Travelog: The Best of Scotland

 This summer marks 30 years of our Road Scholar adventures. Stevens and I began traveling with Elderhostel, as Road Scholar was then called, in 1996 when they changed the minimum age requirement.  My parents traveled with Elderhostel, too, so I'm second-generation.   Click on the tab at the top to see the entire list.  

I've always known about my Scottish ancestry on my mother's side (her mother was the tenth child in the family but the only one born in the U.S. (1894)).  Thanks to Ancestry I've discovered how deep the Scottish roots are and, surprisingly, that my father's paternal grandfather was born in Scotland.  But I didn't go to find distant cousins.  I've just wanted to go to Scotland since I was 10 and read (many times) Highland Rebel by Sally Watson. 

Wednesday, August 12 - Thursday, August 13:   O'Hare to Dublin, Dublin to Glasgow on Aer Lingus.  Both flights on time.  Fortunately my suitcase was checked through, ORD-GLA, and customs was no problem.   

Arrived at GLA at 8:30 a.m. 25-minute ride to the hotel (Road Scholar provides the driver). The group leader was in the lobby; she said I was the second person to arrive. Fortunately there was a room ready right away so I could get settled, but I was too wired to take a nap. I looked up the location of the central library and walked the mile there and back.  

Andrew Carnegie (upper right in the collage photo) contributed to the construction of the 1911 copper-domed library.  A modern addition has a big cafe-commons on the ground floor. The top floor is local history and genealogy.   Note the clever sign for their seed library.

Thursday evening: orientation and introductions. There were 17 in the group including one couple from Chicago and another couple from Glencoe, a suburb near me.     One woman was in the Ireland RS group I went on last summer.  It’s just a coincidence that we are both on this iteration of this program.   Group leaderr Claire and group instructor Morten have many years of experience as guides and were a wealth of knowledge.

Friday, August 14:   Glasgow Cathedral. Consecrated in 1197 and the oldest building in the city. Dedicated to St. Mungo, a 7th century priest. Roman Catholic until the Reformation. Vestiges of Catholicism were removed (destroyed, more likely). But the building was too grand and old to be destroyed so it became Protestant with its first Presbyterian minister in 1562. It is still a parish church. Constantly being repaired as you’d expect with a building that is 829 years old.

Quilts/patchwork get their own posts. All sides of St. Mungo’s tomb. He was buried here in 614, the site of the church he built. and the cathedral was built over it.

photo lifted from the internet 

Friday afternoon: Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Opened in 1901. Art and natural history. 

But first we listened to the organ recital which occurs at 1:00 every day.   Today’s set was a Sound of Music medley. Then lunch as a group, then on our own to explore the museum and a free afternoon and evening. Carin and I paired up.  

 Kelvingrove bought Salvador Dali’s Christ of St. John of the Cross in 1952 for £8200 (listed for £12000) and secured copyright. Smart move! It’s done well for them. There was a video of Dali talking about his method.

Kelvingrove has a whole gallery devoted to Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald, influential artists and artisans in late 19th/early 20th century design.

 

Carin and I could have spent hours more at Kelvingrove but we walked back to the hotel (about 2 miles ). We thought we’d catch some of the international Pipe Band competition (another mile on the other side of the hotel) but it turned out that ended at 5 p.m. We walked around some more and went to a pub. Fish and chips for me. Carin’s watch said we did 12,000 steps.

Decorated Scottish terriers are all around the city. The traffic cones (see the Duke of Wellington, lower center, as well as the Scottie) are a thing. When the Scots stayed in Boston for the World Cup they introduced the cones-on-statues. The Boston police eventually gave up removing them.

Saturday, August 15:    Culzean Castle. It’s pronounced Cul-AYN. Built 177-1792 by David Kennedy, Earl of Cassillis. (There are Scottish Kennedys as well as Irish.) Robert Adam was the architect and the building and furnishings reflect his neoclassical style. It never was a castle in the sense of a fortification; rather, it was a grand country estate. The descendants gave it to the National Trust for Scotland in 1945. House and grounds are gorgeous. (Bonus: it was not crowded.). Dwight Eisenhower was given an apartment in gratitude for his role as the Allied Commander. The apartment is now a very exclusive boutique hotel (6 sleeping rooms), not on the tour.

