Category: Europe

Warning: This post is about luggage and long lines, which you might find extremely boring, but it is what traveling is really like, in between all the glorious sightseeing!

Even before we left Boston, anticipating how to manage the luggage for this particular flight from Edinburgh to Berlin seemed like the most confronting obstacle of our entire trip. Packing for 50 days with such a wide variety of weather and types of travel was difficult enough, but the restrictive carry-on rules for EasyJet (the budget airline my friend Nancy says people call “Sleezy Jet”) put the most pressure on how to pack for the whole trip.

But in the end, it wasn’t so bad. First of all, I shipped my largest bag to our friends in Rotterdam, where we will be going after Berlin. Then I paid to check in two bags, which ended up only costing about $20 apiece rather than the huge fees charged by other airlines. The major obstacle there was that each bag could weigh no more than 20 kg (or about 44 pounds). Thank goodness, once I was all packed, it turned out everything I had with me weighed way less than I thought and I was well inside the limits. Finally, I deconstructed my pocketbook and shoved it inside one of my suitcases. That left one bag for carry-on, because only first class passengers are allowed a personal item in addition to a carry-on bag on EasyJet!

With the luggage nightmare taken care of, we rolled our bags down Cockburn Street in Edinburgh to the AirLink bus stop near Waverley station. Luckily, we were some of the first people to queue up and it didn’t rain! Although very crowded, the bus transported us to the airport in about 30 minutes for only £4.50—a real bargain. Security at the airport involved long lines, but the lines moved fairly quickly. The bin system worked better than in the U.S., because the bins are larger, they pop up in front of you on the belt, and two bins ride under the scanner side by side.

We had a long wait at the gate, because our plane was delayed, but eventually, the plane got loaded, the whole rear of the plane filled with very noisy Scottish teenagers on a school trip or something. Luckily, it was a short flight, and we arrived in Berlin on time.

The wait for German passport control involved another long line, but unlike our entry into the UK, this time there was no separation between EU and non-EU passengers until the last minute, so we all had to agonize together.

Arjan and I struggled with the decision whether to take public transportation or a taxi. In the end, we took a taxi, and I am glad we did. Arjan’s post tells you about our interesting taxi driver and our guided tour through Berlin in a mixture of German and English. Too bad I could only understand some of it.

Our hotel is the Radisson Blu in the center of Berlin, opposite the Berliner Dom. There is a monster fish tank a couple stories high in the lobby and glass elevators running up and down the side walls. Our room is modern and spacious. It will be nice to settle in and not to have to drag luggage around for a while.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Oxymoron, which served beautifully prepared food, in an open-air courtyard called Hackesche Höfe. Arjan’s friend Peter Cohen recommended the square to Arjan when Arjan came to Berlin three years ago on his way to Warsaw. Peter was a playwright who had plays produced in the adjacent theatre.

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

After our escape from Strathpeffer, the next evening we ended up in a small boutique hotel in Pitlochry.  I picked that town because it was on the way to Edinburgh, and Fiona Graham, our hostess in Doune, had recommended it for shopping and lunch.  Even though we were going to Pitlochry to sleep and have dinner, I figured it might be a nice town because Fiona had not steered us wrong yet.  We were happy to discover that we landed in a charming boutique hotel with an excellent restaurant. What a difference from the night before!

Now we’re back in Edinburgh for our last night before flying to Berlin, Germany, tomorrow.

Our first six days in Scotland were sunny and warm, the last three days were cool, under gray skies.  Scotland is big.  We did not nearly see everything we wanted to see.  I want to come back and spend time in the highlands, but there are many places in the world I want to see where I’ve never been at all, so we’ll have to see.

Highlights: Staying in the Garden Studio in Doune and just being in that general area.  Our dinner at the Graham’s, beginning with a bagpipe serenade, was wonderful.  I could say the six days of sunny warm weather were a high point, but so was traveling through Glencoe under gray skies.  And going to the dentist turned out to be an interesting experience, something you don’t get from a travel agency.  Only low point: Strathpeffer, but no regrets.  To get the feel of a country you need to have good and not so good experiences. That’s what makes me feel like a traveler instead of a tourist.

