Och, Aye! (or, When I Fell in Love with Scotland)

Rallying our hangovers, we set off from Edinburgh on a July Friday with a rented Ford Fiesta. This was Dan's first time driving on the left, but despite a few attempts to shift gears with the door handle, he did very well.

We filled our need for greasy food at a McDonalds in Stirling, and on evaluating the number of tour buses climbing up the hill to the famous castle, we opted to skip. Instead, we drove slightly west and explored the rather less chaotic Doune Castle.

For my fellow nerds - this is the place where Monty Python filmed the Holy Grail in the seventies.

Doune is remarkably well-preserved, slippery spiral staircases and all, and the audio guide was recorded by Terry Gilliam, which makes the experience all the more entertaining.

And yes, we threw insults from the wall in an outrrrrrrageous accent, and fechez'd la vache by donning our new shaggy cow hat.

Excellent.

From Doune, we rushed northwest and caught the last ferry from Lochaline, on the mainland, to the Isle of Mull and found our YHA hostel in Tobermory, among the jellybean-bright houses that line the marina.

We spent Saturday afternoon on a wildlife watching cruise out between Mull and the nearby island of Col. I won't call it a whale watching cruise because although Minke whale sightings are semi-frequent, we did not see any.

We did see a handful of basking sharks, gentle, oblivious giants that measure in at nearly five metres. As the twelve of us crowded to one side of the little boat, picking up our guide Stewart's enthusiasm, we watched the big dorsal fin glide gracefully through the water while the tail fin flipped back and forth. As they skimmed the water next to the boat, we saw their wide, gaping mouths, comically large, seeking tiny plankton.

We saw seals, flopping about on the rocks and bobbing around in hidden coves. We saw two porpoises rushing by us. We saw a whole lot of seabirds and an eagle, which left Stewart beaming. It is great to have a tour guide who really loves his job.

We spent the evening driving a circuit around Mull's northern side, speeding down the single-lane roads, admiring the cliffs where the stiff, purple heather clings defiantly and where the sheep with their matted coats and curly horns insist on climbing, although I don't think they know why. We picked up Sara, who we'd befriended at the hostel, when we saw her hiking down a road - happy to be spared the walk home, she rode around with us for the evening.

We drove around the south end of the island in the morning - the west side of Mull is unbelievably gorgeous. The cliffs spill in ruffled greenery into the vigorous sea. The roads are ruled entirely by oblivious, munching sheep, and if you get caught behind a flock of them, you could be watching their shaggy, dirty coats bound along for a while before you can break through the flock. This is not a place in which you go anywhere in a hurry.

We took the ferry back across to the mainland and picked up some supplies in Fort William. It was raining hard and we were the only guests at our little country hostel, so we took the evening off and relaxed in comfort.

In the morning, we left for Skye. Let me set the scene.

Feet are steady. Right hand in the crack there, left on the rock in front. It's slippery. An off-shoot from the thin, fast waterfall to the right is trickling down the rock wall, the alternating mist and pelting rain have made my shoes damp.

But we can see the way up, and although the well-marked trail has given out, we pick a path through the scree and then climb hand over hand up the chunky rocks to the glacial plateau we seek.

We reach the plateau, known as Corrie Lagan and I plunk down on a flat, black boulder beside the clear, shallow lake, and for the first time in the two hours we'd been trekking, was able to get a look at what we had come to Skye to see: a Black Cuillin, towering over us with jagged, craggy ridges that would seed doubt in even the most accomplished mountaineer.

We weren't going to attempt the sheer cliff face, but the view from the base, which is itself 500 metres up, was astounding.

When we started planning our highland road trip, the Isle of Skye was the first place I knew I wanted to see. It's legendary for its beauty, for the intimidating majesty of the bare-headed, smooth Red Cuillens and of the wicked, craggy ridges of the Black Cuillins. In the north, peninsulas fan out like graceful fingers, some edged with steep cliffs, some with gentle slopes and bogs, all covered with winding one-lane roads.

