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ScotlandBy John GrahamScotland is always wet and cold. I can guarantee that. Yahoo weather station showed rain every day leading to our trip and apparently for weeks afterwards, so we packed Macintoshes, galoshes, sweaters, and umbrellas. However, we landed in full sunshine at temperatures in the upper eighties and learnt two dreadful lessons. Yahoo hasn’t a clue about the weather abroad, and Scotland, because it is always wet and cold, has never heard of effective air conditioning. In the first week I spent a lot of time in my underwear crouched in front of a fan in a room of the Glasgow Marriott. No! Not all Marriott Hotels are equal. Still, it got better.
Edinburgh was full of kilts and expectations both for the World Cup qualifying soccer match against Italy and fireworks on the last day of the annual celebrations. The match ended in a disappointing, but honorable, draw and the fireworks from the castle above the city were superb. Honor was upheld all around.
Glasgow too was blessed with an excellent gallery: the Hunterian, which contained agreat collection by Whistler as well as more Flemish paintings. Afterwards we found how intertwined Scotland had been with Belgium throughout history so these collections made sense. Adjacent to the Hunterian we visited the Charles Rennie Macintosh home. He was born a year later than Frank Lloyd Wright and they both practiced architecture and design over the same years. Their designs of houses, furniture and fittings are almost identical and yet neither biography refers to the other so it is difficult to see who influenced whom.
Meals were all of the good honest farmhouse variety. Haggis with neeps and tatties was our favorite. Neeps are Swedes and tatties, of course, are potatoes, the ideal accompaniment of large sausage made of pork, or beef innards. The best approach is not to ask what or why but to eat and enjoy. It’ll nae kill ya.
Glencoe was the scene of a massacre organized by the Duke of Argyll. His minions, the Campbells, slaughtered 44 of the MacDonalds on the excuse that they had been late in swearing fealty to the King. Glencoe now is a placid valley with green and purple bordering hills … a favorite spot for walkers. As it meets the sea just south of Fort William is an old Ferry Inn on Loch Leven … it offers great accommodation and food although what they call a King-size bed is really a Queen. Perhaps they are swearing fealty to the King in mockery?
We traveled south to Oban, the home of the Oban distillery and the port for steamers leaving for the Western Isles. We sampled both. The distillery had been there since 1794, before Oban had been built, and as the town grew and prospered it huddled around the distillery and its malt ‘whuskey’ for strength and companionship. Even today the whiskey makes you feel companionable.
However we were there to visit Castle Duarte, the home of the MacLean clan, beautifully restored to the old inconvenient plans using the old stone from a virtual ruin only 50 years ago. Many Americans could not climb the narrow circular stone staircases. The gentleman who welcomed us was Lachlan MacLean, chief of the Clan MacLean, whose family has owned the castle since the 1300s. The castle is replete with family photographs and their memorabilia including their interaction with the Throne of England. The family continues to live in one half of the Castle. Beyond Oban we headed south and the little car … small enough to give us no problem in parking … was also quick enough to pass most things we wanted on the freeway south. That day we had a pub-lunch at Lockerbie, a small rural town that certainly did not deserve an act of terrorism. South we visited Hadrian’s Wall, an 1,800-year-old edifice that still exists … but that’s another story.
Cumberland Sausage is the equivalent in Cumberland (now called Cumbria by politicians) of the haggis. It is an ancient and glorious sausage that can be eaten with everything. My wife, a non meat eater, surprised me one day by wolfing the whole of two double length sausages without even asking me to share. One moment I glanced over and told my self that she wouldn’t eat a quarter of the dish and the next moment it had all gone. In the US, unfortunately you can only get it from New York with a six-pound minimum by overnight FedEx without preservatives. It’s expensive running at some $40.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud After a day of rain, the clouds cleared and showed us why Wordsworth excelled in poetry of that ilk. The Lake District is beautiful enough to make anyone a poet.
