Memories of Scotland

Instead of going on and on about each place we visited in Scotland, I’ve decided to put together a series of anecdotes, cute or funny things that happened during our stay there.

First, though, here is a descriptive list of most of the places we visited, starting from Glasgow and ending in Edinburgh:

  • We spent a day and a half in Glasgow. To be honest, and I hope I don’t offend those who live there, as far as I could tell, there isn’t much to see, from a tourist’s point of view, except for the cathedral, but it’s very good for shopping, and it’s a very lively city. We also photographed a couple of excellent murals (photos 1 and 2). And we were lucky enough to happen upon a band practicing traditional Scottish music in a park for some upcoming event…marching up and down, twirling mallets, and that was lovely. I have a couple of videos of that encounter. Lots of fun. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to repeat (see my September 4th post) that we had tea in our first ever cat café in Glasgow, the Purple Cat Café. I noticed it as we were driving around trying to reach our hotel. The navigator gave us the wrong directions, so we ended up driving around in circles a couple of times. And at one point during these “circles,” I happened to notice the sign, “Purple Cat Café.” If it hadn’t been for that batty navigator, we would have missed the café. Sometimes things just…happen! For a good reason, I mean! 🙂 
  • The Isle of Islay, which, in addition to some of the most important whisky distilleries in the UK, also has some very pretty villages and scenery (although nothing as dramatic as Skye). We spent three days there. It was here that I got quite high after a tour of one of the distilleries, and Stefano tried to make friends with what he thought was a hen but instead was a rather upset rooster. And we were also able to go have a look at the Kidalton Cross, see photo below, on the right, one of the finest and best preserved early Christian crosses, carved probably in the second half of the 8th century AD. 
  • One of my favorite photos is the above one (on the left) of a phone booth that was in the middle of “nowhere” on the Isle of Islay, but standing tall and proud, a testimony to the fact that these booths were absolutely essential BEFORE the invention of cellphones.
  • As we were walking down a path toward the 12th century, ruined Castle Sween (the day we left Islay…a stop we made on our way to the town of Oban), all of a sudden a doe jumped right in front of us (see September 4th post). We immediately froze, of course, so as not to scare her. We didn’t notice her two fawns until she’d disappeared into the vegetation to the right of us. We recovered enough to get some photos (in my case, blurry photos…I was too excited!) of the fawns, but I wish I’d been faster…
  • We stayed a couple of days in Oban, mainly so we could go on a all-day boat and bus tour of Mull, Staffa and Iona, three small islands with different types of appeal. We also visited a nearby fantastic ruined 15th century castle, Kilchurn Castle  (see photo on left), as well as a few other ruined castles (Dunollie, Dunstaffnage, and Stalker) in the area.
  • Inverlochy/Fort William. We spent a few days here mainly to check out some of the Harry Potter movie locations, such as the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct. I have a Viaduct anecdote that I will tell you in another post. So, no photos till then.
  • Eilean Donan Castle, see photo on left, one of the most famous and photographed castles in the UK. We stopped here on our way to Skye. Too many tourists…but still, it was worth the stop, for sure!
  • We spent five days on the the Isle of Skye. Best part of our tour, IMO. Here we hunted, and FOUND!!!, dinosaur footprints on two separate beaches. So much fun. In the photo on the right, I used my foot to show how big the prints are. This was left probably by a meat-eating theropod 170 million years ago more or less. You can find this footprint, marked by small stones by some kind-hearted person, at the An Corran beach at Staffin. The best time to view dinosaur prints, by the way, is in the winter, when they aren’t covered by algae. Since it wasn’t winter (although it was cold enough, at times!), we didn’t find that many…
  • We did find quite a number of prints belonging to plant-eating, long-necked, small-headed sauropods on another beach, the one located near another ruined castle (Duntulm Castle), see photo on left. The exciting part is that, following the prints, you can actually imagine these enormous creatures walking across the beach millions of years ago. Not easy to get down there (and then back up to the road, too), incidentally. Both the descent and the ascent are quite steep, I mean. I almost gave up, in fact…but I’m happy that I managed to climb down…
  • The best part of Skye, in my opinion, is its breathtaking and ever-changing scenery. So many photo ops! And, even though it wasn’t on my bucket list, I got to feed a Highland cow under the supervision of its owner…more on that in my upcoming “anecdote” post. 
  • Plockton, see panoramic photo on the right (taken with my cellphone), a very pretty little coastal village, up the coast from the Skye Bridge.
  • Drumnadrochit (Loch Ness). To be honest, we could have skipped this area, even though we stayed in the loveliest Airbnb of our entire trip. Anyway, now we can say, “been there, done that,” plus we got to spend an entire day at a Highland Game in Drumnadrochit, which was heaps of fun, sort of like being at a HUGE family reunion (the Scots are so friendly!), with adorable young girls doing traditional dances in kilts (see photo), big strong guys in kilts throwing extremely heavy items up in the air, bagpipe marches and competitions (see photo), and a final kilt race (I tried to get Stefano to participate, but he refused, I wonder why…….)…Yes, lots of fun. Highland Games, highly recommended!
  • Beauly Priory, a 13th century, roofless church.
  • Another 13th century ruin, but a much MUCH bigger and spectacular one: Elgin Cathedral. What can I say? Stefano and I prefer ruins to perfect (but at times a bit fake) restorations.
  • Dunnottar Castle. Again, yes, a ruin…on the northeast coast of Scotland, with ghosts, apparently, although we didn’t see or feel any…and yes, I do sound disappointed. 😉
  • Dundee, where we photographed the Desperate Dan (cartoon) statue, photo on the left.
  • St. Andrews Castle and Cathedral. Ruins, you guessed it! 13th and 12th centuries, respectively.
  • The village of Culross, of the (TV series) “Outlander” fame, also recommended by Rick Steves.
  • Stirling Castle, which we both found very disappointing…The best part were its lovely gardens…definitely could have skipped! The crowds didn’t help at all…
  • Edinburgh, for the final day and a half before returning to Florence…

