Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Scotland: our favorites
Favorite Castle (renovated): Sandy- Culzean, Mike- Stirling. (architecture, history).
Favorite Castle(ruin): Kilchurn (atmosphere, isolation).
Favorite abbey: Melrose (beautiful colors and carvings).
Favorite activity: climbing towers, especially in castle ruins.
Favorite food: Mike fell in love with the cookies/biscuits.
Favorite accommodation: Annfield House, Callander (beautiful room, home, garden).
Favorite breakfast: Annfield House, Callander (huge variety of fresh fruits, beautifully displayed).
Favorite hike: Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh.(unbelievable views).
Most accomodating B&B host: Liz at Burnside Guesthouse, Ayr (above and beyond our expectations).
Ireland: our favorites
Favorite accommodation (room): Greenmount House, Dingle (great view, bed).
Favorite breakfast: Newlands Lodge, Kilkenny. (amazing eggs).
Favorite rental car: Renault Fluence (car in Scotland was a piece of cr*p).
Favorite historical site: Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin (compelling tour).
Favorite beef and Guinness stew: The Coachman's, Kenmare (Yum!).
Favorite activity: Hawk Walk at Burren Birds of Prey Center (absolutely awesome!).
Favorite hike: Spinc trail, Glendalough (strenuous, but the view was worth it).
Favorite food: smoked Gubbeen cheese and soda bread (seriously, I could live on this stuff).
Favorite scenery: impossible to choose (not kidding).
Favorite ruins: Kells Priory,Kells (all alone, climbing around ruins).
Favorite encounter with a local: our conversation with the man in Kells who gave us directions (great, funny conversation).
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Heading home...
Our wonderful vacation has come to an end and we're heading back home. I'm blogging from the airplane now. When I get home, I'll see if we have some video to add, and also our list of "favorites" from each country.
The Border Abbeys
We attempted to see all four of the Border Abbeys, but we got a later start that day than we would have liked, so we only made it to three: Melrose, Jedburgh and Dryburgh. Of the three, my favorite would have to be Melrose. The first abbey at Melrose was built in the 1100's and, like the other border abbeys, was destroyed and rebuilt several times during the wars between Scotland and England. Melrose is built of beautiful rose-colored stone and has an amazing amount of surviving carvings and sculptures. This place is absolutely gorgeous and we spent an hour or more here while I took photos of many of the carvings. There is even a figure of a bagpipe-playing pig! :) The heart of Robert the Bruce is buried here, too. Jedburgh Abbey is in the process of some excavation, and is nice also, but right next to a rather busy road. Dryburgh Abbey is in the coutryside in a secluded setting, very peaceful. It has some remnants of early wall paintings, I can't recall which century, I think it was the 1500's. Sir Walter Scott is buried here.
Culzean Castle
Our reason for traveling to Ayr was to see Culzean Castle. I think it's probably my favorite renovated castle of our visit to Scotland (Mike prefers Stirling). I loved it because of the Robert Adam architecture and particularly because the interior has been so well-restored. It has lots of period furniture, beautifully decorated ceilings, friezes along the walls, and the most impressive display of armory.
I mean really, really impressive and displayed in such an original fashion. It's one of those rooms you walk into and just say, "Wow!" They didn't just stack up bunches of guns and swords and put a label on them, the sword blades were cut and fashioned into large pieces of art and the flintlock pistols were displayed in an imaginative way too. The collection of flintlocks is huge, I think they said that only the queen has a larger collection.
The kitchen had an ingenious roaster. You know those candle sets where you light the candles and the heat creates a draft that makes the little angels go round in a circle? This roaster used the same principle. A fan was installed in the kitchen fireplace's chimney and a cable and pulley were attached to the fan. When the fan rotated, it moved the cable through the pulley. A long rotisserie basket was attached to the cable and stood in front of the fire, and the basket rotated as the fan turned. Who thinks of this stuff? I thought it was a pretty awesome invention for almost 300 years ago.
