Highlands and Highlights

I know there are some of my friends who absolutely love Glasgow, but truly, other than being sick in Edinburgh (over which I had little control), my biggest regret of this trip is that I didn't skip Glasgow and go straight to the Highlands. Of course, we would have lost the delightful vignette of me getting stuck in a dress, and of course, I can't change what I've already done on this trip, I can just plan my next trip more to my specific taste now that I've tasted a variety.

I could tell immediately when I crossed the border from England to Scotland, and I knew in an instant when I crossed into the Highlands, and I felt a wash of calm. This region as a whole just seems to do that to you, force you to breathe a little easier, walk a little slower, linger a little longer. No one is in a hurry, and nothing is so important that it can't wait for you to finish your drink (or your food, or your paper, or your nap).

I mentioned to the landlord in Inverness that I was going to run into town and do some shopping before my bus, and he said "We don't run in the Highlands. Unless it's for sport, and I don't see a rugby pitch outside my door. You walk, you stroll, you take your time, and you enjoy your shopping. There's plenty of time before your bus." That seems to be the prevailing attitude, and I love it. Clearly, Tolkien's Ents were Highland trees.

I have come to the conclusion that next time I come to the UK (whether or not it's still "U" after this week's vote), I will suck it up and rent a car. There were so many places I saw from the bus (or signs for nearby places) that I wanted to stop and see, and of course I was on a bus, so I couldn't. I made notes though, I have ideas for next time.

Inverness was absolutely lovely. It was calm and tranquil (except at the big public sports field, where some competitive games were gearing up), everyone was friendly and helpful, the local food was great, and the trails through the park along the River Ness were my kind of quiet paradise. The boat cruise (Jacobite Tours, if you're interested) was pretty reasonably priced, very scenic, and since it was a guided tour, full of little historical tidbits and local folklore.

The food! I've eaten well in the Highlands. In Inverness, I ate dinner both nights at a pub called Hootananny's, where they serve authentic Scottish food, stock local craft beers, and play (and have in live to play) local bands and musicians. I had a dish called Cullen Skink, which sounds kinda dreadful if you don't know what it is, but it's basically a very hearty creamy potato soup with smoked haddock (which, when smoked, tastes like bacon if you don't know that it's fish), and I liked it so much the first night that I went in and had it again the second.

The food in Oban is just as good, just in quite a different way.

When I arrived in Oban, my very first thought was that it reminded me of Mackinac, Michigan. Sound of gulls everywhere, ships and ferries and sailboats in the bay, shops all along the street in front of the piers, restaurants right out on the piers, people wearing shorts and sweaters and walking their dogs... It was a bit nostalgic, actually. It's a beautiful town, with much the same laid back feel as the rest of the Highlands.

The son of the landlady who owns my guest house recommended a restaurant shortly after I got in and tossed my stuff in my room. It turned out to be one of the restaurants on the pier, a place called Ee-Usk, award-winning, famous for their fresh seafood (well, the whole city is famous for seafood, as fishing, logging, and tourism are the big three industries in the western Highlands). I managed to get a table at Ee-Usk only because I was willing to eat early and most of their reservations were for 7:30 or later. I ordered a glass of Oban Scotch (it's my favourite anyway, and I'm across the street from the distillery, what else was I going to order?) and ate light for dinner because their dessert menu was so very enticing. That lemon cheesecake is hands-down the very best thing I ate on this trip, and I've had some really wonderful food. Cheesecake. Mmm. I left a full restaurant review on TripAdvisor (as I have for most places I've eaten and stayed over here), but this one perhaps got the most rave review, and the cheesecake and the friendly staff were the biggest factors.

The view from my room is spectacular. I can see most of the city center and a good deal of the bay, and it's a west view, so I get gorgeous sunsets on top of it.

I did go out to two of the islands, Mull and Iona (though I wish I'd just paid the extra bit and made it three Islands and seen Staffa too). Mull would be worth revisiting just so I can get out and walk the hills and wander down to the water in various places (not to mention the distilleries on the north of the island). Again, the nice thing about guided tours, you get little tidbits of information. Mull is home to between 3000 and 3500 residents... and 7000 red deer. The deer outnumber the human population 2-1. All sorts of wildlife on Mull besides the deer, they have otters, golden eagles, and sometimes play host to seals who like to come in and laze in a few places on the west coast. I saw a huge flock of Cormorants from the ferry to Iona, and several cranes both standing still and flying across some of the rocky inlets on Mull.

