On the Road Again, This Time Scotland

Apologies that I haven’t blogged in so long! Between the time we spent in the US and our first weeks abroad in Scotland, I feel as if we’ve been running all the time, leaving little down time for blogging…

The Nomads are starting the next chapter of our adventure.  We spent 5 weeks in the US – 2 weeks in Baltimore visiting family and friends, including these two cuties (Emma & Clark, Rick’s grandchildren)
and 3 weeks in Chautauqua, our very favorite summer place. This unique community in western NY state has been our home for all or part of the summer for the last 10 years.  We were SO happy to return and to be reminded of how special it is to be intellectually and culturally stimulated in a beautiful and cool place surrounded by old friends.

The weekly themes during our time there included: Geopolitics Today; The Supreme Court: at a Tipping Point?; and Comedy and the Human Condition. But the added bonus was that my grandson, Owen (and his parents…), came and spent a week with us…such a joy!

On August 7, we flew overnight to Edinburgh. There we stayed in a B&B, because we could not find an Airbnb accommodation. Once we arrived, we discovered why rooms had been so hard to find. August is Festival Season in Edinburgh!  The Fringe Festival (catalogue is as thick as a small town phone book!), the International Festival (classical music & theater), and the Book Festival were all happening at the same time.  In addition, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo – a military performance including bands from around Scotland and the world – was held every night on the esplanade of the Castle.  Everyone we met seemed to know what this was and many came just for this.  It was, of course, sold out by the time we got there, so I guess we’ll have to come back…

We did enjoy touring Edinburgh, though.  The buildings in the city are rather monochromatic- most are made of Victorian sandstone – except in August when festival posters and revelers provide lots of color! The Royal Mile, which stretches between the Edinburgh Castle and the Parliament was a mob scene!  And such a scene – hawkers selling all sorts of performances – theater, comedy, music of all genres, and some strange hybrids of all.

Our walking tour began at the Edinburgh Castle,

continued down the Royal Mile ending at the new Parliament building.
Designed and built by a Catalan architect, the Parliament is a beautiful and functional work space for the new Scottish Parliament (re-established in 1998, 300 years after it was dissolved) and a welcoming public space for locals and visitors.  Works by Scottish artists line the walls.  One very striking example (no picture-taking was allowed) is entitled Traveling the Distance (porcelain) by Shauna McMullan.  This artwork is made up of 100 handwritten sentences. The artist collected the sentences from women on a journey throughout Scotland. Each woman was asked to write a sentence about another woman whom she felt had made a significant contribution to life, culture or democracy in Scotland.  The artist then rendered these sentences in porcelain. It’s beautiful and meaningful.
We were shown a typical MSP’s office where we were allowed to take photos.  Each small office has a window ‘thinking pod!’ What a concept…lawmakers who think!

We couldn’t leave Edinburgh without a stop at Catenhead’s Whiskey Shop, where we sampled and bought a small bottle…labeled on the spot for us…

We took a train to Glasgow, where we spent one night and picked up a rental car for the rest of our Scottish adventure.  We got a quick but thorough tour of the city on one of those Hop On/Hop Off buses. The most notable thing that happened in Glasgow is that Rick got a terrific haircut!
       
BEFORE                                                     AFTER

From Glasgow, we drove northwest to Oban, on the coast.  This lovely fishing town

is a gateway to the islands of Mull and Iona, part of the Inner Hebrides.  We took a day trip by ferry-bus-ferry through Mull to Iona.

We were told that Mull gets 4.2m (165 inches) of annual rainfall, while Iona gets the most sun in the UK. Iona has a rich religious history.  It is the birthplace of Christianity in Scotland, and still supports a disbursed ecumenical community of people devoted to worship, peace and justice.


We took tour of the Oban Distillery before setting off to our next destination. We tasted and spat, though, because we anticipated the tricky roads that were to come.

Our next stop was the Isle of Skye, farther north along the western coast.  The Isle is accessible by a bridge (opened in 1995) and is rugged and beautiful. We stayed about 7 miles outside of Portree in a B&B run by a lovely family, Peter & Marina Gordon. Since we weren’t cooking for ourselves, we had made dinner reservations for both nights in town. But once we saw the roads, we knew we couldn’t have dinner and wine and make it back safely (especially driving on the left!).  We asked Peter to call us a taxi, but he offered to drive us in both nights.  When we got a taxi back, all we had to tell the driver was that we were staying at Peter Gordon’s place and he knew where to take us.  These are the appealing things about small towns…

This is the view from our front door…

We made a driving tour of Trotternish Peninsula, the northernmost part of Skye. This took us along a  rather desolate but beautiful coastline on a ‘single track road’ (one lane with pullouts to allow oncoming cars to pass…yikes!!)
This driving tour included a stop at the Skye Museum of Island Life. Here we saw original crofting houses that are over 200 years old – made of stone with thatched roofs. Three are original to the site and several others brought here and rebuilt.  One was set up to show how a family of 14 (!) lived and others contained interesting displays of tools and crafts used by these hardy farmers.

We retraced our drive over the Skye bridge and continued north to Durness on the northernmost part of the mainland of Scotland.  We only spent one night here but were impressed by the beautiful beaches.  My only question, ‘Is it ever warm enough here to really enjoy the beach?’

Clearly, many people enjoy the weather, though.  The campsites are FULL!  And these camper vans are fun to meet on the single track roads…

We have another week in Scotland, but I’ll save that for the next post.  Thanks for following along.