The castle also produced it's own gas supply in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The castle has an amazing oval staircase. A circular shape wouldn't fit, so it was made in an oval shape instead. The stairs have no visible means of support, this is because each individual step is sunk 18 inches into the wall and each stone step rests upon the one below it. If you were to remove any one step, the entire structure would come down.
The park surrounding the castle is very large and there is also beach access. Many of the castle windows had wonderful views of the sea.
Ailsa Craig
From our B&B in Ayr, you could see Ailsa Craig. This is the island where all the granite for curling stones used to be quarried. Liz, our host, said the Olympic Curling team from Scotland still gets the stone for their curling stones from Ailsa Craig. They call it the "scone" island locally, because it's shaped like a scone.
Electric Brae
On a section of the coast road south of Ayr, you can find the Electric Brae. If you park in this section of road and release your parking brake with the car in neutral, you seem to be rolling uphill! Totally weird and fun! It's an optical illusion created by the slope of the surrounding land, but we still thought it was cool.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Kilchurn Castle
Today we went searching for Kilchurn Castle. It's a ruin of a 16th-17th century castle at the head of Loch Awe, but there's no sign on the road at all so you have to know where to look. Despite having some notes on the location, we still couldn't find it and had to stop at the local store to ask. It turns out we just hadn't gone quite far enough yet, and were able to find the turn off the roadway after driving past it only once. A minute after we pulled into the small area where you park, another car pulled in and I thought "Oh great! I was hoping to get pictures without other people in them!" Well it turns out the older lady in the other car was actually there to unlock the door! My info was that the site was totally open access, basically 24/7, but here was a little lady with a skeleton key heading out there to open the castle so we trailed along. Once the door was open, the lady took off and we had the place to ourselves the whole time we were there - except for some sheep, of course. It was fun and we climbed all the stairs and platforms and went out onto the castle dock on the loch. The only down side were some small flying bugs that we think may have been midges cuz one bit Mike and drew blood. Luckily we had picked up some spray a couple of days earlier, and once we'd spritzed ourselves, the bugs wanted nothing to do with us. :) We timed our visit perfectly because 6 people were coming up the trail just as we heading back. I thought this place was sort of a secret?!
Duh!
We spent several days driving in Ireland and found that all roads were well-posted when it came to speed limit signs. Kilometers per hour are displayed as just a sign with a number in the middle surrounded by a red ring. We always joked saying the speed limit must be the maximum speed anyone had ever driven on that road and survived, because we never even came close to the speed limit except on the motorway (freeway). When we started driving in Scotland, we couldn't believe how low the speed limits were! Not all that many people were speeding, but it felt like we were crawling along, and the speeds are not as well posted as they were in Ireland. When we arrived at our B&B that afternoon, we asked our host about the speed limits. It was more than a little embarrassing to be told that the speed limits were miles per hour, not kilometers! No wonder we felt as if we were crawling! Duh!
Not sheep- cows!
As we left Tobermory to catch the ferry back to the "mainland", I was commenting to Mike that we hadn't come across any cattle in the road, just sheep. Lots and lots of sheep. We came around a turn in the road and found a herd of the "hairy coos" (Highland cattle) in the road! I have video but I can't download video to my iPad, so it will have to wait til I get home.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
White-tailed Sea Eagle
We tried to book a boat trip to search for one of the Sea Eagles that live on the island, but the tour was full. We were driving around the western side of Mull when we came upon several cars pulled off the road near a loch. Many had binoculars and cameras, so we stopped to see what was happening. Lucky us! They had spotted a Sea Eagle way up in the spruce trees at the top of a ridge. We couldn't get a good look with our binocs, but a nice man with a telescope let us look through it and, sure enough, there was the eagle! Just sitting in the tree, surveying his domain. Very cool!
Sheep in the road? No big deal.
I would like to report that we have now seen, passed, and herded so many sheep out of the road that this is no longer a big deal.