Interesting tidbit - When the event called the Highland Clearances occurred, in which the landlords decided they could put the land to better use if there were no farmers and villagers trying to work the land, the people of Mull had their homes and villages burned and were driven from the island. From a port on the northern side of the island, they sailed to Nova Scotia, where they kept Scottish traditions alive and thriving to the point that today there is more Gaelic spoken in Nova Scotia than there is in Scotland.

Iona is so unbelievably calm and slow, the winds should feel guilty for moving too fast across it. In one of the little cemeteries on the island (right next to the abbey), the youngest person buried there was 75; everyone else was either far into their 80s or well into their 90s, a few even older. They don't allow any cars on Iona unless the car belongs to a resident, and there are only between 90 and 300 residents on the island (90 permanent, the rest mostly during the height of tourist season to work the hotels and restaurants). In the end, I think Iona walked on the side of being far too tranquil for me, but considering that it was the home of a large abbey and a nunnery, it's no surprise that the snails pace is still a way of life there.

Back to Oban for one final day, and that day included the Oban Distillery. Oh did I choose the day to go! The tour began with a short video detailing the malting of the barley, pretty much the only part of the process not done at the distillery, and then we got to see the rest of the stages actually working. Oban still uses very dated equipment, and they will continue to do so, because some of the steps in their process just wouldn't work with newfangled equipment and would change the whiskey, and that just wouldn't do! They still use wood tanks to ferment the mash, and the ones they are using are already forty years old and should last another 40 if they're properly cared for. Unlike many larger distilleries that have up to 20 copper stills, Oban still only has 2 stills, and they are perfectly happy with the size of their operation. Only 7 men work in the distillery, and they do it in shifts, so only two at a time are every really there.

The entire tour was fascinating (and unlike with beer-making, which I find smells dreadful) the entire place smelled quite pleasant, actually. The very best part came just before the end. We all knew in advance that we were getting a free drum of Oban at the end of the tour, but when our guide walked us into the room where they fill the casks (I'll get to those, the casks themselves are really cool), we got to try a very special batch of Oban. It was an 11-year cask that, because it was tapped early and corked and uncorked so frequently, aged rapidly to something closer to a 30-year flavor. We only got a very small taste of that one because they only have one and a half bottles left (and it was never actually bottled, but last week they had to flip the cask over the get the last bit out, and this was it). I got to taste a one-of-a-kind Scotch that was definitely the very best I've ever tasted (and I like the standard 14-year Oban very much).

OK, the casks - if this sort of thing bores you, skip to the next paragraph (though if you've made it this far, you obviously have a pretty high tolerance for the less-than-riveting). So, American bourbon has to be aged in new oak casks, or it can't be called bourbon, and this means that a cask can never be used twice for bourbon. The makers of Oban have found that they don't like the taste of their whiskey out of new barrels, so they take the once-used ones off of Kentucky's hands. Oban may use a cask once or twice, and then it will be passed along to other distilleries that like older barrels. Those distilleries will get a use or two out of the casks before passing them to the companies that do the blended whiskeys. When there is no more whiskey to be got out of one of these barrels (in 100 years or so), the still have one last use - the vast majority of Scottish salmon is smoked over the wood from whiskey barrels. Our tour guide believes that the Scots invented recycling, because the distilleries waste nothing. They even recycle the heat from cooking the barley, by running cold water over the pipes to cool the batch for the yeast stage, and they then route the newly heated water into a barrel to be filtered and used to process the next batch of barley. And once the water has been separated from the barley mash, the mash has no more use for the distillers, so they sell it to farmers for cow feed. It's a wonderfully efficient process.

As I finish this post, I'm plotting a stop this evening at Ee-Usk to ask for cheesecake to-go. I'm telling you, nirvana with a graham cracker crust.

It's Not Edinburgh's Fault

After a 9-hour bus ride that cost me a fraction of what the train would have cost, I arrived in Edinburgh, miscalculated how far my guest house was from the bus station, and walked over an hour to get there. I dropped off my bags, ran out for fish & chips, and settled in for the night in my lovely and quaint little room.

Then Sunday happened. Trust me, it had nothing to do with the fish, or I'd have been feeling it much sooner. I wasn't feeling great when I woke up, but I figured it was just fatigue from the cumulative 29 hours of walking in London followed by 9 hours on a bus. I pressed on and walked the mile and a half back to the city center, picked a direction, and wandered.

Calton Hill turned out to be along my wandering path, where the Nelson Monument (which was closed and so I didn't get the view of the city from the top), the National Monument, and the Observatory are all situated in this nice little park.

I looked at a map and saw that the Palace of Holyroodhouse (the Queen's official residence in Edinburgh) wasn't far from the park, so I went that way, via a very old, sprawling, beautiful cemetery. I wasn't able to get a lot of closer shots of the more intricate stones because a preservation society was working on many of the stones and asked visitors to remain on the paths.

