Glasgow and the Scottish Highlands

Cathy and I are back from two weeks in Scotland.  This post is about our time in Glasgow and a 6 day tour with Globus Tours from Glasgow into the Highlands and finishing in Edinburgh.  Our next post will be about Edinburgh and our stay at Culzean Castle.

The Queen’s funeral occurred at the start of our trip and these tributes were in front of the major public building in Glasgow.  Particularly heart tugging were notes from schoolkids and seniors.  Everything shut down on the day of the funeral, and so our guide had to do some improvisation.

In the afternoon after the funeral, we had a cruise on Loch Loman.  Beautiful scenery and very similar to Gros Morne in Newfoundland.

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We continued north into the Highlands and Isle of Skye.  Very picturesque with seaside cliffs, quaint fishing villages and castles.

We overnighted in Inverness and stayed at the Columba Hotel.  Very old, quaint and central.

We hiked around the famous site of The Battle of Culloden.  This was a disastrous defeat for the Scottish clans and their French allies, and a defining victory for the Brits.  Cannons beat pitchforks every time.  The red flags show the British line and the blue flags are the Scots.

One of the things I learned is the deep and lasting hatred between the Macdonalds and the Campbells.  The two clans did not play fair.  After feting the Macdonalds for a week, the Campbells slaughtered them as they slept in a drunken state.  You can see Cathy, who is a Macdonald, giving the home castle of the Campbells a healthy kick.  No damage reported.

South of Aberdeen we hiked out to Dunnottar Castle and this has to be the most scenic and spectacular setting.  We followed with a healthy sampling of single malts in the village of Stonehaven.

No trip to Scotland would be complete without a visit to St Andrews, the birthplace of golf.  That is us on the stone bridge on the 17th hole, just before the warden sho’ed us off as there was active play on the course.  It was cool and windy, and most of the golf was being played out of the tall grass.  Cathy and I retreated to a small golf bar and toasted this great game.

That is it for now.  Our next post will be about Edinburgh and Culzean castle.

Logistics:  We did our round trip from Toronto to Glasgow (with a connection in Amsterdam) with KLM.  We scored an amazing deal on Business Class.  About $1900 Cdn each, and well worth it.   And KLM  has  positive quirks like handing out little procelain statues of Dutch houses.  Our tour of the Highlands was with Globus Tours and we appreciated how our guide gave us a History and Socialogy 101 education.  The rest of the trip we traveled on ScotRail and stayed in a countryside B&B’s and central hotels.