 The Friends of Culzean operate a used bookstore.  I bought two mysteries for £2 each.

Saturday afternoon: after lunch in the cafeteria at Culzean we went to Alloway, Robert Burns’ birthplace. 

The Burns House is where he was born and grew up.  There is a new, large museum about his life and work. Both are National Trust properties. 

Burns, the National Bard, wrote poetry and music and also collected folk songs from across the country. He wrote in Scots dialect and in English. His father was a tenant farmer. Education was valued though instruction was sometimes erratic. Burns worked in Jamaica for a time. He married but had love affairs (and children) with other women. His poetry and song made him so famous that when he died in 1796 at age 37 he was immediately memorialized—celebrations on the anniversary of his death. When that was considered rather morbid they changed to Robert Burns Birthday celebrations that continue today, haggis and all.          Photo: the farmhouse had two rooms for the family and a room for the cheesemaking. The gowns are embroidered with the four children's names, hung over the one bed in the cottage.   

The museum has exhibits about Burns' life, work, and his continuing influence on Scottish culture (in Scotland and abroad).  

The "wee tim'rous beastie," the haggis, faithful dogs, and Tam o' Shanter -- immortalized in Burns' poetry. 

Sunday, August 16:  departed Glasgow by coach bus.   First stop:  Loch Lomond. Freshwater, largest lake in Great Britain by surface area (there are two in Northern Ireland that are larger), and second to Loch Ness in volume. The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond is a familiar song from childhood. If we were walking somewhere my 2nd-gen Scots mother would joke about “you take the high road and I’ll take the low road,” though the metaphorical roads refer to the low road that is taken home by the spirits of the dead. (Or not, depending on which interpretation you chose.). The town of Luss is on Loch Lomond . Many vacation cottages with lovely flowers.

 

On to Inverary Castle, seat of the Duke of Argyll (chief of the Campbells). First castle built in the 1400s. This one replaced it in the 1700s. These hereditary estates are huge. More than half the land in Scotland is owned by 50 people. The Argylls still live here. The present Duke, Torquhil Ian Campbell, born 1968, is the 13th. Marrying a Cadbury did not hurt the family fortune. They have two sons (heir and a spare) and a daughter……back to the Castle. National Trust since 1971. Estate is 60,000 acres and supports farming, green energy, forestry, hunting. Featured in Downton Abbey and other productions.   

 The display of swords and other weaponry was somewhat alarming!  They were used in battle, but the installation is to show off rather than to deploy.

Kitchen at Inverary.  Note the labels on the drawers.  HartsH Shavings refers to hartshorn, made from ground deer antlers. A source of leavening before baking powder.  

 

Lunch on our own in Inverary town, then back on the coach. We stopped at St. Conan’s Kirk. It has never been a parish church; rather, it is a chapel-at-ease. That term is new to me! It’s a church building where services can be held because the location of the parish church is inconvenient. The architect was Walter Campbell and it was built in stages, 1881-86 and 1906-14. A *very* eclectic mix of styles. The docent was so eager to impart every last drop of details about the place he’s worked on for 25+ years.

We checked into the Royal Hotel in Oban for Sunday and Monday nights.  

Oban harborside and the hotel.  Of course I spotted the Rotary meeting sign at the door of our hotel.

 Monday August 17:   one-hour ferry from Oban to Mull, second-largest of the Inner Hebrides and the fourth-largest island in Scotland. We went right from the ship to a coach bus for an hour-long drive across the island. The driver provided geographical and historical information and a few jokes. He’s a volunteer fireman and he plays the bass drum in the island band. He knew a number of the locals who passed us.  

A note about passing on the road across Mull: it is 1-1/4 lanes wide so there is a whole etiquette/safety way to deal with oncoming vehicles ( or how to pass the slower driver in front). There are numerous passing turn-outs and you or they have to pull over—or back up and pull over. Quite a feat with a coach bus or a large delivery truck.