You may have noticed if you read my London entry that I didn't really do any tours or go into anyplace that I had to pay an entry fee (other than the zoo). Money's a bit tight, and much as I would have liked to see the insides of some of these incredible palaces, I just couldn't justify the entry fees. Holyroodhouse was no exception, so I contented myself with a few pictures through the gate and decided that since I was already at the starting point, I would walk the Royal Mile from Holyroodhouse to Edinburgh Castle.

I didn't get far along the Royal Mile before I started feeling just a tiny bit hungry on top of still not feeling particularly well. This lovely little tea house (and their incredibly reasonable prices) caught my eye, and as it was made clear to me that if I didn't have tea at least once while I was there, I needn't bother coming home, I ducked inside for tea and a scone. While I'm not much of a tea drinker, it did seem to settle my stomach a bit, and I ate the scone very very slowly because it was so delicious that I wanted to order two more!

Onward and upward! That was another difference I noticed immediately on arrival in Scotland, that there are hills up here. London was actually pretty flat, so my already tired legs just loved the sudden inclines.

Ducking in and out of shops along the Mile (looking for a gift for my mother - I found one, but she can't have it until Christmas) kept the walk from being too taxing, but just as I was nearing the castle, my stomach lurched and whatever I had been fighting off decided to fight back. I was almost glad that I didn't like the entry fee for Edinburgh Castle any more than I had the other one, because I couldn't have really enjoyed the tour at all at that point.

I lingered in the courtyard for a few minutes snapping pictures before deciding that retreat was my best option and bee-lining it for the bus stop, stopping at a sandwich shop for food I knew I would want later.

Sadly, I spent the rest of the night very near to the waste bin in my room, watching murder mysteries and trying to stay hydrated. I felt no better the second day, running out first thing in the morning to a pharmacy for something for my stomach (which helped, but not until it was really too late to try fitting in another activity. Besides, why push my luck when I was only just feeling better?) and taking a quick jaunt down the street to a pub for dinner. That pub, by the way, was where I stopped on my way to the guest house my first night when I was lost. They were very kind and looked it up on a map for me, and I told them I'd come back for dinner before I left. I was not disappointed in the food, they smoke their own meat on the premises and their prices were some of the most decent I've seen anywhere since I landed in London (Clerk's Bar in Edinburgh, just FYI).

With only six somewhat enjoyable hours walking about (out of two whole days), Edinburgh was something of a bust, but it's not Edinburgh's fault. Thankfully, I had my own room here. Feeling this under the weather would have been a disaster in that hostel in London! This B&B (The Alexander Guest House) and the tea room (Clarinda's Tea Room) are both getting my highest praise on TripAdvisor when I get around to review writing.

A Long Walk and Several Short Piers

London. It's pretty big. The contrast between the modern and the very, very old is sometimes very jarring. The lack of British accents is astonishing. If the US is one large cultural melting pot, London is a very tiny pot with all the ingredients condensed.

Before some of you go off on me for being online instead of out enjoying my adventure, I strolled through Edinburgh for about six hours today, but I'm not feeling very well, so I decided I'd be better off taking a break in my guest house before venturing out again for dinner. I'm not quite at the point of wanting a nap, but I thought maybe blogging through my London journey would relax me.

Well, I landed.

Rather than pretend I knew what I was doing, I went to the information kiosk at the entrance to the Underground at the airport. She was very helpful and got me tickets to the correct station, and off I went. The hour I got on the train was apparently quite busy because more people packed in at every stop along the route, and most everyone flooded out of the train at Westminster station, which happened to be my stop.

The next job was to find my hostel, which turned out to be a bit hard to find because of a roundabout, but I finally popped into one of the large hotels and asked the concierge, who was kind enough to direct me. Thankfully, my bed was ready when I got there and the staff allowed me to check in quite early. I took full advantage, plugged everything in, kicked my shoes off, and took a nap.

This was my very first experience staying at a hostel (The Walrus, in case you wondered), so I have no standard by which to compare it, but the beds and showers were clean and I had a place to stay at night, so let's call that the important part.

To say that (other than my nightly accomodations) I was flying by the seat of my pants is a pretty accurate summary of the amount of planning I put into my days. I had a general idea of a few things I wanted to see, but that was about it. So, I went downstairs to the pub attached to the hostel and asked one of the staff for a suggestion for something interesting in walking distance.

When I get home, I plan to spend some time with a map going over my walk that day (and every day, since I'm the genius who planned to do almost nothing but walk for three weeks and didn't think to get myself a pedometer), but let's just say that a 2-hour walk from my hostel along the Thames and to Tower Bridge and back took me five hours. Not too shabby for getting such a late start.

