Author: Arjan Post

Strathpeffer is a resort town of days gone by.  It also reminded me of the Catskills.  Our hotel’s staircase did have a streak of old elegance, with interesting clan-maps of Scotland and Scottish patterned carpets.  But upon the entry to each floor, an ugly firewall had been installed to bring it up to 21st century code.  Past the firewall were run-down, fireproof carpets reminding of nursing homes, not a resort hotel.  The reason the staircase carpets do still look good may be that most hotel guests are too old to walk them.  The hotel’s restaurant menu looked like a fancy version of happy hour for seniors at Denny’s, so we decided to eat elsewhere.  That meal was not fancy but perfectly reasonable.  I tried haggis for the first time.  It was greasy junk food, but enjoyable in its own way.

Photograph © 2016 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.

What appeared to be a misfortune, a filling coming out of one of my teeth, turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  The filling would have come out at some point anyway, but because this happened in the UK, I saved a lot of money.  For less than the price of a dental cleaning in Boston, I now have a new filling.  James Livingstone, the dentist, appeared to be in his early twenties.  Unlike in the US, where you never see anyone important until it’s time to drill, he came out to greet me himself, not his assistant.  He attentively listened to my wishes and then proceeded to carefully refill a difficult tooth, a possible candidate for a crown.

Before that, P.J and I visited Stirling Castle, the former residence of King James V.  This castle is much larger and more impressive than Doune Castle, residence of a mere duke.  Stirling Castle has undergone a lot of restoration as of late.  Among other things, it has been made wheelchair accessible with gleaming elevators to take you wherever you want.  Why didn’t King James think of that?  But then again, the King died when he was 30, so the issue likely never came up.  All kidding aside, except for those 21st century compromises, the restorations were meticulously done based on architectural drawings from 1503.

Today was another hot one, in the mid seventies (24C).  But for tomorrow the local weatherman promises “relief”, when “fresh air from the Atlantic” rolls in along with “much needed rain”.

 

My Dutch friend, Gerard, commented earlier on “whiskey pounds”.  When I got to the UK, I had two ten-pound notes left over from a previous trip.   They were kind of odd-looking, and when I tried to spend them in London, they did not know what they were and refused them.  But here, in Scotland, the bills all look like that.  Had I studied the notes more carefully, I should have known.  They carry a portrait of Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, and they are definitely legal tender!

Photograph © 2016 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.

Today the weather was supposed to have deteriorated, so we planned activities that are less weather-dependent.  But, as it turned out, the weather was better than ever, low seventies (23C), brilliant sunshine yet again.

First we went to Lake of Menteith, the only so-called lake in Scotland (the others are lochs), which has an island in the middle with a medieval priory (Inchmahome Priory) where Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed as a child.  To get to the island, there’s a small ferry boat.  There’s a sign on the dock that says there’s no schedule: just turn the big white board so that it faces the island, and we will come and get you.  Wonderfully low-tech and very effective.  The priory is mostly in ruins and recently suffered a lot of weather damage.  There are barriers all around it while they are doing restoration work.   The island also has some magnificent old trees, some of which are said to have been planted by 4-year-old Mary in 1547, but we are sure that’s an apocryphal story.

Later we went to Doune castle, right here in town.  It was originally built in the thirteenth century, before being rebuilt in its present form in the late 14th century by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany.  It has been the setting for several movies and TV series, among which are Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and more recently Outlander.

For the evening, our hostess, Fiona Graham, provided a wonderful gourmet meal for us.  About fifteen minutes before mealtime, her husband, Colin, started playing the bagpipes in the garden to welcome us, a wonderful sound wafting over the quiet countryside.

Photographs © 2016 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.

So, after being in Scotland for three days, we really have a feel for the place.  Obviously, this is a place where the weather is always warm and sunny—just like the Pacific Northwest!  Today it was actually hot, in the low eighties (28 C).

The past two days we toured the Loch Lomand and The Trossachs National Park.  Yesterday we drove the Trossachs Trail, and today around Loch Lomand.  With the gorgeous weather, it was a little busy on the roads.  Some roadside pullouts were full, even on a Monday.  But the scenery is what we expected: Beautiful!

At one point we stopped at a little roadside park near a waterfall (Falls at Falloch).  At the bottom of the waterfall was a swimming hole.  There were young people climbing to the top of the rocks and jumping down, having a lot of fun.  I could not help but think that in the U.S. access to those rocks would have been blocked “for your safety”, or more accurately, to protect the park service from lawsuits by stupid people.

