Scotland Trip Diary
Added 27 July 2005. Pictures and stories from our trip to Scotland, the week of June 25–July 2, 2005. Page 1 | 2
Preparation
Since we'd had luck with our Paris trip in February, for our summer vacation we decided to see what kind of last-minute deals would pop up on Expedia.ca—with a trip to Eastern Canada (including the Charlevoix region) as a back-up.
What was coming up lucky for us this time was Glasgow, Scotland. However, despite my ancestry (1/4 of it, anyway), we didn't know much about Scotland or why we'd want to visit there. So before finalizing a booking, we went to Chapters for research. Didn't take too much research to conclude that we would find enough interesting there for a week's visit.
So back home to book a flight and hotel package. With all the caveats that many regions were best accessed by car, we also decided to add a car rental, despite the “driving on the wrong side of the road” issue.
A comedy of errors: Toronto to Scotland
Playing it safe, we left home in ample time to make our flight. And good thing too, because virtually all our extra time was used up waiting for the Park'n'Fly bus to take us from their parking lot to the airport. It literally took us longer to get from the parking lot to the terminal 3 than it did to drive from home to the airport parking lot. After waiting in the rather long lineup to check in—and passing time chatting with a young woman who was flying to England for the weekend to adopt a rare breed of dog (?)—we had some momentary panic at being told that we needed actual paper tickets, not just our eTicket info. But it turned out the tickets were waiting for us at a nearby counter, and we were then allowed to butt in line and check in.
And, we still had just enough time to grab some food before having to board. Fortunate, because Air Transaat is really not Air France. More cramped, no free wine with dinner, no personal TV with choice of movies, and the food quality... well, was it really necessary to douse the cheese pasta in extra, extra salt? Blech! Oh well. Though stuck in the middle aisle, we were fortunate not to have anyone sitting beside or behind us, so we could take advantage of some extra room. And the flight was smooth, on time, and the food items other than the cheese pasta were at least edible.
We arrived at Glasgow Airport ridiculously early in the morning — like 6:30 AM (though it felt more like midnight). There we might our first and definitely crankiest Scotsperson, the car rental lady who informed us the counter didn't open until 7:00 AM and she couldn't help us until then. So we puttered around gathering maps and such until we were able to sign out our car.
Then we went off on our first of many, many rounds of getting slightly lost on the way to our hotel. Also amusing on this day was Jean's repeatedly whacking the right window as he reached for the gear actually located on his left. That behavior, unlike the getting lost, he pretty quickly got over. And while there were no incidents of driving on the wrong side of the road, there were quite a few moments of mild panic at seeing cars or trucks coming at us from the left! ... until we remembered they were supposed to do that here.
Anyway, once at the hotel, they were able to shuffle rooms so that we could check in immediately. After checking out the room, which was rather large by European standards, and full of useful amenities—except a hair dryer, so I was doomed to a week of bad hair—we decided that a nap was in order.
The Crow Wood Hotel, near Glasgow
Next the very bad decision to drive into Glasgow. Maybe it was the ongoing jet lag, the lack of road signs, the adjusting to the left side driving—whatever. All we accomplished was frustration at getting lost and a complete inability to find anywhere to leave the car. So, we went back to the hotel. Where we found out we could get to Glasgow by crossing the street and taking one of the buses that passed every 15 minutes.
The double-decker bus driver had no problems at all getting us into downtown Glasgow, and the first order of business was getting coffee at the bus station. Unfortunately, second order of business was spilling coffee all down my front due to an ill-fitting lid. (Truly, this was one of our best travelling days ever. :-) ) Which then led to a little shopping expedition, as I suddenly had an urge to get a new shirt, but really really didn't want to return to our hotel again.
Wearing my kicky new Glaswegian shirt (a bit tight, as it turns our their size 8 isn't quite the same as ours, but what the heck), we went on a bus tour of the city, and were finally able to appreciate that Glasgow had some interesting architecture and very beautiful neighbourhoods, particularly around the university. Jean also tried out his new digital camera, and actual got some decent shots from the bus.
The Glasgow Jazz Festival was just winding up, and we saw the Glenn Miller Band perform.
Then we went for dinner at an Italian restaurant that was really quite good.
Food highlight du jour: The mussel appetizer was great—so fresh! But the pasta in Jean's lasagna was nearly as good.
Day 2: A day in Glasgow
Parking the car for the day, we took the bus into Glasgow. We visited a few of the Museums—all of which are free—the Museum of Modern Art, the McLennan Gallery, and a few art galleries. We also noted the friendliness of the Scottish people, as pretty much every time we pulled out a map to figure out where to go next, someone stopped and offered to show us the way.
After lunch, we walked to the Cathedral and Necropolis, which was probably the highlight of the city's sights.
We then repeated part of our bus tour (ticket was good for two days, and we thought it would be good to see again while less sleepy) and headed off to a Pub. Because we thought we should. There we discovered that we really don't care for malt whiskey, but cider is very nice. Although a whole pint of it leads to tipsiness (at least if you're me).
Book shopping at Borders was next on the agenda (I bought What to You Wear Can Change Your Life and A Year in the Merde), then we had dinner at the Mussel Inn.
Food highlights du jour: The seafood continues to impress, and we have it in many forms (none fried, though): chowder, grilled (scallops and oysters), and steamed (mussels and oysters).
Day 3: It's a long way to Inverary
Destination 1 was the nearby town of Stirling, best known for its castle. We had relatively little difficulty getting to the town by car, but parked out of view of the castle itself. We asked the parking lot security guard for directions, whereupon he immediately got out from behind the secure glass doors, walked us right outside, and pointed exactly in the direction we needed to go.
Having been spoiled by the free museums, we hemmed and hawed about the price of admission to the castle, but then decided to buy an “Explorer Pass” which, given the sites were planning to get to, would save us money. So we walked the castle grounds sans guide. It was pretty neat—a lot of restorative work had been done on it.
After our usual disorientation, we ended up on the road up to the Highlands. The roads were very narrow and completely lacking in shoulder, which made for some interesting passing situations. (Trucks and campers basically had to stop and inch by each other.)
The day, which had been a little foggy (as seen at Stirling) totally cleared up, which really highlighted the beauty of the Highlands area. It also made it evident that our car air conditioning was somewhat useless, but hot in Scotland fortunately isn't that hot—the high was about 22C.
An unintended detour took us down a lovely little road where we stopped for tea and scones. We also took a few photos.
We continued through the Highland Roads, noting that there were indeed a large number of sheep.
We went to beautiful Loch Lomond, where we stopped for a bit, then decided to go to the town of Inverary. This is a really picturesque little town, with white-faced buildings facing the water. They also have a castle, still in use by the Duke, the truly looks like a castle in those fairy tale pictures. Though closed when we got there, we were able to walk all around the grounds and get a good view of its outside.
In keeping with the Scottish friendliness already observed, the manager of the George Hotel did not put up a “no vacancy” sign in order to be able to help us find accommodations, which she did, at a bed and breakfast. We then just managed to get into dinner at the semi-famous Loch Fyne Oyster Bar—fantastic! (though by no means fancy.)
Food highlight du jour: Did we mention the seafood? Yes, the oysters were a real highlight of the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar, but one can't discount their smoked mackerel in gooseberry sauce, grilled salmon in ginger, or smoked salmon in whisky. The accompanying wine (French and South African) was lovely as well.
Continue to page 2: More and better castles! More green mountains! And Edinburgh the day before Live 8...