Of Monsters and Castles

Scotland was by far my favorite place we traveled over the summer. It felt like I had stepped right into of one of my childhood King Arthur and Unicorns fantasies; the air hung with a misty, heavy atmosphere and abandoned castles littered the hilly landscape. To say the least, it was hauntingly beautiful.

The front view of the GlobeTrotter Inn, Edinburgh

We flew straight from Dublin to Edinburgh and checked into our hostel room early on Wednesday the 22nd. We were staying at the GlobeTrotter Inn, which wasn't in the heart of Edinburgh but ran a shuttle bus every hour in and out of the center of the city. The hostel itself was about 10 minutes out of town in a building that looked almost like an old castle; we even had a beach view! We really lucked out with this hostel and, unlike our musical-bunk room in Dublin-we managed to get the full 6 bed room completely to ourselves for 2 out of the 3 nights we slept there. The rooms were very clean and roomy, and the beds had privacy curtains, which is a real luxury in multi-room hostels. The showers were pretty amazing, too; really, it was a great and cheap place to stay in Edinburgh. I highly recommend it.

The Royal Mile

Anyway, after dropping things off and taking a short nap we took the shuttle into town. We spend most of the first day just walking around Edinburgh, taking in all the incredible buildings and the picturesque streets. We walked down the Royal Mile, visited a shop where kilts and tartans were made in the basement, and got our first look of the Edinburgh castle. Edinburgh is basically a photographer's dream, and I'll probably be including many pictures at the end of this entry. The castle was especially impressive and fun to photograph.

This guy was stationed outside the castle. I don't think they pay him enough.

It started to rain rather hard, so we headed back to the hostel to read and sleep, and set out the next day to go inside the castle. It took us at least 2 hours to explore the castle, it was more like a small fortified neighborhood than one castle. It had a plethora of buildings, including a very nice cafe where we a lunch of pies and roast Scottish lamb. We walked around the inner roads of the castle and visited some of the buildings, one of which held the Scottish crown jewels and the Stone of Scone, the stone that served as Scotland's throne for crowning royalty since the days of William Wallace. The Stone used to be held under the English throne in Westminster, but, as one of the guards in the room divulged to me in great and enthusiastic detail, the Stone was repatriated (I made the mistake of asking if it'd been 'stolen') by a group of college students on Christmas Day in 1950. The group of 3 men and one woman took the Stone while the English guards were busy celebrating the holiday and took it with them back to Scotland as a sort of prank, and were surprised by the explosion of reactions from the English government--who called them morally compromised thieves--and the Scottish government--who called them patriotic heroes. Eventually, they had to come clean. Luckily, no serious charges were pressed, and according to the guard they all enjoy free pints whenever they visit a Scottish pub.

Bagpiper in Edinburgh Castle

Under the Edinburgh Castle

After walking through the castle and being treated to an entertaining and slightly terrifying demonstration on Scottish weaponry back in the day, Tony and I walked around under the castle to get some pictures. I took quite a few...

Storming the castle

Nappin' while I'm shootin'

Good ol' Sepia

So anyway. After storming the castle for a bit, we went to wander some more around the highly walkable streets of Edinburgh (in the rain, for the most part) and ended up finding an office for bus tours. After our good experience in Dublin, we decided it would probably be money well spent, so we went in search of the perfect tour. We decided to go for our dreams and picked a Highland tour that would take us to Loch Ness, and even allow for time for us to take a short boat tour to go Nessie hunting. I really wanted a tour that would take us by Duone Castle, the filming sight of most of Monty Python's Holy Grail, but there wasn't a tour that seemed to cover them all.

Misty Mountains on the morning of our bus tour

And the best thing about our tour was that we didn't even have to wake up super early to make the meeting point; the tour bus picked us up from the hostel on its way into Edinburgh! We were the first on the bus, too, so we got the best seats. We had a really nice tour guide, and minus the unscheduled stop so a family in the back could unload their very car sick children, I enjoyed it even more than the tour in Ireland. The Highlands were completely gorgeous. According to our guide, it's been speculated that Scotland was once a part of Canada, became detached during the movement of the plates, and collided into the rest of England, creating the Highland. That would actually explain the hills and wildlife found in Scotland that's typical of North America but nothing like England. "Which means, of course, that Scotland is the most well-traveled country in the world," he said.