We walked out along the Waternish Penninsula past a village that was abandoned during the Clearances, a painful era of Highland history in which, on the realization that sheep were more profitable to keep than human tenants, greedy landlords evicted thousands across the Highlands.

Uignish, and on the horizon, the silhouette of the
Outer Hebrides.

There are two villages on Skye that have been entirely abandoned. This one was Uignish, at the very tip of the peninsula. The stone walls of the buildings, piled without mortar, still reach my waist height and often higher. Now, their primary function is to block the wind whipping off the sea while sheep nibble the tasty morsels growing from the floors.

This is also the centuries-ago sight of many bloody fights between two of Skye's more prominent clans, the MacDonalds and the McLeods.

As we walked out to Uignish and back, over the water we could see the the Outer Hebrides, stretched in full across the horizon, a dark silhouette against the blessedly clear sky.

It was hard to imagine that such a peaceful place, ruled now by sheep wandering between the bogs, could have such a violent, tragic history. It's hard to find any corner of the Highlands and the Islands, it seems, that doesn't have claim to a bloody episode or a battle or to eviction sentences that destroyed the lives of thousands.



We had one final adventure before leaving the Highlands to return the Fiesta in Edinburgh: it was high time we bagged some munros.

To clarify, the Scots love hill-walking and mountain climbing, so they have special terminology. To 'bag a munro' is to summit a Scottish peak standing over three thousand feet or roughly one thousand metres tall.

From Skye, we drove south along the long, thin lochs, nestled in their deep glens at the bases of the mighty ridges until we reached the wildly pretty Glen Coe, just south of Fort William.

We left the car at the side of the highway and began our climb up to the Buachaille Etive Mór, a three-peaked massif at the southern mouth of the glen.


I knew we were beginning our most difficult hike of our time in the highlands, but I was excited: we had gone on a few challenging hikes this week, notably the scramble up to Corrie Lagan, but hadn't summited anything.

After an hour and a half of clambouring up first the stones of a dry creek bed, and then up a steep, winding scree-filled path, we made the ridge. In another half hour, we summited the first peak: Stob Dearg, 1022m. Bagged!


The sky around us was magnificently clear. To the northwest, we could see the dramatic cluster of the Nevis mountain range. The tallest of them, indeed the tallest in Britain, Ben Nevis, was crowned by a wreath of clouds. We could see bright, sunlit Loch Nevis in the distance, and Glen Coe's graceful, green sweep between the towering peaks, rising up from the moor to make a magnificent corridor to the west.

We made our way across the ridge, which was comfortably wide, to the summit of Stob na Doire - at 1011m , our second munro. Yes, it counts even if you don't descend between baggings.

We descended the ridge on a perilously steep and at times eroded trail, ambled down a path in the mushy bog-land and reached the Fiesta just as the rain began to fall. Armed with beer and cider from the corner store, we made our way to our hostel for a well-deserved sleep.

S.

Underground in Edinburgh

We follow a woman in a long, voluminous skirt, dyed deep red, down a dark, musty tunnel. Straining my eyes upwards I can see former windows and doors cut into the walls. No stairs will take you there now, no light shines to welcome in the windows. She leads us with a dim, yellow light as we slip through low doorway into a room. We draw close, hushed, breathing the damp, old dust as she tells us ghost stories.

She eases our alarm with a loud laugh and pokes fun in her Scottish brogue. She gives us some cute, corny jokes and off we go through the maze of underground rooms.

This is the tour of Mary King's Close in Edinburgh - an exposition of the city's filthy, fascinating history and a peek at a seventeenth century close, a narrow, steeply-sloped street. This close and four others were evacuated and sealed off when the Royal Exchange was built over top in the 1800s.

We'd spent three nights before this in Glasgow at my best friend Piper's apartment. We got a very informative tour of Glasgow University from Piper's friend George and went to some pubs but otherwise spent the time laying low and planning and relaxing. It was fantastic to visit a city I was familiar with already and where there are few tourists. Glasgow is gritty, but genuine and fun. And Piper is there and I miss her!

