Day 6 in Scotland

My last day as a tourist I decided to go for the ocean. Specifically, I decided to take the ferry to the Isle of Bute. This was a great little trip--despite the wind that was kicking up on the top deck. (I think it was just me and a guy walking his dog up there--the rest of the ferrygoers had more sense.)

The island itself is compact, and consists of quite a few hotels with an ocean view along a winding road. But I was here to check out another castle within walking distance of the ferry landing: Rothesay castle. Rothesay is about 800 years old and a classic. Moat, check. Round towers at the corner, check. Imposing square gatehouse tower with drawbridge, check. Attacked by Vikings, check, check.

There's no audio tour, but some of the rooms inside have been turned into a museum, and there was more than enough information inside to get a sense of the history. This was built by the Steward to the king. The family name morphed to Stewart over the ages, and later became the Stewart line of kings. It was the lynchpin in the defense of Western Scotland against the Norse in the 13th century, and later on saw action during the Scottish Wars of Independence.

After seeing the castle and a chapel dating back to the first millenium, I returned on the ferry to the mainland. I drove south along the coast then to my final stop of the trip, Culzean Castle. Unfortunately, weather had caused some damage, and the castle was closed for the day. Still, there were great views of the ocean from the ramparts.

This was a much different castle than Rothesay. Culzean was built in the 1700's and was an extension of a manor house. So it lacked the primary focus on defense, and concentrated more on looking pretty. Which I have to say, it is lovely, even as the rain clouds rolled in and out.

That was my trip to Scotland! It's a great place-full of history and ruins, as well as breathtaking scenery. Plus you can drive from one end to the other in a day or two! Next stop, Denmark...

Day 5 in Scotland

The next day I took the bus back to the airport (very cheap from Ediburgh--about six pounds) and rented another car. This time I was heading to the lowlands, still hilly, but with a markedly different character than the area around Loch Ness.

First stop was Rosslyn Chapel, just south of Ediburgh. This is a small chapel covered with intricate carvings, many of which are linked to symbols from the Knights Templar. Very few tourist attractions can claim to have been transformed by a book. As the ending for the search for the Holy Grail in The Da Vinci Code, Rosslyn has become a bustling little landmark. The good news (according to the tour guide) is that they are five years ahead of their fundraising schedule due to the order of magnitude jump in visitors. The bad news is that the limestone carvings are in danger: unless the swell in tourists subsides, they might even have to limit the number of people coming into the chapel each year.

While heading to the south, I stopped at the Loch o' the Lowes to have some lunch. The area is far less green that the lochs farther north, but still a nice place to take a walk and admire the everpresent flocks of sheep.

The end of the day found me in the south of the country at Caerlaverock Castle. This castle dates back to the 13th century, and still has a water filled moat. On the grounds is also a working trebuchet. The castle belonged to a Catholic family, the Maxwells. Being on the border with England, it saw quite a bit of action, finally being abandoned in the 1600's after Protestant forces destroyed the south wall.

If touring the history of Scotland has taught me anything, it's an appreciation for the separation of church and state and the simple idea that multiple religions can exist peaceably in the same culture. For me that ranks pretty high on the list of good ideas that I wish would catch on worldwide.

Day 4 (Afternoon) in Scotland

For my last afternoon in Edinburgh, I headed toward the museums and galleries.

The National Museum of Scotland is everything that you hope for in a museum--uncluttered but comprehensive, innovative, and just full of surprises. There are smaller rooms showcasing artifacts from prehistory days up to the present, like the Bute Mazer, a communal drinking cup. The shields surrounding the lion are thought to represent Robert the Bruce and his close comrades.



There are also large airy spaces enclosing giant machines such as some early automated looms, a two story tall machine for digging mines, and enormous copper tubs and tubing for whiskey distillation. Plus I learned that Scotland had its own version of the guillotine, called "The Maiden".



You can go up on the rooftop at the National Museum, which gives great views of Edinburgh castle and the Royal Mile. For my last stop I headed over to the National Gallery (open late on Thursdays!) to check out the collection. This is a wonderful gallery, full of the 16th and 17th century paintings I love so much. And like the National Museum, all of the Gallery buildings are free!

End of classes

This Wednesday marked the end of graduate classes at Duke (well, plus Thursday for a snow day.) Naturally, I always view the end of classes with great optimism: now I'll finally catch up on everything I planned to do a month ago (like finishing my dispatches from Scotland before I forget entirely what I did.)

In fact, I have an even more ambitious goal that catching up on my blog: finish four papers by mid-summer, when I'll have to begin moving. Yep, that's right, for those who haven't heard I am now once again officially gainfully employed. This fall I'll be starting at Claremont-McKenna College, back in Claremont, CA.

I'm looking forward to being at CMC, but glancing around my apartment, I'm not so much looking forward to moving, a whole different prospect. I could pretend to myself that it's an opportunity to take stock of what things are actually important to me in my life, but of course its really just a pain to wade through piles of old clothes and junk. Still, it's hard not to enjoy the Spring weather in Durham with the gorgeous flowers everywhere. Ah, packing can wait!

Day 4 (Morning) in Scotland

At the other end of the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle is the Palace of Holyroodhouse, still the Queen's residence when she is in Edinburgh. This is a delightful Palace with a well thought out audio tour.