Lookin' for Nessie on the Loch!

We stopped for lunch at Port Augustus on the Loch, grabbed a few sandwiches for lunch, and boarded the bus for the boat tour! The whole Loch Ness experience was probably one of the best things from our trip to Scotland. I just loved how seriously everyone in the area took it, and I have to say that after being in the area and seeing the Loch, I'm a believer. Especially after coming face to face with Nessie herself...

It's Nessie!! With a baby in tow! ;D

So yea, the boat was fully equipped with all kinds of sonar gear, which apparently picks up some mysterious readings every now and then... Also, during initial surveillance of the Loch, scientists tagged a few areas that the sonar picked up as large and unidentified. When they came back, they found some crashed planes, sunk ships, and the like, but a few of the points of interested had disappeared...

Glen Coe

After becoming fully convinced Nessie exists, we set back out to complete our travel through the Highlands. We stopped by the mountain Ben Nevis and Glen Coe, where the Macdonald massacre took place. Back when England was taking over and buying off the Scottish clans, some clans signed up right away while others held out. The Macdonalds were one of the more stubborn clans and the Campbells, who were among those who signed with England right away, were sent to help the Macdonalds come around to the English side. The Campbells were told to take up residence with the Macdonalds and await further instruction and, as was custom, the Macdonalds let the Campbells into their homes without a second thought. Order came through one morning to kill every man and boy over the age of 16 in the village before dawn, and the Campbells carried it out. But they didn't stop there. They went further to throw all the women and children out of their homes, which they then burned to the ground, to brave the elements on their own in the middle of the Scottish winter. Needless to say, nearly the entire clan perished, and 200 years later there are still pubs in the area that proudly hang the sign "No dogs, No Bums, No Campbells". But the real tragedy of this story is that on the very morning the massacre took place, the clan leader was signing allegience with England; the message to stop didn't make it in time.

Doune Castle

Feeling nice and solemn after our stop in Glen Coe, we stumbled upon a happy random happenstance: we passed a sign for Doune Castle. Turns out we got to drive right past it, and I got to snap a good picture; so at the end of the day, I got to have my cake and eat it too.

Arthur's Seat and the clan tents in The Gathering

The next day we were leaving Edinburgh to go back to London, but our flight didn't leave until 7 at night, so we spent a lot of time trying to think of what to do for the day before that. Tony ended up finding a flyer for something called The Gathering, which ended up taking place the weekend we were leaving. So Saturday we made our way down to Arthur's Seat--a range of cliffs in Edinburgh--and got in line to enter the biggest clan gathering for the past 200 years, and the first venue in Edinburgh to host Highland Games in history. The Gathering had tents to reunite with the family clan, places to get Haggis--which we tried here; it was so so--Highland dancing, Highland games, and some good ol' bagpiping bands, including the Red Hot Chili Pipers, one of Tony's new found favourties.

They're in there, I promise...

We were very lucky this summer. Very, very lucky. Every time we think that we've hit the end of our good luck, something else amazing happens. For instance, within 5 minutes of entering the event, not 10 feet away from us in the probably square mile area of the event, who would walk past us but Prince Charles and Camilla. Yep, it was a magical time.

Climbing Arthur's Seat

After bumming around and watching some Highland games, we decided that we wanted to go climb Arthur's Seat. So we took off from the event and made the hike up the cliff to see all of Edinburgh, and The Gathering, spread out before us. It was simply gorgeous.





On our way down Arthur's Seat, we witnessed a Caber Toss match. In a Caber Toss, the goal is to take a giant pole of wood, run with it, and then throw it in a way that the end that was once in the air lands on the ground and the pole raises to be perpendicular to the ground. I even managed to get a recording of a successful toss.




Wow, I don't know about you, but I think that's a substantial enough entry. Basically, Scotland was amazing and I hope I can go back one day.