After Glasgow, Piper came with us for a (successful!) surf lesson at Belhaven Beach in Dunbar, just south of Edinburgh. Then after a delicious Thai meal, she headed home and we checked into our Edinburgh hostel. Once we were settled, we spent a few hours wandering the layered labyrinth of the city: through the slender closes with their steep staircases and under the tall bridges that connect the sloped Royal Mile to the rest of the city.

The next morning we climbed Arthur's Seat, the small mountain right next to the old city, to get a good view of the Mile as it descends from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace, and then after a quick rest, we were down beneath streets, following a seventeenth-century figure and learning about Edinburgh.

We left the close in the falling dusk and stolled up the Royal Mile, skirting below the castle. We stop to admire the great building with its windows glowing, perched high atop its basalt seat.

That night we went out with a group from our hostel and ended up on an impromptu bar-hop through the Grassmarket with the hostel's owner at the helm: a Scotsman in a top hat; mutton-chopped, tartan-wearing, and wild.

I have a deep suspicion that the top hat was entirely in charge of the expedition. Kudos, top hat, on a fantastic evening!

This is what happens when the opportunistic backpacker grows up: you get a bit burnt out and then you end up running a hostel.

This is the back-up to my back-up life plan. I just need a quality top hat.

S.

Southern English History Lessons

Lying on the concrete seawall, eyes closed, listening to the gulls screech as the sun beats down on my face. I can taste sticky, sweet ice cream on my lips. I can smell the salt water and the breeze is just faintly tainted with scent of decaying shellfish.

Have we gone back south?!

But wait - I'm wearing a jacket because the sun is just lukewarm. That greasy rock in my belly is most certainly from the pre-ice cream fish and chips.

This isn't the Mediterranean! This is England!

We were in the seaside village of Whitstable, County Kent, seven miles from Canterbury. We'd rented bikes and cycled the 'Crab and Winkle Way,' formerly a rail line (one of the first in Britain) dedicated to distributing the shellfish caught in Whitstable to the rest of Merrie Olde England.

The smooth, rounded stones of the beach lead up to the seawall, and the seaside pubs (where we'd had a few pints). Here and there, walking up the coast, there are piles of big oyster shells - the bounty harvested here since Roman times.

We returned the bikes the next morning and, sore-bottomed from the thin bike seats, set off to explore Canterbury's pious side.

The ornate cathedral has been a famous pilgrimage site since the gruesome murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in the late thirteenth century - this is the destination in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales.' The original crypts below the cathedral are largely accessible, and in one of the chapels, the wall murals dating from the early years of the church are still visible, the familiar figures depicted with big, almond-shaped eyes, angular features and faded colours that were once bright and expressive.

On a whim, we took a peek at a Pilgrim's Hospice set up by Becket's nephew to provide lodging for the poorer pilgrims. Still used as a senior's residence today, original murals are visible in the chapel and the common space.

Finally, we went to the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey, the place where the celebrated saint first set up a church to begin his mission of re-Christianizing Anglo-Saxon Britain. The original abbey has been excavated and is partially visible, along with the outline of the Norman abbey and cathedral that replaced it. As we explored its grassy paths and red brick ruins, the site gave us an intimate picture of Britain's relationship with the church - with far fewer tourists than the overrun cathedral next door.

We packed up our tent for the final time and decided it was time for a special treat: a bed and breakfast! Fluffy towels, a television, a chocolate on the pillow, a superbly artery-choking breakfast. Amazing!

We had come to Portsmouth to spend a whole day at the historical harbour, where three famous ships now rest - Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose, Nelson's yellow and black checkered Victory and the greatest of the Victorian battleships, the cast iron-hulled Warrior. The ticket for these also includes a 45 minute harbour tour, which was a welcome interlude between ship-wanderings.

The Mary Rose is not available for viewing. Having sunk off the Portsmouth coast in the Tudor era, it was recovered from the sea floor a few decades ago and is now being painstakingly conserved. The museum is nice and has some eroded artifacts on display.