My only negative comment so far: Scots are litterbugs, but enough said.

The Scots like to have fun, maybe a bit rowdy now and then.  They are also very hospitable and accommodating.  The first night in the country was a Saturday night and we had trouble finding a place to eat; every place was completely filled for the night.  There was one little spartan hole-in-the-wall Italian place in Doune.  It did not look like much from the outside, and we would never have gone there, but our lodging hosts recommended it.  It was also full, but one kind couple dining there overheard our plight and volunteered to vacate their table fifteen minutes before kitchen closing time so we could have something to eat.

We have noticed that in England and Scotland, if you are patient and not pushy, they will often come up with something.  Not only were the restaurant owners hospitable, but their food compared favorably to most big city Italian restaurants.  They had their own homemade bread and doctored their oil and balsamic vinegar with honey and herbs, and it was delicious!  The Chianti was very good and very reasonably priced (like everything else).  And that was even before the meal came!

We love our little garden studio, so we decided to stay an extra night, until Friday.  We can eat in the little Italian place one more time.

After the train trip and an evening in Edinburgh (described by P.J.), this morning it was time to get the rental car and drive to the countryside.  The line at the rental place was an hour long, but I finally got the car, a Fiat 500 Diesel.  It does well over 50 mpg on the highway.  The Scots (and the Italians) are frugal!

Then the fun started.  The distance from the car rental place to the hotel, where I was to pick up P.J. with our luggage, was only a 3-minute walk up the city stairs P.J. described in her blog.  But with all the complicated one-way streets, I could not figure out how to get there.  I turned on Google Navigator and found out it was a 6-minute drive!  When I had to make a crucial turn, I missed it.  Then all of a sudden it was a 10-minute drive!

Anyway, after I picked up P.J., we had to drive out of Edinburgh, and I do not know how we could have accomplished that in the old days without Navigator.  The road out of town was full of roundabouts.  You barely went through one before the woman Navigator voice began giving instructions for the next roundabout.  The phone was chattering at me almost constantly.  Some of those roundabouts had five or six roads coming into them.  So, when she said, “Take the fourth exit,” I had to start counting.  I had the feeling I was on a roulette wheel, hoping I would drop into the right slot.  P.J. likened it to being in a pinball machine.

Anyway, we did miss a few turns, but after whirling and swirling westward through the Edinburgh suburbs, we finally got on the motorway, which was much simpler.  I have to admit my aging brain did not have enough parallel processors to concentrate on driving on the left (most important), following the incessant Navigator directions (second most important), and talking to P.J about other things (not important), so I got a little testy.

Now we have arrived at our place in the Scottish countryside where we will be for the next five days.  The weather has turned beautifully sunny and pleasantly warm.  All we hear is the breeze and the birds.  Aaahhh!

It was cloudy, breezy, and in the fifties.  But strangely, I enjoyed that, and P.J did too.  Excellent walking weather.  P.J could not have done this much walking two years ago before her knee operation.

We bought a London public transport day pass.  First we went to Selfridge’s, looked at the overpriced merchandise, and instead just had some tea outside on their roof garden.

We walked along Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes never existed. On to Madame Tussaud’s where the long lines and the high admission prices made us pass it up.  We walked through Regent’s Park, very enjoyable, and had lunch there.  We hopped on a double-decker bus, hopped out again, and like commuters rushed ahead to catch the connecting bus in front of us. This way we gave ourselves a rush-hour tour of central London from high atop a city bus.  We wrapped up the day walking around Westminster Abbey and Parliament buildings, and then had a wonderful dinner at Savoir Faire, a French restaurant.

Random impressions: In London, they really don’t want cars.  Discounted parking near the London Zoo was $50 a day— without the discount, $75.  The tube is even busier than the New York subway, where we were just 11 days earlier.  On the busy Piccadilly line, trains are only one or two minutes apart.  On the endless escalators, stand on the right and don’t block the left.  P.J made the mistake of putting her suitcase on her left and people berated her for it.  But otherwise, Londoners are extremely helpful.  When it was obvious we were trying to figure something out, multiple times people came up and volunteered helpful information.  Much friendlier than Paris, New York, or Boston.

Photographs © 2016 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.

The British are sooo articulate.  They don’t have Baggage Claim but “Baggage Reclaim”.  Much better!  “Baggage Claim” sounds like you can take any bag you want as long as you have a good lawyer.