Wednesday, I crossed Wesminster Bridge and walked past Horse Guard's Castle and all the many many war memorials along that road, leading into Trafalgar Square. The Square was crowded and I wandered aimlessly in the direction of a pretty building over there, and then another over there, and one more aimless turn before I found myself at Picadilly Circus.

My new favorite shop is there, an antique book shop called Sotheran's where I easily spent an hour just chatting with one of the gentlement about all things Dracula and all the very neat things they had in at the moment.

From there I wandered to Leicester Square, and then managed to lose myself until I found Hyde Park, where I stopped for a sandwich and fed my crusts to the pigeons. The park was very tranquil and I wandered through it for a while, then left the park and unintentionally wound up at the back of Buckingham Palace Gardens. Well, I figured that as long as I was in the area, I might as well stop and see the Palace.I didn't go in (I decided early on that I would rather eat every day than pay through the nose to tour some of these lovely places), but I saw it and then started making my way back towards Westminster, where I spent a ludicrous amount of time staring at the Abbey, Parliament, and Big Ben.

Crossing the river again, I wandered the other direction along the Thames, and then back through town before deciding that I was hungry enough to stop and it was getting near enough to sunset that I wanted to be near my hostel.

I'm going to leave out all the annoying roommate side stories, but let's leave it at this - having had the hostel experience, I much prefer the guest houses (bed & breakfasts).

Thursday was a little more thought out, starting by taking the train to the station nearest Abbey Road (never would have done it if someone hadn't asked for a picture - not the biggest fan of the Beatles myself), and then strolled over to Baker Street to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Reagent's Park was very close from there, and on the north end of the park, the London Zoo, which was my next destination.

I love zoos, and I try to visit zoos everywhere I go because every one has different animals, and every animal has a different personality. The London Zoo has several things that I've never seen at any other zoo, many of them in the rainforest building. I spent a few hours wandering and taking pictures, and the only animals that were not interested in being seen were the lions. I'm used to that; they almost never move at the Columbus zoo either.

Next came the least amount of fun I've had this week (and I'm counting being under the weather today); Camden Town and Brick Lane. One of the staff at the hostel had told me about all the unique shops in Camden Town, and it was close enough to the zoo that I thought I'd walk. Unfortunately, I hit the town just as work was letting out, and the place itself was a zoo. It was the first time on my trip I hadn't felt safe, so I only stayed long enough to get a picture of The World's End before I hopped the train to Brick Lane, where one of the other guys from the hostel told me that the best curry in London could be found.

What he failed to tell me was that ALL the curry in London could be found there. Brick Lane is several blocks lined up one side and down the other with Indian (and other middle-east region) restaurants and mini-grocers, and employees stand outside each one and shout out their best deals to all passers-by, trying to entice people into their restaurant.

If I had been warned ahead of time, it might not have been the nerve-wracking experience that it was, but come on! I'm traveling alone in an unfamiliar city on the only street in the city where I'm almost guaranteed that any English spoken will be broken and heavily accented... and the restaurant I was looking for was gone. Now, logic tells me that I'm not likely to find a really bad curry in any of the dozens of establishments on the street, but caution tells me that I really would rather not go in blind and I at least want a recommendation from someone who has eaten in the area before. Turn the ears on to "find the familiar accent" mode, and I found two very nice American girls who said I could haggle a deal on a fantastic curry dinner (complete with an appetizer and glass of wine) at a place called Masala, and that it was very quiet and classy inside. I made a bee line for the place, and I was not disappointed.

Thankfully, on my way back to the train station, the hawkers didn't try to get me into their restaurants because they saw my carry-out bag with my leftovers.

I feel like this is the longest blog post ever and you probably stopped caring a long time ago... but I still have one more day to write.

Friday. My feet were not happy with me the night before, and they were still not happy in the morning. I still walked all the way to the British Museum by way of the area of theatres around Drury Lane. If I had only known... I need another few days to really experience the British Museum. I also really needed another pair of feet.

I got through (at a rather rushed pace) almost 10 rooms before my feet decided that if I tried to walk another step that wasn't in the direction of the hostel, they were going to stage a coup and relieve me of command. It made them truly unhappy with me when I accidentally went the wrong way out of the museum and wound up going through two new districts before finding Picadilly and retracing my route through there back to the Thames. Yes, I could at any point have ducked into a station and taken a train... but I'm stubborn and I didn't want to.

The half a block walk to get dinner later was the very most they were willing to do after that. I tried to avoid telling them about the two mile walk to the bus station on Saturday morning...