The Victory

The Victory and the Warrior, however, are both restored and functional - you can climb all over both as you learn about the ships, the technology and the lives of the crew.

Our final stop before the long journey north to Scotland was to Salisbury - or rather, a small village outside of Salisbury named Cholderton. Our hostel, which was a big YHA hostel built on a farm, was advertised as four miles from Stonehenge. Turns out this is only the case by highway, but we adventurous souls struck out on a Saturday morning in search of the most famous of British monuments anyway.

Although longer than anticipated at a 12 to 13 mile round trip, the walk took us along the Avenue, the ancient road approaching Stonehenge from the east. We passed a number of burial mounds along the ridge facing the site, arranged so as to line the horizon and then plodded through the cow fields towards our goal.

Although the famous sarsen stones and bluestones are just as enormous as I had imagined, I was shocked by how tightly packed together they are, rendering the site itself quite small and compact. From most angles on the ground, it's actually somewhat difficult to see the familiar horseshoe patterns in the pack of stones.

The magnitude of the stones themselves remains impressive: they are huge and took centuries of serious dedication to carve and move and arrange. That they were obviously once incredibly important to a thriving culture cannot be denied, but it is unlikely we will ever fully understand why.

Although smaller than I had thought, the ancient site is nonetheless intriguing. The stones will remain charmingly enigmatic, ripe for the romance of the imagination even as they stand steadfastly evasive. It was worth a visit to see the stuff of legend.

That said... the audio guide is great, but save yourself the seven quid. Read the Wikipedia article and then observe from the highway!

S.

Celebration in London

It was the perfect Canada Day weekend. We met up with friends to revel in the summer heat and drink beer. We went to an outdoor concert. We drank beer. All that was missing was the barbecued hot dogs and the fireworks.

And somehow, we did it all in London: the cosmopolitan, bursting-at-the-seams British version, not my gentle-but-enthusiastic Ontario hometown, which for those of you who weren't aware, does in fact have a Thames River to back up the name.

We had arranged weeks before that Stefan and Laura, who you will remember from Cologne, and Stef's girlfriend Hawley (another ginger!) would come to London to meet us for the Mumford and Sons and Arcade Fire concert in Hyde Park.

I won't give a full a concert review here, but I will tell you that if you have the chance to see either group live, do it! Mumford and Sons mustered the same intensity they have on the album, and their new stuff sounds like it could be excellent. And the Arcade Fire... amazing. Old albums and new albums. Amazing. They played Power Out, my favourite from Funeral, right when Dan and I pushed through to the middle of the dancing, writhing crowd. So good!

We had a late start the next day, but Dan and I spent the day wandering the north bank of the Thames and Westminster, trying to get an idea of this giant city. It is positively overwhelming. We had a great day just looking at the buildings and the people.

We met up with the rest of the gang to check out the Canada Day celebration in Trafalgar Square - early in the day there was street hockey, and they had Timmies (!) and Molson Canadian and a sham poutine (mozzerella? Sigh). By the time we got there, they were down to Red Stripe. It is in a red and white can, granted, but it is also Jamaican.

Close enough for us.

Our final day, Dan and I toured around the City, the oldest section of London that now serves as the financial and business district: as we were there on a Saturday, it was deserted save for some tourists. We took a look at the London Museum for some info on the city's long history, and explored the quiet streets with their old churches and pubs and squares.

We arrived slightly too late to explore the Tower of London, so we decided to save it for our second run-through before the flight to Istanbul. Instead, we crossed the Tower Bridge and strolled along the South Bank.

We didn't do much traditional sightseeing, but London treated us well - and sitting with friends on beer-drenched grass at an outdoor concert soothed the pain of missing Bluesfest and cottages and the beautiful Ottawa summer.

Miss you all, friends, and thank you to Stef and Laura and Hawley for a great Canada Day weekend!

S.

