Scotland

We are in Europe now. It's almost like home, which means there is much less incentive to write and much less to write about. No more exotic destinations, this is all about places that everybody knows, or has been there, or wants to go there or knows people who've been there and so on. With the girls gone to camp for one week we could choose any place to go. Competing for having us were Scotland, Ireland, Wales, even Norway. We didn't really weigh our options, we picked the first. Edinburgh, the historical Scottish capital and the place of the biggest August festival in Europe. One month of hundreds of shows in one old beautiful city. Checked. Two days to visit the city - crowded, exhausting, wet. It is all under construction, hey will put a tram throughout the center so every street is either dug out or blocked by traffic.

Edinburgh, Scotland

The Edinburgh Castle, a World Heritage Site

We went to the Edinburgh Castle - we saw the Crown Jewels and the Stone of Scone (recently moved back from London's Westminster Cathedral, this is the coronation stone of the ancient Scottish kings). We realized that we didn't really like war museums. What's the point of glorifying Scots who squashed Mysore when we've just been there? We loved Mysore. Let's get out of here. No more wars, no more war museums, no more false heroes, good in one country because they killed in another. Just stupid victims to the greed of their rulers. Play chess instead or go to the olympics. Scots were only allowed to wear their paraphernalia while in the army, so they all enrolled and became the most fearsome soldiers of the empire. What men would do for the right to wear a skirt.

We went to the National Museum of Scotland. Rated as a star attraction, it wasn't that good. Difficult to grasp in just a few hours, we did our best to understand their history and culture. I learned that there were once many mammals in Scotland, white foxes, bears, wolves, they killed them all.

The older side of the National Museum of Scotland looked very interesting, but we were already exhausted from the newer side

The Royal Mile, a little longer than one mile, is the historic street running from the old castle to the Queen's palace. It was busy, occasionally entertaining.

Edinburgh Festival

My highlight of the city was to be discovered in National Gallery: Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, a painting by John Singer Sargent from 1892. It was a beautiful surprise and a good reason to return at some point in the future. This is a picture of a picture:

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, a painting by John Singer Sargent from 1892

We rented a private room in a house 45 minutes away from the city. After three nights we were supposed to get the owner's campervan for the next five days and travel Scotland in style. It was raining and their roads are really narrow and winding, I was hoping there would be a way to cancel that contract. Luckily, when the woman met us she got scared and put impossible conditions for giving us her van. She wanted about £1000 deposit and to keep our passports until we return! She explained that we "seem" OK, but she cannot trust us! What sort of people travel like that for a year. What if we disappear without trace...
It worked out well. We rented the tiniest little car from the airport, got the cheapest hotel reservations and took off to see Scotland. We went to Oban, Lochness and the Isle of Skye. Almost 1000 km through the highlands is enough to give someone an idea. I ordered no rain for 26 hours on the island of Skye and it worked! The rest of the time it rained and rained and rained.

Much more and much more interesting, is in Ileana's post: Failte-gu-alba

This was a really good car, Hyundai i10

Waterfront of Oban

Waterfront of Oban with (insignificant) ruins in the background

Oban, when it's not raining it is going to rain soon

Loch Ness

The bridge to the Isle of Skye

Dunvegan Castle

Scottish cow

Passing by a bridge used by Harry Potter

Last picture in Edinburgh