London, Revisited

After two quiet nights in Cardiff, we were back to London, primed to do all of the museums and activities we'd skipped six weeks earlier.

After checking into our hostel near Hammersmith Station, we walked to the Natural History Museum. The museum is housed in a gorgeous Victorian building, adorned with carved stone animals on the outside and stuffed animals on the inside (sad, when you think about it). The museum also boasts lots of plastic models, and a huge display of dinosaur skeletons.

That night, we took the tube to the City and crossed the river. We'd bought tickets to Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus at the Globe Theatre, reconstructed to resemble its Shakespearean-era self.

We had floor tickets, so we stood in the crowd at the foot of the stage and looked up at the players and at the rings of balcony seats stacked up to the ceiling. Highly recommended if you're in London and have a soft spot for old Bill and his contemporaries.

We woke up late the next morning, and by afternoon we'd made it to the British Museum, where the vast collections represent nearly the whole world and tackle many, many eras of history. Essentially the place is full of booty. British explorers and adventurers collected the valuable objects - be they fossils or Peruvian gold or whatever else - and then donated them to the museum. Among the many displays, there are rooms full of sarcophagi and statues from Egypt and Persia, and many, many mummies of all sizes.

Sometimes this game of finders-keepers doesn't go over well: many governments around the world have unsuccessfully demanded back the treasures taken from their lands, and the biggest squabble is ongoing. The British Museum has a whole wing of sculptures and carved marble from the Parthenon in Athens, taken in the early 1800s when Greece was under Ottoman rule. Greece has been trying for years to reclaim them, but the museum and each British government have refused. The pamphlet that is distributed in the museum to explain the situation basically argues that the priceless artifacts are safer in London.

Our final day was spent at the Tower of London. It's worth the expensive entrance, primarily because it includes a free tour from one of the Beefeater gaurds - yes, those guys in the blue and red uniforms that decorate gin bottle. And yes, they do wear those fabulous puffy hats.

Our tour was fantastic. Our guide was engaging, very knowledgeable and obviously enjoys his job. Especially trying to scare people (children) with the Tower's many horror stories.

For the whole hour, though, I couldn't quite get past the feeling that I knew the man leading us around, with his confident storytelling, his slightly morbid sense of humour, his love of British military history... I felt like I'd spent an hour with my dad! So I was not surprised to learn that all of the Beefeaters are decorated sergeant majors. Sergeant majors always have that special knack for being both fearsome and lovable.

After the tour, we wandered through the castle and around the walls, learning the colourful stories of its royal inhabitants. Up until Queen Victoria's reign, the Tower had a collection of royal beasts: at various times it held everything from lions and monkeys to a polar bear who was allowed to swim in the Thames. Now the only animals are the ravens that hop all over the grounds, wings clipped to keep them here because an old Welsh prophecy foretold the Tower's fall if the ravens were to leave.

At the end of the day, we grabbed our bags from the hostel and headed out to a hotel right beside Heathrow's Terminal 5. Despite the planes taking off over us, shaking the windows and drowning out whatever bad movie we were watching, we were excited: the next morning meant a fight to Istanbul and the next phase of the trip.

S.

Dublin

We took a ferry across the choppy Irish sea from Wales to Dublin on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, joining the late summer crowds of tourists that come here for the pubs, the dance, the history and the Guinness.

The best of our three days in Dublin was actually spent outside of the city. We were invited by our roommates, New Zealand mother and daughter team Marion and Charis, to join them for a drive with an Irishman they'd met - Shane - who, in a show of that famous Irish hospitality, had offered to show them the sights.

The five of us spent the day roaming the countryside. We saw two castles: first Malahide Castle, discretely hidden in a woodland, with spacious grounds that now holds concerts (Prince played there the weekend before).

And after lunch was Trim Castle, where the movie Braveheart was filmed. The walls are in tatters, but the keep at the centre stands tall and the ruins make clear the former grandeur of this place.

We went to to the reconstructed passage tomb of Newgrange, Brú na Boinné in Gaelic, a massive earth mound where the light of day only creeps down the nineteen metre passage to the inner chamber on the morning of the winter solstice, and stays there for less than twenty minutes.


