On Friday (the next-to-last day before heading home), I woke up, grabbed breakfast at the hotel, and headed to the pickup point for my tour for the day. This one was with Rabbie's again and, as the title says, went up to the western highlands, in between Glasgow and Oban (pronounced Oh-ben), a fishing port on the Atlantic coast of Scotland. It was a small tour, just me and two ladies also on holiday, Stacy (a pastor in her mid-40s on sabattical from upstate New York) and a Malaysian nurse working in Saudi Arabia who's name I missed. The nurse was quiet and didn't talk much, but I liked Stacy. She was...not exactly what one pictures when you think 'pastor.' She was a whisky-drinking, cigarette-smoking feminist with a penchant for swearing, so I enjoyed talking to her. Once the three of us had met our tour guide Nikola and buckled in, we were off.
|
Loch Lomonde at Luss |
The first stop of the day was Luss, a small village on the shore of Loch Lomonde (the name apparently is Gaelic for 'herbs'). We all walked to the edge of the loch and took some photos of the mountains and water before wandering the village a bit. Like most of the scenic highland villages I visited, Luss seemed to mostly subsist on sheep and tourism, which makes sense given it's location. I poked around a bit, and found a herd of sheep ruminating near the inn. I finally got a clear shot of a highland lamb, which I was pretty happy about (their parents don't like them hanging out near the road, so all I'd gotten previously was some fuzzy photos of them off in the distance). I headed back to the bus and when the other two musketeers showed up, we got back on the road.
|
Inverary Castle. |
Our next full stop was in Inverary, another small coastal city, but we had a couple other pitstops at Rest-and-Be-Thankful Pass and Castle Inverary, which is actually pretty well outside the actual village of Inverary. Apparently the duke who lived there back in the day wasn't happy with it being so close to the village, so he basically demolished the village and rebuilt a new one a little farther away. Can't expect the nobility to be happy interacting with such riff-raff I s'pose. The castle actually looked familiar, since it featured in a Downton Abbey Christmas special as the home of the Crawley's Scottish cousin, Shrimpy. I need to go back and watch that episode to see what else I recognize now.
|
Rest-And-Be-Thankful Pass |
After that, Nikola shuttled us to Inverary proper, where I was immediately confused by the presence
|
Inverary proper. |
of a large fuzzy hat sitting in the parking lot, on top of a box that said, "Have a nice day." I puzzled over it a bit then walked into town, where the penny dropped when I saw a bagpiper with a nasty case of hat hair emerging from a coffee shop. Mystery solved, I walked along the water's edge a bit before picking up some fudge and tablet (a Scottish sweet which I'd never heard of before, but was surprised to find is exactly like pralines, minus the pecans). I eventually realized we were in the region of Argyle, but was greatly saddened when I couldn't find a single pair of argyle socks. Ah well, not like I have a shortage of socks anyway.
|
Oban. |
Our next big stop was for lunch in Oban, but along the way we stopped at St. Conan's Kirk, a little church in the countryside that Conan built for his mother when she was too ill to make it to the main town cathedral. It, like many small rural churches I saw in Scotland, was open to the public, but totally empty of any employees or attendants. We wandered a bit, then got back on the road (with a brief stop to see some hairy coo's) until we hit Oban. Oban's a port city built around a harbor, but since the tide was out it was more a city built around a seaweed and driftwood covered beach. It was still a pretty place though, with a great view of the ocean and surrounding islands.
Nikola gave us a recommendation for a couple seafood shacks on the docks, so I headed that way to get my shellfish on. I got some steamed mussels and langoustine tails in butter (bigger, better, more of them, and cheaper than the ones from Rogano's in Glasgow), and grabbed a seat near Stacy, who had apparently picked the same shack. We started talking, and she said she was writing a book on what the death of a church looks like; what comes after, what happens to the community and relationships it leaves behind, what congregants should do as they turn out the lights, etc. We talked a bit about how several churches in Scotland have been going through that, and she had actually heard about The Well, a program that Queen Anne UMC in Seattle had put together as its own numbers have started to dwindle. It was certainly an interesting conversation, to say the least. Lunch done, Stacy went to check out Oban's whisky distillery, and I wandered the waterfront a bit more before grabbing some shortbread and coffee and sitting in the sun.
|
Castle Stalker, erstwhile home of the Holy Grail and a rude French knight. |
Castle Stalker was our next stop, a tiny castle on an island best known for being where the final fight
|
Part of Glencoe |
scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail took place. After a couple photos there (and an Irn Bru from the local shop), we got back on the road to Glencoe, one of the more scenic parts of the highlands. If you ever see a British movie set in some gorgeous highland location, it's probably either filmed here or in the Rannoch Moor, next to it. The scene from Skyfall where Bond and M are driving to escape London, scenes from Trainspotting, and a LOT of scenes from Harry Potter were all shot there, and Hagrid's hut used to be as well. Despite the great scenery though, the area has a bloody history. The Campbell clan massacred the Mackintoshs on the order of the king, in a way that inspired the Red Wedding of Game of Thrones. Apparently the name Campbell is still a bit of a taboo in the area, with the only hotel in the area having signs stating that Campbells aren't welcome (though whether they actually will refuse service is up for debate).
|
The Three Sisters of Glencoe |
On the way home, we swung by Loch Tullen and Inveraglus (a town on a different part of Loch Lomonde) for a couple more photo opportunities, then headed back to Glasgow. I asked Nikola for a dinner recommendation, and she suggested Tabac, a tapas place that was half Spanish, half Scottish (the name is from what tobacco stores in Barcelona are called). The food was all served tapas style, but was all Scottish fare (guinea fowl, scallops, salmon, black pudding, etc). The beers were split evenly between Spanish (Estrella Damm, Voll Damm, San Miguel), and a few local Scottish beers. I grabbed a Scottish beer (please see earlier posts and blogs for my attitudes towards Spanish beer), some guinea fowl, gnocchi, and panna cotta, then headed home for the night.