Cambridge

We passed an uneventful night on the ferry and disembarked in Harwich after a jarring 5:30 wake-up call. After a sleepy morning wandering around the cute and very old town of Colchester, with its Norman keep and Roman ruins, we boarded the train to Cambridge.

Now, I don't know if Cambridge is normally the Bermuda Triangle of British intercity transport, but on the journey in, we spent three hours in Bury St Edmunds because of a blockage on the train track (kudos to the frantic young National Express employee who was simultaneously attempting to explain and re-explain the situation to thirty annoyed and confused passengers who swarmed him incessantly, call cabs to placate said passengers and figure out what the eff was even going on). On the trip from Cambridge to London, our bus dropped all of its oil onto the road two turns into the journey, causing chaos for cycling students and once again leaving us waiting patiently (as we have nowhere to be for nine months) for the next vehicle.

Bit of a shock coming from the slick precision of German and Dutch rail. But maybe we're bad luck. After all, one of our trains in Germany WAS one-and-a-half minutes late.

Either way, we eventually made it to a campsite 5 miles outside Cambridge and set ourselves up. We were in need of a rest, so three nights turned into five and even so, we never did manage to tour the inside of any of the colleges.


We wandered Cambridge's winding streets, lined by quaint black-gabled houses and shops, and walked along the 'Backs,' the long and woodsy park running along the backside of the elaborate colleges. We took a look at the tiny but history-rich Round Church, built as a prayer-stop for medieval pilgrims, and we spent Sunday hiding from the heat, holed up in a pub to watch F1 (Dan) and to devour cheese toasties and use the wifi (me).

We spent a day at yet another war museum, the Duxford Imperial this time, located on the Duxford Airfield, which was a major base in both world wars. As you have probably guessed, it is mostly about airplanes, which thankfully weren't a major feature in Overloon the week before. I will give them this: airplanes are pretty cool.

The highlight of the day came when someone flew their restored Spitfire in loops over the airfield, the droning roar chasing behind the little gray plane as it buzzed down along the grass and then up to flip and fly back down, again and again, loop after loop. We have no idea who owns the plane - the museum can't afford the expense of keeping most of the planes fully functional, but does allow private collectors/pilots to keep historical aircraft in the hangars.

On our final day in Cambridge, we set out on a long hike across the fens - reclaimed marsh land - to Ely, 17 miles or 30 some-odd kilometres away. A long, but very flat walk between the River Cam and the train line, past long, thin house boats covered in windows and plants, families of swans and herds of cows that only begrudgingly moved off of the thick dikes to let us by, sidestepping splatted cow patties as we went.

And then it began to rain, hard and angled in the wind that whipped across the fenlands. We donned our brand-new, ultra-stylish rain pants and tromped on through the muck. Our waterproof shoes began to leak a couple hours later, but there wasn't much to do but sploosh, sploosh, (squish! Cow patty?) along, squinting against the wind and the sharp rain.

Our moment of redemption came when, five hours into the walk and three into the rain, suddenly the massive octagonal stone tower of the Ely Cathedral came into view, beckoning like a lighthouse in a sea of swampy fields. Tragically, we were still five soggy miles off - but now we had a goal in sight.

At least we know the rain pants work?

S.

Warning: Does Not Include Robots OR Aliens (or, the Rural Roadtrip to Rotterdam)

Halfway through our time in Amsterdam, we decided that rather than stick to cities for the following week, we would venture farther out into the rural regions. We picked up the cheapest car we could get (a teensy Toyota Aygo) on a weekend discount and headed north.

By nightfall we had crossed over the longest dike in the world, stretching from Nord Holland to Freisland, sheltering the Ijsselmeer. We spent the night across the provincial border back in Groningen, camped a few kilometres from the ocean. We hiked out to the seawall and gazed for a while at the barrier islands and the chilly North Sea, then as the rain picked up, retreated to the campsite.

Zeehondencreche. My new favourite word.

The following morning we began with a visit to the Zeehondencreche - seal rehabilitation clinic - near the coast in Pieterburen. Not an awful lot to explore, but the seals and seal pups are just adorable, and the admisson price goes to help the creche continue to save seals that have been injured by stray netting and oil and such.