The roads on Mull are made using the “floating road” technique which AI summarizes as a base of peat (which underlies everything), geotextile grid layer, rock or gravel fill, layer of asphalt. As a result the roads can get springy from long use.

 Photo:   sign of the Highlands with Gaelic on the sign at the ferry; we encounter another coach bus on a narrow bridge; Oban harbor; Lismore Lighthouse on the Firth of Lorne.   A firth is a fjord.

Monday afternoon:   steady rain.    At Fionnphort on the west side of Mull we took a 10-minute ferry ride to Iona. The Irish monk Columba brought Christianity to Scotland in 563. He established a monastery on Iona. The stone church and other structures date from 800. They are the most complete ecclesiastical buildings from the time.

The high crosses with the distinctive “halo” were carved with Biblical stories. Smaller crosses were used as grave markers.

The Book of Kells was written and illuminated at Iona. It was moved to Ireland when Vikings raids threatened.

A Benedictine Abbey succeeded the original community in the 1200s. Under the patronage of the Macdonalds, the clan of the isles, the church expanded. Then came the reformation and it fell into disuse.

The present Iona Community began as a social justice movement in Glasgow in 1938. It is ecumenical. The movement is global. Community members and guests can stay at the Abbey for retreats and spiritual formation.   

Nancy is a P.E.O. in Texas. Her daughter Karen is a P.E.O. in Chicago. We posed with the P.E.O. Record.  (Karen is also an Alpha Gamma Delta sister.) Such fun to make connections! 

 

  We had a highland traffic jam on the drive back across Mull.   Shaggy, long-horned coos (cows) are native to Scotland. Both cows and bulls have horns.   They are bred for beef. 

Coos decorate everything from t-shirts to mugs to caps and socks.    I've read different accounts about their sociability--I think the best thing is to keep away from the horns!   

Tuesday, August 18:   checked out of the Oban hotel.  Coach bus to Glenfinnan.  

Tuesday morning: Glenfinnan. Jacobite monument. I climbed the 62 steps to the top.  But the monument was not the main reason we were there.

The Jacobite Express, a steam-powered ScotRail train, came along the Glenfinnan Viaduct right on schedule. 

 The train was in the Harry Potter movies so the place gets mobbed with HP fans.   (HP tourism is growing. The people who read the books when they were kids are now adults who can afford to travel and, in turn, take their kids.) 

 

 

 

The sun came out for our boat ride on Loch Shiel.  

The mate played the pipes for us. It was his last week on the job as he returns to university where he's majoring in marine biology. 

On to Fort William, our base for Tuesday and Wednesday nights.   It’s the second-largest town in the Highlands with 15,750 people. It’s a major tourist center—hikers, climbers, history buffs. The original fort was a garrison built in the 1600s.

Wednesday, August 19:   We had a little free time this morning before boarding the train.

I went to the West Highland Museum which includes a history of the British Commando unit who trained in the area. Other exhibits were of local history, a lot about the Jacobites, and some natural history.

 

The leabharlann!  (Ghearasdain means garrison, the Gaelic name for Fort William.) 

 
We took the train to Crianlarich so we could experience riding ScotRail along a route considered the most scenic in Scotland. Not a steam engine, though. 

 (The end of the line is the Queen Street Station in Glasgow, four blocks from our Glasgow hotel.) 

The coach bus met us at the station with a stop for lunch.   I had cullen skink which turned out to be fish chowder. (I looked it up: cullen skink can only be made with haddock. Otherwise it's fish chowder.) I had a glass of Irn-Bru, a Scottish soft drink that is orange and tastes like….cream soda with something else (“ammonium ferric citrate” and quinine).   Slogan:  “made from girders.”

On to Glencoe in the heart of the Highlands. The Glencoe Massacre in 1692 occurred when government soldiers killed 38 MacDonalds who did not pledge allegiance to William and Mary.  It became an example of the Crown's oppression of the Jacobites. 

Nowadays the Scottish National Trust manages the Glencoe National Nature Reserve. 14000 acres. Popular with walkers, hikers, climbers.