I couldn’t help ending this long series of photos with one of a “Skye” goat that had just moved off the road so we could pass. He doesn’t look too pleased about it, does he?

That’s it for today! It has taken me a very long time to go through all my photos and get around to pulling together this first post…but I’ve had to deal with Peekaboo’s problems, too, in addition to other stuff, so that’s my “excuse.” Incidentally, Peekaboo is doing very well on cortisone. She’s walking almost normally now…I mean, she isn’t walking in pain (or in “prevention of pain”), that is, in slow motion, with her back end almost to the ground. No, she is walking slowly but surely now. She even jumped onto Stefano’s desk a few days ago!!!

I’m giving her cortisone AND curcumin. In the beginning, I was giving her just the cortisone, afraid that the curcumin might have a negative impact (you never know when you mix two things together…), but I found the opposite to be true. When I give her both (not at the same time, of course!), she walks much better and is clearly in no pain. I’ll be discussing this with the vet later on today…

Back from Scotland

We’re baaaack! Back in Florence with our kitties, that is. Actually, we’ve been home since last Wednesday, but I’ve had lots of things to do, PLUS my computer wasn’t working properly, so Stefano spent the entire weekend fixing it, checking it out, updating programs, and so on. I’m so lucky to have him (in so many ways!)!

About our fabulous holiday in Scotland…so hard to decide where to begin…And so I’ve made a partial list of some of my fondest memories, as follows:

  • One of the funniest things: animals of all sorts (goats, sheep, chickens, cows…) in the middle of the road, chewing grass, completely oblivious to cars and other dangers. I have about 250 blurry photos taken of these encounters. 🙂
  • Speaking of encounters: one morning, while walking through a wood on our way to visit a ruined castle, we came across a doe and her two fawns. They popped out of the trees right in front of us. We froze, they froze, then the mother jumped across the path and disappeared into the trees. The rather fearful fawns just stood there looking at us (especially the one that isn’t in this photo). My biggest regret is that I was so startled that I didn’t start taking photos until the fawns began following their mother…Plus, it was a bit dark down there, so, yes, all my photos turned out fuzzy, as you can see. No matter…Fuzzy or not, these photos will remind me of that magical moment…
  • Sunshine, then rain, then clouds, then sunshine, then…well, you get the idea…crazy, fast-changing weather. But, as quite a few Scots told us on different occasions: “There is no such thing as bad weather in Scotland. There is only bad…clothes!” So true. And Stefano and I came well prepared in that sense…Gore Tex from head to toe…dressing in layers…so we had no problems at all. And we were so HAPPY to have escaped the horrendous heat back in Florence!
  • Speaking of the weather, we ended up being super lucky: it usually rained only at night or while we were driving from one place to another. For example, the morning we drove to Dunnottar Castle (a ruined castle on the north-east coast of Scotland) was horrible–rainy, and very cool and windy. But when we got to the castle, the rain stopped and didn’t resume until after we’d been to the castle and taken our photos.
  • The Scots. We met some lovely people, really really really lovely.
  • The Purple Cat Café in Glasgow (see photo of one of the 26 rescue kitties that live there). Trust me to come upon a cat café (our very first cat café, too) entirely by chance!
  • Driving on the other side of the road. Oh yes, I did! And, believe it or not, for the first time EVER. During all our previous trips to the UK, Stefano had done all the driving. I was too afraid of making a terrible mistake, wrong turn, etc., and getting us into trouble. This time, though, we had a bit of an emergency (more about this in an upcoming post), so I was forced to drive. Oddly enough, I wasn’t nervous about it and didn’t make any mistakes…not even on single track roads! Hah!
  • Harry Potter movie locations, especially the Glenfinnan Viaduct (we had an adventure there…again, see my upcoming post, which, er, I haven’t written yet!).
  • The views, some of which were absolutely breathtaking. Best views: on Skye. Oh I’d go back there in a heartbeat!
  • The colors…with the clouds racing across the sky almost all the time, especially on the islands, the colors of the landscape were never the same. So for instance you’d take a landscape photo, then the same photo in the exact same place just a few hours later, but the result would be completely different. I’d never get bored if I lived on Skye…And then, of course, I mustn’t forget to mention the colors of the Scottish gardens and flowers. Mmmmh…pure beauty.
  • Hunting for (AND FINDING!!!) dinosaur prints…on Skye…where else? 😉
  • Feeding a Highland cow…again, on Skye (yes, Skye Skye Skye…but those of you who have been there will certainly understand…). Feeding a cow wasn’t exactly on my bucket list, but this actually turned out to be one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced. Again, more about this in an upcoming post.
  • Going on a tour of a whisky distillery. Note: I don’t drink alcohol, generally speaking, although I don’t mind an occasional sip of a good Brunello di Montalcino. Stefano, however, is a whisky connoisseur, and so we spent three full days on the isle of Islay, the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides, which is well known for its distilleries–Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, and a bunch of others. I finally gave in and accompanied Stefano on a TWO-hour (!) tour of Ardbeg, at the end of which some very amusing things happened. Upcoming post, upcoming post… 😉

I’m slowly going through my 2240 photos (Stefano took more than that: 3400 photos!) and will get around to posting a few of them…as soon as I have a bit of free time. Not this morning, though. This morning I’m meeting with the vet surgeon to talk about Peekaboo. When we got home from Scotland, as the cat sitter had warned us, Peekaboo wasn’t walking very well and spent most of the time in her comfy cat bed. On Friday I called the vet to see if I could increase the dose of the anti-inflammatory/pain drug, but he said no and also told me that we can’t keep giving her this stuff forever…He said we should meet to discuss the situation. Hence this morning’s meeting…

The day after we got home from Scotland, I began mixing some curcumin with her wet food. After just a few days, she began going downstairs and is now also walking a bit better…

This may be the solution…Another topic I’m going to address with the vet. I doubt he’ll be impressed, but you never know…

Anyway, lots to do and think about…And so many photos to go through! 😉