Although they were not, at five thousand years of age, the oldest tombs we'd see in Ireland, it's humbling to know that the curious, swirling artwork was already ancient when the great rocks of Stonehenge were dragged into place.

Carved art at Newgrange

South of Dublin, we drove through the Wicklow Mountains to beautiful Glendalough, where we joined a horde of tourists to snap pictures of the ruined monastery amid the picturesque green mountains. Then we drove by the Powerscourt Gardens and then admired the view of Dublin from a vantage point just south: gorgeous. The day was rounded off with pints at the hostel. Shane made our Irish experience richer with his knowledge and hospitality: thank you, and we'd love to return the generosity in Ottawa!

For our two days in Dublin itself, we did lots of wandering around, and the occasional touristy venture. We visited the Guinness brewery at St. James Gate, the highlights of which were (for me) a display of the company's famous advertising campaigns - Guinness For Strength, Guinness is Good for You and of course, My Goodness, My Guinness! - and a beer in the seventh-story Gravity Bar, boasting a 360 degree view of Dublin.

We got our learn on at the Museum of Archeology, where I learned that the spread of red hair through Europe was the fault of Viking marauders (gotta get me a longboat...).

We relaxed in the lush greenery of St. Stephan's Green, then payed homage to the Dublin literary tradition by finding the statue of expat writer Oscar Wilde in a nearby park, and wandering by St. Patrick's cathedral to see Jonathan Swift's grave (sadly inhibited by high entrance fees). At the time I was reading (grappling with? suffering through?) James Joyce's Ulysses... a third of the way through I took a 'break' and have yet to reopen the dense beast.

We pubcrawled our way around the area south of Temple Bar, but didn't actually eat much pub food - eating out in Dublin is wildly expensive. Instead, we found fantastic kebab and falafel (wrapped in naan bread! Genius!) at Sultan Kebab, and then went back no less than four times. You just can't argue with good kebab.

S.

Snowdonia

We stood looking over the breadth of Caernarfon Castle from the top of the Eagle Tower. With its tall walls and lofty turrets perched on the edge of the briny straight facing the Isle of Anglesey, this is the formidable king of the Welsh castles.

Built by the English from the thirteenth century onward Caernarfon and its sister castles encircle Wales, created to repress the freshly conquered Welsh. This particular castle was done on such a scale that rebellion would be discouraged by sheer intimidation.

The design, from the giant octagonal towers to the subtly striped walls and the stone eagles set atop the tower in which we stand, was intended to invoke the image of a grand Roman castle. England's Edward I was trying to create a clear parallel between his own forces and the only previous conquerors, the Romans, for whom the Welsh had a lingering admiration.

Tragically for Edward's intention, to this day the six hundred castles in the ring are looked upon as a symbol of a conquered people, and although they are stunning to see, they inspire admiration in tourists more than in the Welsh people. This is one of the most nationalistic parts of Wales: even the teenagers speak Welsh.

We climbed through the thick walls and up the towers for a few hours, checked out the exhibits and watched a cheesy film narrated by a Welsh ghost.

After leaving the castle, we walked for a good while past the shallow, muddy bay and up the coast, enjoying the sun and the breeze coming off the water.

The next day, we got to Llanberis, a town at the heart of the park, fairly early in the day. We were getting settled in the hostel, above the bright yellow and blue and red Pete's Eats café, and Dan started talking with one of the staff.

Dan told him we planned to climb Snowdon the next day. He mulled this over and then told us that he avoids Snowdon. It's crawling with tourists. If you want a bit of quiet and to see the area properly, that isn't what you want. Try something else as well.

He gave Dan a moderately incomprehensible set of directions in a thick Welsh accent. To paraphrase: "Go down the road here, turn at the outdoors store (the second one, not the first) and then left and right where the hill starts and right. There will be a path to either side, take the correct one or you'll miss the trail entirely. Up the hill, through a green gate, turn left and take the path leading by the derelict church."