Munros are Scottish mountains over 3000 feet. (Sir Hugh Munro cataloged all the mountains in 1891.) There are 282 in all and a lot of hikers aim to do them all. We were content to have our photo taken in front of the Three Sisters.

At the Glencoe Nature Reserve there is a turf and creel house, a 2001 re-creation of a 17th century crofter’s house. There was a movie that showed how they did it.

 The visitor centre had displays about the geology (volcanos and glaciers). natural history (bogs and woodlands), and human history (Gaels, Vikings, clans, Jacobites, and now tourists).  

Halfway through the tour at this point!

Thursday, August 20:   to the Isle of Skye. Some rain, some sunshine. Beautiful, sparsely-populated countryside. Heather on the hills but few trees. Lots of sheep. After lunch we stopped at the Eilean Donan Castle but did not go inside. More castles awaited us….

  The contest to design the Skye flag was won by a schoolboy.  War memorial overlooks the harbor. Many steps to climb but a great view.  Eilean Donan = Island of Donan (a Celtic saint).

On to Loch Ness! Monster? Piffle.

Far more significant is Urquhart Castle at Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness. 

 The family goes back to a Pictish chieftain who was converted to Christianity by St. Columba. The original castle was built in the mid-13th century (more than 100 yrs before Machu Picchu). Sited on a major waterway, the castle was a significant location in the wars of Scottish Independence. (I haven’t yet sorted out the good guys and bad guys over the years until the Bonnie Prince.) The Macdonalds (Skye and other islands) raided the region frequently. Control of the castle changed a few times. In the early 1500s the Grants were given a lease to the estate. Macdonalds kept raiding. The Covenanters forced Lady Grant out in 1644 because she was Anglican, not Presbyterian. In 1690 the Grants with a force of 200 (siding with William of Orange) were threatened by 500 Jacobites. The Grants chose to blow up the castle and disperse rather than be beaten.   It’s been a ruin ever since.  The site was turned over to the government in 1911 and it is a major tourist attraction.  

 

I descended and ascended these steps to get to Loch Ness.  I tasted the water as a tribute to Stevens, who would taste the water anywhere.  He would have loved this trip. 

We stayed at Tulloch Castle  in Dingwall Thursday and Friday nights.  

Tulloch is the seat of Clan Davidson. There's a Davidson museum (upper right). The Green Lady is said to haunt the castle, but she didn't visit any of us.  

There was no lift (elevator). It was quite a climb to the guest rooms.  Fortnately the hotel staff hauled suitcases to our doors.

Center:  the keyring. 

Friday, August 21: sunshine! We went to Cawdor Castle. Cawdor is a variant of the name Calder, the family who built the original house in the 1400s. The Campbells have owned it since the 16th century. The Dowager Countess Campbell lives there now. Though Macbeth was Thane of Cawdor, that was Shakespeare’s invention. The real Macbeth lived in the 11th century before this castle was built.  

The interior is a beautiful blend of very old and contemporary ( particularly artwork).

 The gardens are gorgeous and extensive. I only had time to go to two of them.

 

Friday afternoon: Culloden. 

On snowy April 16, 1745, 5000 government forces defeated 2000 Jacobites.  Due to the suppression of Scottish culture (no tartans, bagpipes, etc) meant that the battle wasn’t much talked about.   Annual commemorations began in the 20th century. At one time a developer wanted the land; now it is a National Trust site.

The Scots were buried in mass graves so the clans have erected monuments to their fallen brothers. Lower right: the Fraser monument is roped off due to Outlander fans.

 What if the Jacobites had won? This was before the French and Indian War that determined English control of eastern North America. The Revolutions (American and French). Napoleon. Queen Victoria and the Empire…..this battle helped determine a lot.

I didn’t get a photo of the exterior of the modern visitors center where extensive displays (and a movie) explained the lead-up to the battle, the battle itself, and the aftermath.  

Friday  evening at Tulloch Castle: Hilary and Iona Cameron gave a demonstration of bagpipes and Highland dancing.