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

After breakfast in the big hotel in Strathpeffer, we made a quick getaway. We were on the road by about 9:30 AM, much earlier than usual.

We drove down Loch Ness in more rain to Urquhart Castle, a picturesque ruin that has dominated the shores of the lake for centuries. It was so freeing to use our Historic Scotland passes to breeze past the line and enter the visitor’s center without having to pay again.  First we watched an excellent film for an overview. Then we walked around the ruins reading all the signs, interrupting our explorations for a guided tour by a history buff who just couldn’t give us enough detail to make himself happy. By the time we were finished, I felt we had been quite thorough and hadn’t missed anything.

Next, we drove through Inverness, which looks like a nice city, to the battlefield of Culloden, where Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites lost to the British, and the traditional highland way of life basically came to an end. At first we thought we would just walk around the battlefield, but with the rain and all, we decided to buy passes for the visitor’s center.  I am glad we did.  The visitor’s center is well done, with both the British and the Jacobite points of view. I especially liked the enacted audio tapes using contemporary quotations to bring the lead-up to the battle to life.

But best of all was a short immersive 360-degree presentation that puts you in the middle and brings the battle to life all around you.  When you experience how quickly it took the well-disciplined British to annihilate the passionate Jacobite army, it can break your heart. Especially when you realize that Bonnie Prince Charlie ran away afterwards and hid for a couple of years before returning to Italy, where he was born.

After the visitor’s center circuit, we headed outside to the moor to view the clan stones and cairns to the fallen. I found it quite moving, especially in the light rain and somber light of the afternoon.

After leaving the battlefield, we drove south through Cairngorms National Park, the largest park in Scotland, the scenery again reminding us of the highland views near Glencoe, with the mountaintops in the clouds, and bright yellow gorse bushes and sheep everywhere. What is probably heather is still dark brown at this time of year, but it must be gorgeous when it is in full bloom. Scottish houses tend to stand alone in the countryside, with slate roofs, flower-pot chimneys, and white-washed stone walls, visible for miles in the bright green glens.

We are staying in the little town of Pitlochry in the quaint East Haugh House Hotel, with its stone walls and turret tower. What a difference from last night! The Michelin recommendation on the door says it all. The dinner we had tonight was the best of the trip so far.

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

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.

Today, for the first time on this vacation, we woke to a steady rain, just in time to leave our cute little vacation cottage, where we have had nothing but sunshine for six straight days.

Driving past Loch Lubnaig again, this time with rain and misty mountaintops, gave us a sense of what this country really looks like and how different it was in the sunshine.

As we drove north, we were most impressed with the highland scenery around Glencoe, where steep green mountainsides, totally bare of trees, rise up until they disappear into the clouds. They seem much taller and more imposing than mountains of greater heights we know in New England, mostly because of how steep they are. The rain and fog only made them all the more impressive.

Taking pictures in the rain and as we were driving was very difficult. Also difficult was trying to take pictures of Loch Ness, once we reached it, because, being long and thin, there were few good vantage points in the direction we were traveling. Better luck tomorrow.

Our destination for the next two nights was Strathpeffer, a golfing resort town slightly northwest of Inverness. Arjan thought it would make a good jumping off point for heading in any direction.  But our hotel turned out to be a total disaster.  Our first clue was that the whole downstairs lobby area was filled with crowds of people over 80 who had just gotten off their tour bus and were waiting in line for dinner.

The hotel was one of those places that thoroughly insulates you from the local culture of the place you are visiting.  That thought was clinched by the stuffed Nessies (the Loch Ness Monster) in the display case next to the reception desk. Later, when we came back from dinner (elsewhere!), a man in a kilt was singing Muzak about Scotland to the crowd that filled the entire downstairs lounge and lined up at the bar to buy more drinks.