I've noticed in general that audio tours are much better than they used to be. Early attempts at such tours tended to just dump all the information the curators has on the place into the guide. Today's tours are better thought out: timing is as important as information content. The best tours add extra numbers for special items in a room--find a room interesting and you get extra information, find it boring and you can quickly move ahead. More and more places are getting the hang of this, and the one at Holyroodhouse is excellent.

As an aside, I'd recommend for any traveler to bring your set of earphones as you travel whether or not you commonly use an MP3 player. So many place offer only low quality headphones or in the worst case you have to hold up a player to your ear, which makes your arm tired and tends to make you want to cut the tour short.

The Palace gets its name from the Holyrood Abbey next door. The Abbey was believed to have a piece of the True Cross (the "Holyrood") in its possession. A few centuries later is was attacked by an anti-Catholic mob and left in ruins. Today is has been cleaned up, and is now a beautiful ruin, especially when the sun shines out.



After the tour, I went over to the new Scottlish Parliament Building. Architecturally, this building is a mess, a mishmash of styles and symbols that make it look like it was designed by a committee of elementary school children. I heard it looked better inside, but a tour group just beat me in, and the long line at the security station deterred me.

Instead, I headed for the highest point in the city, Carlton Hill. This is a giant park with also contains a monument to civic misplanning, the Scottish National Monument, an incomplete replica of the Parthenon that only contains 12 columns. Since it was never completed, it has become known as "Scotland's Disgrace" or (according to my tour guide from the day before) if you are from Glasgow "Edinburgh's Disgrace".

In any event, there are great view from the top--I don't have any pictures to back that up, however, since the weather went from sunny to windy and rainy in a matter of moments, so I broke early for lunch. I heartily recommend Howie's, which had really great food.

Day 3 in Scotland

Walking down the Royal Mile, I noted several tour companies operating out of Edinburgh. That night, I checked out my options on the Web and decided to use Rabbies Trail Bruners for a trip to Stirling Castle. I was not disappointed: our tour was a small van with only eight people, and our driver/guide kept us informed and entertained throughout our travels.



Stirling Castle (like Edinburgh) dates back to the early part of the seoncd millenium, and has seen many wars and expansions. Wallace captured it early in the Scottish wars of Independence, and Robert the Bruce won his final victory over the English within sight of the castle.

It's not hard to see why the castle has been so important to the Scots--it lies at the border between the Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland, giving it wonderful views over much of the countryside. No wonder by the time of King James VI (James I of England) this was the royal castle. I couldn't enter the royal apartments because they are undergoing a multimillion dollar restoration at the moment. As part of that resotration, seven tapestries are being woven by a team that is working for several years. Four of these are currently on display in the Chapel, and this may have been the first time I have seen medieval style tapestries in their original brilliant colors.



After leaving the castle, the tour headed into the Trossachs National Park area. Lunch was at the idyllic town of Aberfoyle, and I can certainly recommend the food at The Carriage House.

After lunch, we headed for shores of Loch Lomand, one of the more photogenic regions in a country known for its landscapes. A short hike brought us to the top of a hill with views of the Loch as it wound around the hills.

Day 2 in Scotland

Edinburgh is a gorgeous city, divided between the Old City along the Royal Mile leading up to Edinburgh Castle, and the New Town built much later.

Today I began with the hike up to the Castle. Built at the top of a volcanic structure called Castle Rock, the Royal Mile leads from the bottom (near my hotel) an old Scottish mile (about 1 1/8 modern miles) to the top.



At the top is a Castle that has seen it all: warfare, seige, betrayal, and in between those times, an ever increasing series of fortifications as whatever potentate in control sought to improve the defenses.

Since it is at the top of Castle, Rock, the views from the Castle are outstanding. An audio tour runs for a few hours or can be completed much quicker, depending on your inclination. Naturally, I was there a long, long time.



There's lots to see and do here. Starting with St. Margaret's Chapel, the only original part of the castle (dating from the 1200's) to remain, there is the Scottish national War Memorial, two museums devoted to specific regiments of Scottish soldiers, the Scottish National War Museum, and the Royal apartments, part of which now houses the Royal Insignia of Scotland. That alone is worth the price of admission: the rest makes for a heady immersion into Scottish history.

After finishing the Castle, I started down the Royal Mile. Notable along this route is the High Kirk of St. Giles, also known as St. Giles Cathedral. The tower has the same shape as the crown, with interlacing arches. Inside, many of the side chapel and decorations are open to entry.

Next I headed back to the top of the Royal Miles, and the Camera Obscura. This is a five story building with what amounts to a periscope attached to the top. Every twenty minutes or so, a group is ushered into a darkened room, and the image from a postcard sized mirror is projected down onto a simple white table, resulting in about a 50 times magnified image. The controler below can spin the camera and move it slightly up and down, giving a 360 degree tour of the sights of the city without having to leave the room. There are other camera obscuras out there, but this is the first that I have visited, and I would highly recommend it.

Of course you can always then head outside to see the city for yourself. In addition, the other four floors are devoted to all manner of optical illusions, holograms, and giant kaleidoscopes.

Next, I headed over to the smallish Museum of the Mound. This is a museum run by the Bank of Scotland, and not only gives a history of the banking industry in Scotland, but also has many of the early bank note printing methods on display. It only took me about 30 minutes to run through, but very informative.

The nice thing about staying at the bottom of the Mile is that getting back to your hotel at the end of the day is a much more restful experience!