Callander to Mull - via Glencoe
We left Callander after breakfast and headed west. Our final destination: Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. To get there we drove through Glencoe, an area of rugged beauty and the site of a terrible massacre in 1692. We took two car ferries to reach Mull, landing at Fishnish. We were earlier than expected, so we decided to stop and see Duart Castle nearby. This castle belongs to the Clan MacLean and daughter Amanda has a friend by that name. I had heard that the current Chief of the Clan sometimes can be found at the castle in summertime, so I asked an employee if Sir Lachlan MacLean was at the castle. When she replied that he was, I told her about our daughter's friend and asked if Sir Lachlan would sign my souvenir guide of the castle so I could pass it along to her. She took the book and went looking for him while we toured the castle and when we came back, Sir Lachlan himself came up to meet us and chatted awhile. He was very gracious and signed the book for us with a personal note too. We then headed for Tobermory. I had been thinking the last couple of days about how much easier it was to drive the roads in Scotland, but then...we went...to...Mull. Practically all the roads on this island are single track roads. This means there is literally room for just one car on the road and there is a "passing space" every so often where it's wide enough for one car to pass another heading the opposite direction. If you see another car coming, the protocol is to pull in to the nearest passing space on your side of the road until the other car has squeaked past you. This is absolutely nerve-wracking to drive, for driver and passenger. We drove around the west side of the island the next day, despite the terrible roads and were rewarded with great scenery and adrenaline-pumping road encounters. It's funny because Alan, our B&B host said that the single track roads were perfect for Americans because you didn't have to worry about which side of the road to drive on, you had no choice but to stay in the middle. ;)
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Callander
We booked a B&B here, primarily just to break up the drive from Edinburgh to Mull, but we really liked this village and would gladly have stayed longer if we didn't already have other plans. it's a charming little town with small businesses on the main street, a river running by the town, cute houses with beautiful gardens and lots of walking paths. The Scots are avid walkers, so if a Scot tells you something is an easy 15 minute walk that translates to a moderate 30-40 minute walk for us mortals. We checked into our B&B about 5pm and went in search of some dinner. After our meal, we thought we would walk off some of the calories so we decided to do the "easy" one mile walk to Bracklinn Falls. It turns out the easy one mile walk starts at the parking area which was a not-so-easy uphill climb from our B&B. We made it to the falls, which are quite nice. The local stone is called puddingstone which is apparently a softer form of rock, easily carved by the water. We spent some time there, then headed back as it was almost 9:00. It stays fairly light here until almost 10:30pm, maybe because it's so far north? Anyway, back to our cozy room and really comfy bed. :)
Stirling Castle and Wallace Monument
This morning we picked up our rental car at the airport and headed to Stirling. First stop: the Wallace Monument, as in William Wallace(Braveheart). We really liked this monument, not just for the great views from the top (246 steps,mostly spiral) but also because it does a good job of presenting Wallace's importance in Scottish history. Plus it's just a really cool-looking building. ;) There are 3 separate exhibit rooms, one of which features a "talking head" that portrays Wallace at his trial. You can also see his sword, it's a massive thing - I think it must be over 4 feet long! After the monument, we went to Stirling Castle. There's a lot to see here and we spent a couple of hours checking it out.Stirling Castle has been the home of many kings and queens including Mary, Queen of Scots. The castle has several nice exhibits plus some areas that aren't made up as displays so you get to use your imagination to think about the life people led hundreds of years ago. You can stand on the castle walls and see for miles around in every direction, a good thing for a castle because they would want to see attacking armies as early as possible. We had an enjoyable day and the weather was absolutely gorgeous with bright, sunny skies.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Edinburgh-wynds, steps, closes and the World's End