The idea of staying here for two nights was so repulsive, we conned our way out of a second night and booked another place much further south for tomorrow night.  We can now alter our itinerary to visit the ruins of Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness and the battlefield of Culloden just outside of Inverness tomorrow. We will miss the northern Highlands this trip, but we will make it easier to return to Edinburgh for our flight on Tuesday.  With constant rain predicted for the foreseeable future, it makes sense to keep things simple.

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

Today we used our Historic Scotland Explorer passes to visit Stirling Castle, home of the Stewart Kings of Scotland. The car park was full, but we managed to find a parking spot on the far side of the castle where we parked for free all afternoon! All we had to do was walk up a short, steep incline, and there we were at the gates of the castle!

It is easy to see why this castle played such an important part in the history of Scotland. It is nearly impregnable, with a commanding view of the countryside in every direction. The castle is definitely worth visiting, and there is so much to see. We absorbed a historic timeline in the Castle Exhibition and then joined a guided tour with a kilted guide to learn about the physical layout and more historic detail. Finally, we explored more nooks and crannies on our own, especially in the Palace, with its costumed characters and a recreation of the colorful interior during the reign of King James V, its architect. There were short films, signboards, and displays everywhere. The visitor is well taken care of, no matter how little or how deeply you want to delve.

After Arjan’s emergency dental appointment, which went amazingly smoothly, we came back to our bungalow.  I took my camera and walked out to the road to take more pictures of the surrounding area, because we leave tomorrow.  If you squint, you can even see Stirling Castle off in the distance!

We had dinner again at L’Angolino’s in Doune. No, it is not our imagination, the food is just as good as our first impression, and the owners, Gerry and Kitty, were just as friendly as last time.  Definitely a place to remember for the hospitality of the area.

It is sad to leave our hosts, Fiona and Colin, and our lovely little cottage, but there are more adventures to be had further north!

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.

The scenery here in the District of Stirling is very lovely—green farmland, with sheep and cows everywhere, along with hedgerows and stone walls with capped tops. There is a photograph at every turn along these winding country roads, but the roads have no shoulders and are extremely narrow, so there is never a place to stop and point my camera. I do the best I can and photograph everything in sight every time the car stops and I can get onto my own two feet! Arjan has the tense job of negotiating these tiny byways and avoiding the cars whizzing from the other direction “on the wrong side of the road,” as Americans like to say.

We are also on a fault line, between the rolling fields of the south and the higher mountains of The Trossachs area.  In fact, the national park is often called, “The Highlands in Miniature.”

For the record, in case you want to follow along on the map (or I do after we get home), the first day here, we did the mini loop of the Trossachs Trail from Callander, past Loch Venachar to Loch Katrine, and then over Duke’s Pass to Aberfoyle and back home through the little village of Thornhill, our neighboring town.

The second day, we made the big loop around the park, from Callander to Crianlarich, past Loch Lubnaig and Loch Iubhair. Then we turned south, stopping at the Falls of Falloch, and past all the Munros (mountains over 3000 feet), including the imposing Ben More at 1174 metres. At the northern-most point of Loch Lomand, we stopped for a bite at the Hotel Ardlui, and then headed down the full 24-miles of the loch on the western side to Balloch. On the way home, we stopped at the Port of Menteith and back to Thornhill.

Today, we drove directly to Drymen and Balmaha at the southern end of Loch Lomand and drove up the east side of the loch as far as the road can take us to Rowardennan, where the hikers take off for Ben Lomand, the highest peak in the area at 974 metres. We returned to Balmaha for a mini walk of our own, called the Millennium Forest Path, more suitable for people nearing their own millennium.

It has been a real pleasure to be able to experience this part of Scotland in the sunshine every day. Only two more days here and we head north into the Highlands, where it is reasonable to expect more typical gloomy weather.

NOTE: Apologies for the delay in posting photographs, but vacation time is being taken up with vacationing. The accompanying photographs will appear in due time. Know that they are being taken.