Bagpipes likely came with the Romans. Reeds are in the chanter (melody) and the three drones. The wood is African Blackwood. The bag was originally sheepskin. To clean, remove the pipes, unstitch the seam, and clean with whisky (to sanitize) and honey (to seal the leather). But nowadays the bags are made from Goretex bonded to hide and closed with a zipper. Much easier. 

Highland dancing is similar to Irish dancing — notably the Highlanders use their arms! Both are different from the Scottish dancing that we saw in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia—Hilary said, “They are more Scottish than the Scots!” adding that when they migrated they took the culture of that time and preserved it, while the Scots in Scotland adopted new ways. [Scottish dancing is hard-shoe step dancing.]   

Friday  night part 2: whisky tasting. I didn’t taste but I sniffed and could tell the differences among the three they poured. By US law bourbon casks can only be used once so the used barrels are shipped to Scotland and used multiple times for whisky. 

 

Saturday, August 22:  a short stop in Inverness, the largest city in northern Scotland and the regional hub. Population 48,000. We had an hour and a half to explore the old downtown. I walked around Inverness Castle but did not take the tour (there was an entry fee). I went in the Inverness Museum which is free. Excellent exhibits detailing history from the geological origins to human habitation (by the sixth century it was the base for the Picts) to the current day. It turns out that I didn’t take as many pictures as I thought I did.

The Clava Cairns are burial sites near Inverness. They are about 4000 years sold. Discovered in 1828. Archaeologists ascertained that the cairns are in alignment with the sun at the winter solstice.

 

 

Saturday afternoon:  Sheep herding and shearing demonstration by Neil, who is the stockman on Kingussie Farm, a large estate, with the help of his border collies. The estate is a farm and leased for shooting (grouse and deer). The flock is 3500 Scottish Blackface. They are meat sheep. Neil prefers to shear them all with hand clippers. He said he hired a crew once and he was not pleased with their work. The dogs were hard at work heeding his voice commands. The puppies, not so much, but they were alert….when they weren’t distracted. <g>

I got to clip a couple of inches. 

You may recall that I went to a shearing demo in New Zealand six months ago. The NZ herding dog breeds are different because NZ is warmer than Scotland.

Just as in NZ the market is for meat, not wool. Neil has to pay for fleece to be hauled away. (Most fleece goes to India and China to go into carpet.)

Puppies!  7-1/2 weeks old.

 

We checked into the hotel at Pitlochry for two nights. Another Rotary sign!  

Sunday August 23:   bus to Dunkeld, a very old town on the River Tay. A monastery was established in the 7th century and Dunkeld Cathedral, built between 1260 and 1501, replaced it. It’s been Church of Scotland since the reformation, not technically a cathedral, and is an active parish church today. The elder who was setting up for today’s service said there would be 100 in worship , 80 parishioners and 20 tourists.

Tourists? We met one as we were walking to the cathedral. He was dressed as a 17th century soldier. Erskine’s Regiment was there for the weekend to commemorate the Battle of Dunkeld, August 21, 1689, during the first Jacobite uprising. Government troops (Cameronian Regiment) were Scots; Jacobite troops were the Scottish rebels. The Cameronians won.

 

Sunday, part 2: Loch of the Lowes Nature Center. (Rhymes with now or cow.) Designated a reserve in 1969. The naturalist told us about the different animals we might see, though we did not: red squirrels, pine martins, badgers, beavers. There’s an osprey nest and they have a live OspreyCam to monitor the family. We could see the male across the lake, sitting on top of the camera pole (so we never saw him on camera).

Upper left: osprey is in the top center, just below the angle of the mountain.  

Sunday, part 3: Scone Palace. Rhymes with spoon.  

Scone started as an abbey that was the site for Scottish coronations from Robert the Bruce in 1306 to Charles II in 1651. ( He had an English coronation, too.)   The Stone of Destiny was kept at Scone, used at all the coronations.  The English stole it in the 13th century and it was kept in London for centuries.  It was famously stolen in 1950 and smuggled to Scotland.   It's now on permanent (secure!) display in Perth.

   In 1559 a mob of Protestants destroyed the abbey. Lord Ruthven became the landowner in 1580 and built a palace out of the abbot’s house.   

Photo: beautiful gardens including a maze. Peacocks roamed the grounds -- note the two perched in a tree! 