We drove south and found Peize, the town from which Dan's grandparents emigrated to Canada, and then went south along the German border, through the rural heartland of the Netherlands.

If you think miniature horses are cute, and you think baby horses are cute, google images of baby miniature horses. Adorable, right?! You're welcome.

Sunday we spent the morning at the Oorlogsmuseum in Overloon, which is the site of the biggest tank battle ever fought in the Netherlands. The park surrounding the museum used to be littered with tanks and other military paraphenelia, left for decades just as it was all dropped as an in-situ memorial. Now, as the weather was destroying the equipment, its all been moved inside, part an enormous collection. In additon to the vehicles from Overloon, it contains more WWII vehicles and a large selection of American military peices from later conflicts. The other side of the museum is devoted to a display on the Dutch Resistance.

Happy Father's Day Dad!!

It was Father's Day, so as a tribute to my dad, I looked dutifully at the various tanks and whatnot. And did not mention even once that they all look the damn same.

(Cue outburst!)

We left Overloon and tore across the southern Netherlands into Belgium: rather than a half day in Masstricht, where from my research I feel we could spend several days, we decided that Bruges would be rather easier to tackle in the time remaining to us.

Bruges

While I wouldn't say the buildings in Bruges are more beautiful than those in the other old cities of Europe, it just has a seemingly endless supply. Every plaza, every canal is lined with gorgeous, Gothic architecture. Its a bit overwhelming in its fairytale-like atmosphere... save for the hordes of tourists, there to break the spell.

We spent our final day with the car driving back up through Zeeland and Suid Holland. We stopped in Middleburg, a cute town on one of the islands, amd spent a half hour flat out on the chilly beach that runs the length of the long dikes. Would have been a great beach if we could have so much as taken off our sweaters.

By evening, we'd made it to Rotterdam, where, after dropping of the car, we would spend the next three nights.

We did two things in Rotterdam that I enjoyed far more than I anticipated I would, both to do with the port. First, we took a 75 minute harbour tour. Although not enough for Dan, who wanted to see more of the heavy industrial side of things, it was enough for me to learn the basics of the fourth largest port in the world (It has its own theme song. Dan likes to sing it. I do not. I was forced to ban it for my own sanity).

Nerdy as it is, I thought it was cool to watch the cranes and trucks unload the giant cargo ships - it happens so quickly, and in such a beautifully synchronized way. It's impressive, really.

My second port experience took place as we were waiting to board our ferry from Hoek Van Holland to Harwich, England. With five hours to kill, and Dan always keen to explore ridiculously large constriction sites, we made our way to the information building for Maasvelt 2, the newest piece of the ever-expanding Rotterdam harbour, which is currently being built on open water. Seriously, they throw a whole bunch of coarse sand into the water until it stays, then they stick in concrete reinforcements. Voila! New land. Crafty Dutch!

Key point for potential visitors: although the place is called 'Futureland,' there are in fact neither aliens nor robots involved. It is literally just about land that will exist in the future. There IS, however, a partial mammoth skeleton that was sucked up when they were relocating all that sand. The opposite of futuristic, but pretty nifty.

The receptionist at the info centre was so blown away by the fact that we had voluntarily shown up to check out the site that she arranged for someone to give us a special talk (in English!) and to answer our questions. Later on, she brought over the company president to meet us, and when we were leaving, gave us stuffed Port of Rotterdam duckies as a present. Going off the beaten path is awesome sometimes.

After our Maasvelte 2 experience, we boarded our ferry and spent the night out on the North Sea, destined at last for English-speaking lands.

What I have learned is that, although they are certainly the friendliest people in Europe, do not mess with the Dutch. If you are trying to take them over, they will resist you. They will undermine you. If you are the sea, they will build a dike, drain you out and reclaim the land. They might even build some extra land. On open sea. Out of sand. Just for the hell of it. They are fantastically stubborn, and it makes them incredible.

S.