Our Highland Tour

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July 10th 2012

Published: July 13th 2012

Getting back to our tour.....one story I forgot to mention was about the old days in downtown Edinburgh. And back before they had plumbing, people made use of buckets for toilets and as they had no way to dispose of the full buckets, they would dump them out the windows, yelling "Garde loo"....French for watch the water. lol Now the funniest part of this, is that the men used to stand close to the curb of the street, while they were waiting for a coach or a friend, or whatever, to protect the women from getting soiled as they waited standing close to the building. What chivalry, huh?? 😊 Kirk yelled out to our driver that things hadn't changed much, but I'm not so sure I think they're quite that chilvarous anymore, at least that I can recall! lol

So we pass Stirling Castle on way to the highlands although we don't stop, but Stirling Castle was where William Wallace defeated the British in 1297 (Mel Gibson in Braveheart tells this story, although William Wallace was actually 6 foot 4, not 5'10"!). Robert Bruce also fought here in 1314. Amazing to see these places in person and know the history of what happened on those grounds!

But our first official stop of the Highland tour was Doune Castle. Doune Castle is in central Scotland and was built in the 13th century. It was damaged during the Scottish War for Independence and rebuilt by the Duke of Albany in the 14th century. The stonework that remains is almost all from the 14th century. It's been featured in various literary works and was the site for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, of all things. lol

Our next stop was a small quaint village called Callender. We stopped here long enough for coffee and to wander a few shops and take a few pictures. You'll see several pictures from here. One in particular, was what I thought, a very charming garden gate and wooden door with flowers by it and I'm always taking pictures of things like that, but as I took this picture, there was an older lady standing on the sidewalk, right next to a shop....nothing to suggest she was anything more than another shopper, but she looks at me and says "why ya takin photos of me gate?" You have to imagine this with a heavy Scottish accent, and I explained that I just thought it was so charming that I wanted a picture. She looked a little dubious but finally did smile. And I still makes me smile when I hear her heavily accented voice in my head every time I look at that picture. 😊 Kirk even has me repeat it in her Scottish brogue every now and then just for grins! lol

After Callender, we headed deeper into the highlands to the edge of Loch Awe. Loch Awe is the longest freshwater lake in Scotland, measuing 25 miles end to end. When we stopped, there were several tents and people camping along the banks. A really cool thing about Scotland is that any land owners must allow access to and through their property. You can camp or hike anywhere you want to. There's also a 96 mile hike through the highlands, called the West Highland Way that stretches from north of Glasgow to Fort Williams. We saw several hikers at different points throughout the day and hikers in Scotland are called "hill walkers". 😊

We left the banks to travel to the other end of Loch Awe to my very favorite place (and Kirk's) along our tour...and probably my favorite place in all of Scotland so far.....to Kilchurn Castle. Kilchurn Castle was built in 1450 by Sir Colin Campbell. The Campbells were a notorious highland clan and there's another story about a clash between the Campbells and the MacDonalds (my Dad's side) where the Campbell's killed 30 something men from the MacDonald's Clan. Anyway, the castle at that time, sat on an island and was surrounded by water. There were trees that had been cut down from the water and the stumps had been left just below the water surface. So the story goes that when the castle owners would walk to their castle, they walked on water, while in fact, they were walking on the tree stumps. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but we do have a picture of them and that's what our guide told us, so I'm stickin to it. 😉

To reach the castle, you had to walk through a large open field of hay and wild foxgloves that grow everywhere in Scotland. Lots of sheep also called the area home and you'll see them in the pictures too! The area is just beyond description. You're in the heart of the highlands, and the mountains surround you in a wide open glade, the castle sits just off the banks of the loch, and it's as pristine and pure as any setting you can imagine. There were a few remote and distant power lines that seemed to somehow tarnish the landscape. Not that I don't enjoy the modern conveniences like everyone else, but they sure seemed so very out of place and intrusive here. More than anywhere else we had been, you could so easily imagine yourself here several hundred years ago with much the same view and the same appreciation. It was peaceful and so so quiet and so....indescribable! I can't even begin to imagine what it would look like on a day with sunshine but the lack of it didn't seem to matter. Sigh....it makes me miss it just thinking about it! (And it truly does, but actually, at this moment, as I'm typing and trying to catch up since I'm a few days behind, there's a young guy playing the accordion right outside our window in our room in Venice....pretty charming. You'll see him in the Venice pictures! 😊 )

I'm gonna stop here so we can go explore Venice a little bit, but gonna try to get back and upload Edinburgh and the other Scotland pictures later tonite.

So until then... 😊

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