In 1600 the property passed to the Murray family who have owned it ever since. The house and grounds have been open to visitors for 59 years.

The Murrays rebuilt the palace in 1802. They nearly went broke with further remodeling for the 1842 visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The banquet was lavish. The Queen and her consort stayed one night.

We had lunch in the former kitchen at Scone -- with scones for dessert.  Clotted cream then jam, or jam then clotted cream?  I tried both ways and found them equally delicious. 

Back to Pitlochry for the evening.  I took a post-supper walk to see the salmon ladder on the River Tummel. The salmon swim under the concrete dividers. There’s a salmon cam to watch the underwater action. Back to the hotel at 8:30.

Monday, August 24:   on to Edinburgh!  First stop:  Culross Palace on the Firth of Forth. Pronounced “coo-ross.”  

Culross was an industrial town with coal and salt-panning the big businesses. (Coal was not well known in early Britain, called “the rock that burns.” Back then the forests produced plenty of wood.) Sir George Bruce began coal mines in 1575 and in 1590 constructed an undersea (the Firth) coal mine. It made him enormously wealthy. It was destroyed in a storm in 1625. But by that time Bruce built Culross Palace which we toured today. It was used in several Outlander scenes.

 

Culross Palace gardens.  Note the teasel--it's a nasty invader here in Illinois.  

Culross Palace needlework. Modern construction of traditional designs.   Note the teasel-heads indicating, "Do not sit here."  

Monday afternoon: In Scottish folklore the kelpies were water horses who could take on human form. They lived in the lochs. These Kelpies are horse heads made from steel. They represent the horses that Scottish industry relied on. The sculptures are 98 feet tall and weigh 300 British tonnes. The park opened in 2013.  Very visible from the motorway. 

 Final stop on Monday: Rosslyn Chapel in the town of Roslin. William Sinclair commissioned the chapel and contingent in 1456. Abandoned after the Reformation. Queen Victoria visited and the chapel was rededicated in 1862. It was bombed by suffragists in 1914! (Many believed the Church reinforced the anti-suffragists so this was an unsubtle rebellious act.). Several attempts at restoration used techniques that cause more deterioration. Work proceeded slowly on this big expensive project without much funding. Then came The DaVinci Code, both book and movie. The chapel was associated with Freemasonry and the Knights Templar. More visitors, more funding!     (No interior photos allowed.)

Tuesday, August 25:  the intention was a driving tour of Edinburgh but traffic got snarled and it took more than an hour to go what would be 30 minutes. Eventually we got to the Edinburgh Castle. Malcolm lll built the first structure in the 11th century. By the 17th century it was a garrison. Always a major part of Scottish History.

 Upper right: the gun is fired at 1 p.m. every day. It is said that they chose 1 p.m. rather than noon so they wouldn't have the expense of 12 shots. 

Reproductions of the needlework Mary, Queen of Scots, created when she was imprisoned in the Edinburgh Castle.

We had a free afternoon.  I walked down the Royal Mile (grateful that it is downhill). It was the last week of the Fringe, a month-long arts festival. Others in the RS group went to performances. I didn’t but I saw street performers as I walked.

Notable along the Royal Mile are the entries to closes which are narrow alleyways. (In Chicago they are called gangways.). Some lead to restaurants. Some lead to gardens. Some had trash bins. All have names.  Also Boswell's Court where Johnson met Boswell. 

St. Giles’ Cathedral. Built 14th-16th century and for some years it was the only church in the city. In 1559 it became Protestant with John Knox as minister.

 

 Eventually I reached my destination, Holyrood. The Royal Mile is so called because it’s roughly a mile from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace. Since the 16th century it has been the official Scottish residence of the Monarch (King or Queen). The palace was built next to a 12th century abbey.

 

The King’s Collection is a gallery on the Holyrood grounds. It hosts rotating exhibits of art, jewelry, costume , etc., acquired by the Royal Family. Current exhibit is The Edwardians.  I sneaked a couple of interior photos in the palace; no prohibition in the King's Collection.   