Edinburgh is many things, flat is not one of them. Our hotel was located just across the street from a set of steps that led directly to the front entrance of the castle. They were called the South Castle Wynd steps...all 150+ of them. From the castle entrance, you can walk down the Royal Mile all the way to Holyrood Palace, all of which is downhill. Then you get to walk back up again. Edinburgh has been built on many levels over the years, you can see this by looking down the narrow closes on the Royal Mile. The closes lead down to a amazing number of small streets, courtyards, and underground vaults. If you know your way around them, they're probably great for taking shortcuts from point A to point B, for visitors they're a little intimidating but quite intriguing at the same time. We had our final dinner in Edinburgh at a place called the World's End, so named because it's built over a section of city wall from the 16th century that marked the outer boundary of Edinburgh at that time. At that wall the world ended and Edinburgh began, hence the name World's End. I had an excellent steak and ale pie and Mike and I shared a sticky toffee pudding. The pub is really cool with lots of dark wood paneling and exposed rock walls. If I make it back to Edinburgh, I would definitely go to the World's End again.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Edinburgh: Day 3- Arthur's Seat
We tried (again) to tour Holyrood Palace, but it's still closed to the public, so the plan is to head into Holyrood Park and make the climb to Arthur's Seat. We started out on the Radical Road trail, which I feel is aptly named except for he "road" part - it's steep and rocky and unfortunately did not take us to Arthur's Seat. Really unfortunate since it was definitely not an easy little hike so far. So we descended to the upper road that circles the hill and walked just past Duddingston Loch and took a trail up the hill. This is fairly steep and grassy at first, then becomes steep and rocky nearer the top. I hate to admit it, but this little jaunt was not easy for me, especially after first climbing the Radical Road section. There were some guys running up there(!), ironmen obviously. We scrambled up the last few feet and were rewarded with the knowledge that we had finally made it to the top and a 360 degree view that was pretty amazing. The pictures I took just can't convey the distance and height that we covered. Unfortunately it was a little hazy as the clouds and marine layer were still burning off, but the sun had come out and felt really good to us. There were a lot of people all over the park and up on the hills, this area is very popular it seems. We descended by a different trail, then were walking around the base of the hill on the regular road, looking for a place I'd heard had Highland cattle on the grounds, when we noticed a rescue operation going on just below Salisbury Crags. We had walked that area just a couple of hours earlier but, since then, someone apparently had a heart attack and fell from the Crags. Unfortunately the person did not survive and the mission became one of recovery rather than rescue. The rescue workers had to rappel down to the person and bring the body back up the hill to a trail where a rescue ATV was waiting. We struck up a conversation with an older couple who live nearby, and they said it's not an uncommon occurrence for someone to die there once or twice a month (sometimes suicide). That's a sobering thought. We watched until they had recovered the body, then headed back to our hotel.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Edinburgh: Day 2
We woke up today to sunshine! Yes! It was still a bit windy, but not too chilly if you were out of the wind so we just keep adding and taking off layers all day. We started our day at Edinburgh Castle, set on a hill above the city. The Castle Rock is the oldest continuously occupied fortified place in Britain,and today it houses museums and monuments as well as the Scottish crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny, used to inaugurate monarchs for more than 1,000 years. A surprising thing happened when we were at the castle. We were standing at the wall near the giant canon, Mons Meg, and looked over the wall to where the dog cemetery is located (this cemetery is for regimental mascots), and we saw a fox walking across the grass next to the cemetery! Yeah, a real fox! In the daytime! Around all those people! The grassy area was about 10 feet below us and about 20 feet above the people on the ground, so he had a nice little sunny, grassy area all to himself, and he curled up and went to sleep! Amazing! We mentioned it to one of the castle staff later and she said that foxes are often seen in the city, they come to search for food in the rubbish bins and are fairly used to people, not at all like the foxes near our house. We left the castle and walked down the Royal Mile to the Palace at Holyrood House but we couldn't get in because the palace was closed to the public again today. Some royal person must be there. We walked up to Calton Hill and climbed the Nelson Monument for views of the city. 145 steps and £3 later, I have to say the views were just as good before we climbed the tower. There's an eclectic assortment of monuments on Calton Hill and you get a really great view of the city, all the way down to the castle in one direction and Arthur's Seat in another and the Firth of Forth in another. Since today is Sunday, there were a lot of people just enjoying the sunshine up there.
Scotland!