His poetry so fitted his time and occasion that he is honored around the globe. The Russians produced a stamp in his honor as if he were Russian. Statues to Burns honor exist in London, Auckland, Moscow, Tokyo, and many more places. Furthermore, everyone, including those who do not speak English or the Scots, sings his verse at the start of each New Year. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, His poetry: “My Love is like a Red, Red rose,” “A man’s a man for a’ that,” “Address to a Haggis,” “Tam o’ Shanter,” “Address to the Toothache,” and more, will last a lot longer than we will. Even though, being British by birth and having during my first 30 years of life driven in England on the left … the correct side of the road … as well as on the right (in Europe) … the wrong side, one can err. You have to be careful not to embarrass one’s self in a strange car. I approached the car tentatively each morning as if it were about to strike and carefully got in on the right side. One morning I realized I was going to the left side and I had to circle the car meaningfully as if I had really meant to. However, on the last morning with ten days of experience, I did the same … I crept up on the Baby-Benz and, thinking hard, I moved towards the right hand side. I opened the door and half entered, only to find that I was getting in the rear seat. Traveling is always fun.
More such pieces in the book "Snapshots of the Mind,” John Graham, 2005, ISBN 1-4137-5590-9 available at the internet web-site: http://www.webetc.info/writings or in any good booksellers. Photographs by Emmy Roos |
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TM
We
rented an automatic Mercedes – a new 5-door version called a Baby Benz. I
believe it was the Mercedes 170 officially. It was ideal for travelers and the
rear storage was big enough for one average American case, a little soft-sided
carry-on and some odds and ends. A second case had to be carried on the back
seats so if you aim to carry four in this car make sure that they don’t need
many changes of clothing. Nude would be good.
Most
notable in the city though was the National Gallery below the castle, which,
although small, contained a very comprehensive collection of Flemish masters and
more from the Low Countries. Steen, ter Borsch, Reuben, Rembrandt, and others
were well represented. Including too the first painting known by Jan Vermeer,
showing how well he matured in subject and style in later years. This was his
only religious painting.
Immediately
out of Glasgow the highlands of Scotland begin. Ben Lomond, a small bump in
terms of the Rockies, looms above the loch of the same name. They are the heart
of the Trossachs … a district of small jewel lakes among rolling purple hills.
They form the gateway to the Western Isles.
Getting
to Glencoe we took the B roads – in the whole of Britain they are well paved and
free from coaches or trucks (lorries here). However, in Scotland they are often
one-very-narrow-lane roads that will not take a mid-size American car. Our
European baby-Benz took them well and on the occasional times we met oncoming
cars we squeezed into the passing spots provided or got very friendly with the
bracken (ferns) that covered the sides of the roads.
My
wife, Emmy, always competitive, eyed the highest mountain in the UK and the
recommended time for completing the climb out and back … 5 to 7 hours. She
marched off in a determined fashion and reappeared with a photograph from the
top and with a very healthy glow of accomplishment in 4 hours thirty minutes.
The mountain, 4,406 feet high, stands overlooking Fort William and the end of
the Caledonian Canal. It is climbed regularly by the normal route, which stays
away from it massive northern cliffs, but it is still a mighty challenge being
composed off two climbs with a tarn between them. The second, steeper climb
comes when one is already very tired. The effort reflected itself in a certain
stiffness in my wife’s walk for two days afterwards … she walked like a chicken
and clucked occasionally.
Our
trip on the MV Duchesse took us past rocks on which some seals were sunning …
the 2:30 p.m. crew for the tourists … and then on to the Isle of Mull. Mull has
over 3,000 inhabitants. The main peak is the 3,000-foot-high Ben More rising
directly from the sea. These mountains are as magnificent as the Rockies in
their way. Elsewhere there are thousand foot high cliffs on a coastline that
measures 300 miles. It is something to mull over.
After
a day there we visited the ruins of my Father’s birthplace, the highest farm in
the highest village in England in 1850 and still today. Bleak, windswept, and
horizontal rain, was the weather typically encountered by these sheep farmers
although on the day we were there it was simply bleak and windswept. The ruins
unfortunately have not fared as well as those of Hadrian’s Wall.
Then
on to the English Lake district and the home of the English poet laureate,
William Wordsworth 
On
the way back to Glasgow and our plane home we visited the birthplace of another
British poet: the Scot Robert “Rabbie” Burns, born 1759. He was not the saint
that Wordsworth was just eleven years later. Burns died at 35 of drink, having
made love to every available and non-available woman in his vicinity. None were
unwilling.
For
more information contact Mercedes-Benz at