It reminded me of getting directions from my uncles in New Brunswick: "go left at that big tree." "No, no that was cut down. Go left where Aunt Margaret's cousin lived, and then down towards the river where the truck fell in that once."

To which you blink a few times, nod slowly and hope for the best.

So we promptly forgot most of the directions, but after some misguided turns, a ramble through a chicken yard and passing at least three green gates and multiple derelict buildings, we miraculously found the correct combination leading up the very ridge we'd hoped to climb.

It looked much steeper than we'd thought.

Too late. Panting all the way, we hauled ourselves up the smooth, steep slope, judged  at every step by molting sheep. I don't really understand why, but there are fences all along these ridges, and then down the sheer cliff sides  Sure, they might keep an especially dumb animal from plummeting down the ridge, but all of the fences have holes where the wire is pushed up and covered with wool from the backs of escapees. Tragically the great escape is always ruined when the sheep gets to the other side and forgets entirely why she's there and how... better eat some grass.

Anyway, we made it to the summit of our little mountain and continued on the ridge, admiring the views across the bogs and forests to the other grassy ridges with stony peaks. On one side we could see Snowdon, the tallest of the bunch, summit in a cloud, the steam train to the top chugging away in a haze of smoke.

We had great cell reception on the ridge, so I had a sit and called my Mom.

Our ridge had a gradual slope on one side, but on the other cut away in a dramatic drop-off, curving around to shelter a calm blue lake.

We climbed a second peak, but on the third decided to follow a sheep path around the side rather than the main path upwards, for novelty as well as to save our legs. We ended up tromping through a huge patch of wild blueberries, which despite Dan's initial hesitation, I devoured. Although I tried to pick the ones off the path, that the sheep hadn't rubbed against as much.

Eventually we descended, hopped through a bog and found the road back to Llanberis.

The next morning, we decided to brave the crowds and climb Snowdon. After a bit of reading about the many paths to the summit, we chose the Pyg track up and the Llanberis track down.

Our guidebook describes the Pyg track as the most rugged and difficult ascent, so we chose it as a challenge. Although it begins at a higher altitude than the others, it climbs swiftly over rocky terrain. We were also hoping that with such a description, it would be a quieter choice.

Not so. The beginning of the path at the Pen-y-Pas car park was chaotic, and the trail was full of people.

We saw a lot of people pulling themselves up the big, rock stairs in jeans and sandals and similar things with no water... I know it isn't an overly difficult climb. You don't need a compass, you probably don't need emergency equipment. You do need proper clothing and water and to take the mountain seriously. Although it is hard to get lost on an ant trail such as this, it happens, and inclement weather is normal. Rescues shouldn't be as common here as they are.

Rant over.

Despite the crowds crawling up the mountain, we were able to enjoy the scenery. This is a popular climb for a reason. The thin, jagged ridge curls into a crescent, the peak of Snowdon itself obscured by that seemingly ever-present cloud. The sheer cliffs tumbled down to cup a small glacial lake on a flat plateau. Our hike led us eventually along the inside of the crescent, upwards until the path began zig-zagging in a steep ascent and we passed into the mist.

I'd love to tell you that the view from the top of Snowdon, the highest UK mountain outside of Scotland, is fabulous and worth the three hour ascent.

If you were to climb on a very clear day, it just might be. But Wales isn't as such known for its sunshine, so I think that is a tricky thing to ensure. And all we saw from inside the mist was tourists. We couldn't even get into the supposedly crap café at the summit because it was entirely jammed with people.

It was a great hike up to the cloud line - the jagged ridge is very beautiful, the lake is picturesque. The climb was challenging but not (we thought, anyway) overly hard.

For our descent we had planned to take the Llanberis track, because it's a gentle (albeit boring) slope down the arm of the ridge that stretches right into Llanberis town. Dan's knee had been bothering him since the rough descent the week before in Glen Coe, so this would be ideal.

