie to actually order it.

Skye was breathtaking, but that was only partially due to the scenery. The rest of it was due to one-lane roads on steep hillsides (munros), with oncoming traffic, while driving on the left-hand side of the road. At one point, we had to dodge a very aggressive bus, which was NOT going to yield right of way. We drove out to a beautiful point of land by a farmhouse, and stopped the car, to let our heads stop spinning, while we took in the scenery of the “Five Sisters” and Cuillin Hills. Spectacular scenery notwithstanding, we were relieved to eventually be back on two-way roads.

On the way back, we stopped to get pictures of Eilan Donan, a very romantic-looking castle with an ancient bridge; and also a lighthouse close to Skye. Not to mention a whiskey-tasting, which was “verra” educational.

That evening, it was the Long/Markgraf contingent’s turn to cook. In addition, Margaret’s cousin Dean and her friend Bill had arrived, so we found ourselves cooking chicken divan by memory, with somewhat weird ingredients, for perfect strangers. No pressure!

7/17/07 – Culloden and Standing Stones – Oh, Boy!

Tuesday was the day I had been waiting for. We had an optimistic forecast of “intermittently sunny” and our itinerary included two sites I had been looking forward to seeing – Culloden and standing stones. Our first stop was Culloden, which is the site of the battle which ended the Jacobite Uprising of 1745. We watched a short informational film, before venturing out onto the battlefield. The film gave a good summary of the conditions building up to the battle, and also the events immediately afterward. I had been unaware of the fact that Charles Stuart (otherwise known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”) could probably have kept hold of Scotland, if he hadn’t gotten greedy and attempted to capture England as well. To the Scots, this war was much like our Civil War, and at the end of it, the old ways of the Scottish clans were destroyed.

We ventured out to the battlefield, first visiting a old croft that had been converted into a British command post. Then onto the battlefield itself, a bleak moor with a commemorative cairn in the middle, and two lines of stones, representing the fallen on both sides – brother against brother. I walked down the row of clan markers, and took pictures of those for Fraser and Cameron, not seeing any MacDonald or Farquharson (my own clan affiliations). Most other clans were represented by markers for “Mixed Clans.”

We then traveled to the Clava Cairns, which range in age from 6,000 – 1,000 BC. There are three large cairns (which are gravesites), each surrounded by a ring of 12 standing stones. There is one newer (1,000 BC) cairn that is not as big, and doesn’t have a full complement of standing stones. Although they have fenced the site in, one of the standing stones is still outside the fence, and I had to wonder why.

After that, we went to Cawdor Castle, the setting for Shakespeare’s MacBeth. We had lunch sitting in the courtyard of the castle, and I had one of those moments of “Gee, here I am in Scotland, in a castle!” The castle is only open to the public during the tourist season, but during the winter, the mistress of the castle is in residence (from October through March).

It has some lovely gardens, including a nature walk in back of the castle, with a peat-water stream running through it, and a labyrinth maze. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get into the labyrinth, but I could imagine them losing a few tourists from time to time.

After that, we made a quick trip to Ft. George. Although it was recommended to take 1 ½ hours to see it, we dashed through in 1 hour. The fort is set down into the ground, and is almost invisible until you are right on top of it, and it bristles with cannons. The purpose of the fort was to keep down the savage natives, after “the ’45.” As soon as it was built, it was obvious that it was unneeded, as the heads of clans, and other notorious trouble-makers had been executed, imprisoned, or exiled.

7/15/07 – On to Scotland

We had an early wake-up call this morning, because we had a pickup from the air-bus, for our 7:30 flight to Scotland. Because of the larger number of people leaving the hotel early, they opened up the dining room for breakfast.

I know that two days is not really enough time to see a country, but I felt that we had gotten a good taste of this one, and was anxious to be getting to Scotland.

Flying in over Scotland was a thrill, seeing the highlands spread out. Unusual, also, because there was so little cloud cover that we could see the country as we prepared to land. Our route took us directly over the highlands, with a view of munros and firths.

The trip was fairly uncomplicated, although we had a little debacle at the Glasgow airport in regard to a car rental, so we had to re-rent another car, at about twice the cost.

Our trip north was uneventful, except for Eric having to quickly learn how to drive on the left – very confusing, when every instinct urges you to drive on the right! The hardest part was getting out of Glasgow, and onto the M3, which involved navigating at least three roundabouts.

Driving into the highlands was awe-inspiring, especially since the bare hills were almost completely vacant of human life. I had expected a drive through picturesque villages, but those were on side exits from the major north-south highway.

The drive through Inverness was hair-raising, as we went through five roundabouts, following Brown’s (our friend) instructions, making a couple of premature turns, but always finding our way again fairly easily. We had the further complication of additional traffic from an Elton John concert which was to take place that evening.

The atmosphere changed from urban and stressful to rural and bucolic as soon as we got out of the last roundabout, and we were soon at Knockbain Schoolhouse. Brown was waiting for us at the gate, and gave us a quick tour of the property.

This would probably be a good point for a footnote about the Reverend and Mrs. Brown Morton III, and Knockbain Schoolhouse. Brown is a professor of architectural conservation at Mary Washington, and during the course of his career has worked on projects worldwide. He is also an Episcopal minister. Margaret Brown is a native of the UK and a journalist, currently working for Leesburg Today, although she also does some freelance work. Margaret’s family used to own a large estate in the Inverness area, where she had spent her holidays since childhood. They acquired the Knockbain Schoolhouse when they were looking for a new place of residence in the Inverness area. Although they weren’t inclined to consider purchasing a redundant schoolhouse (Brown had seen too many of them in the past), this one captured them, and the rest is history. Their house overlooks the Beauly Firth, which is just around the corner from Loch Ness, and is connected to it at Inverness, which is its inlet. In short, their home is to the west of Loch Ness.

We made our way up the very steep hillside in the back of the house, to a vantage point from which we could see across the Beauly Firth to the Black Isle. The entire scene was lit golden by the late afternoon sun. I thought, “I’m home. I want to stay here forever.”

After a wonderful dinner of two different kinds of shepherd’s pie, we had a strategy session for the next day, and then went to bed. Brown said that the rule of the house in regard to expeditions is, “All may, some will, none must.”