We begin our Scotland journey in Edinburgh. Our hotel room has a balcony with a view of Edinburgh Castle on the hill above us and we can see they're already building the viewing stands for the Tattoo in August. We happened to arrive on the day that the European Football league held the Scottish Cup championship game, the two teams playing were both from the Edinburgh area so the city streets were fairly empty because a lot of fans went to Glasgow to watch the match. There was also a football game between Bayern(Munich) and Chelsea the same afternoon, so there were a lot of people watching that game as well. Chelsea won their match and the Hearts of Midlothian won theirs too, so there were a lot of happy fans celebrating around the city. I was expecting something like the crazy behavior we see in the US when a team wins a big championship, but the noise in our area actually wasn't bad after about 11, so we had a good night's sleep.
Goodbye Ireland..
Goodbye, Ireland....we loved your people, your music and your gorgeous scenery. Hopefully we'll be back someday! :)
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Burren Birds of Prey - Hawk Walk
This was something we'd been looking forward to doing since I first found out about it. We arrived at the Center and checked in for our 1:00 Hawk Walk. Since we were a little early, we went and watched the flying demonstration. They fly a series of different types of birds of prey and talk about them, then let audience members come up to take a turn holding them. Very informative, and the bird handlers obviously love what they do. Finally, it was time for our Hawk Walk! We were teamed with a bird trainer named Jamie, who couldn't have been nicer, he was just great and had the Irish humor we've really come to love. We each got our very own Harris Hawk to handle! They use Harris Hawks because these are the only hawks that hunt in groups, so they don't mind flying together. We geared up in our leather gloves, holding our hawks' jesses (leather straps that you hold onto). First stop was to weigh the hawks, to check their health and to make sure their weight was good for flying. My hawk, Juan, had sustained a wing injury and was rehabilitating. Because he had been taken out of the hawk group's aviary to heal, he had lost his place in the pecking order and needed to re-establish his relation with his brother Al whom Mike was handling. After some instruction, we took off into the woods together. Jamie let the jesses off, and we were able to launch our birds for the first time...Awesome!!! We spent an hour sending them off and calling them back to land on our gloves, it was really something special to look right into the eyes of those birds as they sit on your hand, they even let you stroke them - absolutely beautiful. They have terrific maneuvering ability as well, able to fly through small openings in the trees in pursuit of prey. We saw Al fly through a space of about 14 inches to come in for a landing on the glove. It was just a fantastic time and it was probable our most favorite thing we did in Ireland.
My turn to drive....finally!
I finally convinced Mike to be the navigator for a bit so I could try my hand at driving. We left the Cliffs, heading for the Burren Birds of Prey Center. So this is a narrow road and the first time for me driving on the left, and a stick shift which I haven't driven for awhile. I circled the parking lot to get a feel for it, then we hit the road! As it turns out, this particular road has a section called "corkscrew hill". And it lived up to it's name, believe me! I'd been driving 5 minutes and found myself on a series of hairpin turns. I won't comment on Mike's reaction to my driving, but let's just say we were both glad to reach our destination. It was the longest 24km I've ever driven! Sorry no pics, I was busy and Mike was having a nervous breakdown.
Cliffs of Moher
The Cliffs of Moher are a series of high sea cliffs in County Clare. It's a big tourist attraction and the reason is evident when you see them. They are quite impressive and we managed to be there on a day that wasn't too cloudy or foggy, so I have some pretty good pictures. This was one of the things Mike wanted to see most, and we could easily have stayed a few hours walking along the cliff path, but we had an appointment that afternoon that we simply couldn't miss. More about that later.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Conor Pass
The Conor Pass stretches across the middle of the Dingle Penninsula via a narrow mountain road. A small section of the road is really not wide enough for two cars, with mountain on one side of the road and sheer cliffs on the other. I took video but can't download it til i get home. Mike handled it with really well and once we were past the really tight part, there was a turnout where you could hike up to the source of a waterfall. I said I really didn't feel like hiking up there , it was pretty chilly, and...hiking....hiking?....hiking!...and that's when I realized something awful...I had left my hiking boots back at the B&B in Dingle! Which meant we had to turn around and head back over that narrow pass and retrieve my boots, then turn around and drive the pass again for a third time to get to Tralee. I have a wonderful husband, that's all I can say.
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