You know how I said you don't need a compass? Bring a map at least. We missed the fork for the Llanberis track and ended up coming down an entirely different arm, the Snowdon Ranger's track. It was steeper than we wanted, so Dan suffered a bit. It was, however, less busy than either the Pyg or Llanberis tracks. It came down the rocky backside of Snowdon, through sheep fields and down to the roadway where we were able to grab a bus back to town, complete with a full tour of Snowdonia because we'd ended up on the wrong side of the mountain.

S.

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.

Super-campers on the Algarve

The Algrave in April... bleak, but beautiful

In the morning, in Lisbon, having successfully turned the walking tour into a pub crawl the night before, we shook off our hangovers, swore off sambuca forever and wandered off to the train station with no real plan in mind, other than it was time to head south.

The last minute decision, based on a number of google searches, was that we would head to Lagos, on the western end of the Algarve (the south coast of Portugal) and that we would try camping again. With the help of a knowledgeable cab driver we ended up at Touriscampo, just outside of the small town of Luz, four km from Lagos.

Sagres: next stop, America!

As was the case before, the campground had a small store and a restaurant (expensive this time though...) and this time we even had a pool at our disposal.

We stayed in Luz for three nights, wandering the cliffs that fall into the Atlantic during the day and eating tasty pizza and seafood from the enormous selection of touristy restaurants at night. It seems that the Algrave has a large population of British expats, and as a result the menus can be rather geared towards British tastes (but still retaining the Portuguese finesse in regards to seafood).

We took the bus out to Sagres, which was considered to be the legitimate end of the earth before Columbus happened upon the Americas. It is potentially the windiest place in existence. Set right on the corner of Europe, it's crowned by a fortress that is still in a decent state of repair, and that has a number of interesting displays on Portugal's efforts towards renewable energy. Inspired, clearly, by the wind rushing over the fortress walls, and the fury of the Atlantic beating away at the bottom of the cliffs.

Also it was free, and that was nice.

On Tuesday morning, having survived our first night of rainstorms in the tent (which held up fantastically), we packed ourselved up and hopped a train to Tavira, almost entirely because we were just not prepared to leave Portugal quite yet. We opted to continue camping, and although the new site wasn't quite the luxurious set-up we´d had in Luz, we appreciate the giant canopies over the tent sites because the rain never really quit for the next two days. We were able to explore Tavira´s cute riverside core, as well as its hilltop castle, which has been turned into a (free!) botanical garden. The castle was cute - it was nice to see a different presentation, and the view was great. Although Dan had to spot me on the steep, narrow and slippery staircases up the walls and towers.

And then, sadly, after two nights of rain and dampness in Tavira, we decided that it was time to leave Portugal behind and continue on to Spain - and Seville.

S

Lisbon - Dog Poop and a Beautiful Castle.

From Madeira, we returned to Lisbon, on Friday, April 15th. As we'd only spent one day in the city before flying out the previous Monday, we booked ourselves into the This Is Lisbon hostel in the Alfama area - the oldest, formerly Moorish, part of Lisbon. Before we'd stayed in a little budget hotel in Baixa, which was good enough for the night, but not a place to meet new people, so we were excited for the change.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Alfama and the Castello Sao Jorge (Saint George´s Castle). We weren't overly impressed with Alfama - although in character it was loads better than Baixa's commercialism, it was really dirty and really not as interesting as I was hoping for.

The exception to this is the Castle. At 7€, it was an expensive entrance fee for Portugal, but this was by far my favourite part of Lisbon. The actual fortress section of the Castle is largely intact and well labeled (excellent news for those of us with barely rudimentary Portuguese). The ruins of the former palace, which dates back to Moorish occupation in the 12th century, have been turned into an extensive and very picturesque garden, and the small museum has a wealth of in depth information on the history of Lisbon.

And from the towers of the keep, you can´t even see the dog poop on the streets below.


We went out for a night tour organized by our hostel (not a pub crawl, to our general confusion and sadness) and with a little bit of context and history, it was a little easier for us to begin to enjoy the city.

Although Porto certainly still has my heart as far as Portugese cities go, I´ll admit that I am sure Lisbon is the sort of gritty, honest city that I would absolutely learn to love with a few more days under my belt.

S