I walked back to the hotel, less than half a mile but uphill, and relaxed with an Irn Bru (it comes in diet!). 

Our group final gathering was at 5 and our closing dinner at 6.  Amazing that we met less than two weeks ago! We all guessed how many miles we traveled. 1080, per the bus driver. My guess at 1030 was closest and I got a lovely book of Scottish poems. Early departures for most tomorrow. My adventure continues. Stay tuned!

 Our hotel was on this crescent. Some supermarkets here at home stock Irn-Bru and of course it's available from Amazon. 

 

Wednesday, August 26:   Last Edinburgh walk after checking out: climbing 339 feet to the top of Calton Hill.  

The National Monument honors soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars. Lower left: Arthur's Seat. 

Road Scholar is over and I stayed in Scotland!   I went to St. Andrews to visit my friend Johanna Gibson.     Public transportation goes between Edinburgh and St. Andrews--train and bus, or express bus. The options were confusing (mostly I wanted to get to the airport in plenty of time for my return flight) and my suitcase became much heavier so I splurged and hired a shuttle. Well worth it for my peace of mind. 

Jo and I met online in a quilting newsgroup 30 years ago but had never met in person. She's originally from Oregon and has lived in Scotland since the early 1990's.   She keeps chickens!  She's also studying to become a Gaelic-language instructor. All the chickens have Gaelic names.  I'm holding Brèagha.

I also met her son T. 

In the afternoon Jo showed me significant sites in town.  St. Andrew’s University was founded in 1413 and is the third-oldest university in the English-speaking world. It has been coeducational since 1892.  Enrollment is 9300 undergrad and 2500 post-grad. It is more selective than Oxford or Cambridge. 

Before the university there was a cathedral (1158) and a castle (1200).

 Upper right: one of the University buildings.  

 

And after the university was founded there was golf!    

A precursor was played in the 15th century. Codification came in the 18th century. They’ve played on the Old Course since the 1500s. Greens fees £355 ($480) per round. Imperative to book in advance. They do not like nongolfers walking across the greens (even on a walkway)—those golfers are there to play! Tee times begin at 6:30 in the summer. The 700 yr old Swilcan Bridge on the 18th hole is a traditional photo op. We could not get close to it. You hear about the winds—the North Sea is right across the road.

The beach was where the runners trained in the movie Chariots of Fire.  

 
I stayed those two nights in a guest house (former residence hall) on the St. Andrew’s campus. Sink in room, shared bath down the hall.   Breakfast provided.

My room was above the portico, but the modern entrance was wayyyyy at the opposite end (upper left).  Lovely stained glass in the dining hall. 

Thursday, August 27:  Jo and I took the bus to Dundee (30 miles). We started with the V&A Scotland, the first branch outside London. It focuses on design: architecture, fashion, industrial, etc., etc., and highlights Scottish designers. We had lunch in the museum restaurant. (Unfortunately we missed the Charles Rennie Mackintosh tea room….)

The museum is on the riverfront. Next to it is Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s ship Discovery. 

This Dundee does not look like its Illinois namesake!   It was home to many industries that gave it the nickname “jute, jam, and journalism.” 

The McManus is the history and art museum. A gallery has exhibits that tell the story, from whaling ships to marmalade, Levi’s and Timex, cash registers and early computer games (Grand Theft Auto in 1997, Lemmings in 1991, and versions of Minecraft.)

 

Curtain Call is the special exhibit at McManus. Theatrical and film costume. Designers from Dundee or performed in Dundee. You may recognize at least one of them.

 Jo, T, and I enjoyed pizza at their house. I was back at the residence hall early enough to repack everything for my trip home.

The driver came right on time Friday morning and I got to the Edinburgh airport in time to get on an earlier flight to Dublin.  No such luck with the Dublin-O'Hare flight, but that was right on schedule.  

Left: Scotland. Right: Ireland. Hard to tell the difference!  

I walked in my front door at 8:30 p.m. central time, which was 2:30 a.m. GMT. I went right to bed and slept very well.

  It was a wonderful trip.  Thanks for reading all the way to the end! 

  

P.S.  Flowers, wild and cultivated.