I wanted to feel the wind in my hair and sail the seven seas... But all I got was a 30 minute, overly crowded, ferry ride. Oh well, it was entertaining non-the-less and the ocean breeze was a blessed welcome to the humid weather that Scotland seems to be inflicted with. I didn't pack any shorts because to me, 60 degrees is cold. Apparently Scotland didn't get the memo and decided to give its pale residents and visitors sunburns.
The ferry dropped us in Mallaig, the end of the road for the train line that was built in the 1800's so that the government could get to the outskirt towns that were constantly fighting. It was also built to help bring in the food that the ocean front towns grew and caught. We stopped at a lovely little train cafe, operating out of an original train from the early 1900's and had a lovely toastie and soup. Toasties seem to be the food of choice for Scotland. It's basically a sandwich, minus lettuce or tomato, toasted, grilled, or on normal bread. They are everywhere, as well as homemade soups made of strange pairings such as parsley and carrot or fig and turnip.
Down the road from the train cafe was the Glenfinnan Monument, built in honor of Bonnie Prince Charles (Prince Charles Edward Stuart), a Jacobite (person who fought to have Scotland seperated from England and to be its own country) who brought a bunch of high-powered families together to fight for Scottish independence, thus starting a short lived, 8 month, war that ended with Bonnie running away due to treason. But he did inspire the Scotish people, who erected the monument after the Jacobite cause no longer mattered.
We climbed to the top of the pillared monument, crawling out of a 1"x1" hole, to get a fantastic view of the bay and of the railroad tracks that lead to Hogwarts. Robby and I were even lucky enough to see a train cross the bridge, but no Harry Potter. Maybe next time.
Onwards, we drove to Fort William, thinking this is where we were going to be staying for the evening, but quickly realizing that we'd booked a b&b 56 miles away. We wanted to see Loch Ness, possibly even find Nessie, and for some reason we had thought that Fort William was near Loch Ness. Oh well. We had just enough time to explore Europe's mountain gear/camping sale capital before we went broke and all the shops closed. It is kind of an outdoor adventurist's dream city -tons of high quality, reasonably priced outdoor gear next to the highest mountain peak in Scotland, Glen Nesbit, and a 60 mile stretch of beautiful hiking and camping sites.
We spent the night next to the northern tip of Loch Ness, enjoying an amazing dinner of fresh salmon accompanied by surprise whiskey tasting. There we over 200 whiskey's in the bar, so we just asked to be surprised on what we sampled. Of the three we tried, one tasted like ethanol, one slightly sweet with hints of sherry, and the last one, amazing sherry undertones with a smooth finish. I kept the glass to sniff during desert. Yummy, but probably an expensive bottle, so my alcohol tastes still remain high class. If I become an alcoholic I'm gonna have to make a lot of money to keep my taste buds happy.
The following day I go my true boat ride. I know it is a pathetic waste of money, but whenever will I be in Scotland again, so I dragged Robby on a Loch Ness Nessie tour. It was just the two of us and our tour guide, Dick, who was awesome. He originally came to Loch Ness to help researchers find Nessie. He even filmed one of the evidentiary shots of "something large and fast" swimming through the water. He's been looking for Nessie for over 40 years, but he's convinced that she doesn't exist and has tried to disprove other people's findings with scientific opinion for te last 15 or so years. Interesting because he really does want to prove that Nessie is real, but if no one has any type of proof (a live creature or bones of a dead one) in over 60 years and the lake isn't all that big, then is there really a sea monster hiding in it's depths?
After spotting Nessie rearing her head in the form of a duck 400 meters away, we headed down the country to Glaslow via Glen Coe, the 60 miles of hiking trails and amazing wilderness. We stopped for a little bit at a waterfall on the side of the road, but continued on to make it to our next couchsurfer's house before late evening. On the way though, we made a slight detour to visit "Hill House", a turn of the 20th century home build by William Rennie Mackintosh for Charles Blackie, a famous children's author of the time.
Mackintosh was a brilliant, young architect that was either able to see the future or anticipate what the future would look like because the house that he built for the Blackie family in 1902 is reminiscent of a 1960's art deco house; rose motifs elegantly placed throughout the rooms, color coded doors -pink glass squares for women and purple for men, utilization of the light-east wing for the children, west wing for the parents as well as grand manipulation of how light can filter into a room and illuminate a space, plus he added special play nooks for the children and reading nooks for the adults. Most of the furniture in the house was designed by his wife, Margaret, and himself; high back chairs with intricate drawings etched in the seat backs or practical chairs taught to teach the children to sit up straight by ensuring if they slouched, they'd slip off the chair. Rather ingenious. They wouldn't let us take pictures inside the house, but I encourage anyone with an interest in art deco, architecture, or design to google Mackintosh, you won't be disappointed.
Ok, I'm sure some of you are wondering where the pictures are and falling asleep reading my babbles, so I will try and sum up Glasgow. Bert, our amazing couchsurfing host, took us to a bunch of cool pubs and shared his knowledge of Scotland -we'd finally found a Scottish person to stay with in Scotland. We spent day one of two wandering around, stopping at the Glasgow Art College, designed by Mackintosh. Mackintosh went to Glasgow to learn art and ended up taking architecture night classes at the school for ten years. In 1894 the school held a competition to design the new school, because they were getting an influx of students and needed more space, so Mackintosh submitted his design and won at 28-years-old.
The school is even more magnificent than Hill House. I've never had a favorite architect before, but I'm pretty sure it is Mackintosh now. He went on to design 40 tea houses around Glasgow and a bunch of houses, but ended up dying of mouth cancer in the 1930's, poor and unappreciated. I'm starting to think all brilliant people live sordid lives and are only truly appreciated after they are gone.
We visited The Lighthouse, another Mackintosh building that used to house the city newspaper in the teens and twenties but has since been converted into a museum with a history of Glasgow exhibit on the bottom floor, a history of Mackintosh exhibit on the middle floor, a tea shop, and a very tall spiral tower that we climbed to view the city from 360 degrees.
We spent our last day in Scotland wandering through the Kelvingrove Art Museum and Kelvingrove Park. Both lovely and good for killing time and enjoying a little bit of Scotland for free.
So that is all of Scotland, our whole time in the kelt wearing, whiskey drinking, non dreary country. It was an amazing two weeks and hopefully Ireland will inspire and dazzle me as Scotland has.
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