Favorite Fotos: Happy Trails

I did a lot of walking during my time in the Old World, but most of it was on city streets, not hiking trails. However, there was some of the latter activity, mostly in Wales and Scotland, and I thought I'd share some of my "unpublished" photos from these pleasing walks.

The picture at the left was taken from near the top of Arthur's Seat, just outside of Edinburgh, the lovely city laid out before you here. The body of water in the distance is, if I'm not mistaken, the Firth of Forth, which I'd love to have seen closer up, but we just didn't have time on this trip.

Geologically remarkably similar-looking, but 'way across on the other side of the island, the photo at the right was taken on our hike up Pen y Fan, the highest point in southern Britain, specifically in Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) National Park in Wales. The trail up here was well maintained, as were all the trails we hiked. Although not having to worry too much about vegetation encroaching on the path would make trail maintenance easier in some respects. Guarding against erosion from rainwater, however, is a problem not too many Texas trail managers have to contend with. Note the stream-like characteristics of the trail in the background of this photo:


In fact, pretty much all the trails I encountered bore evidence of the wet summer, even by their standards, that the UK had just experienced. And there were wonderful rushing streams everywhere. On the left is a glimpse of the steep, but lovely, trail down to Foyers Falls in Scotland, near Loch Ness. It was one of our serendipitous finds as we drove around the Loch (partly in a futile attempt at a Nessie sighting, but also to take in as much fabulous highland scenery as we could).

And below is a view from the trail we hiked in another area of Bannau Brycheiniog, a completely different hiking experience from the bare summits of Pen y Fan and its fellow Beacons.


This hike in the Park was the most strenuous walking I undertook during my whole trip, as we clambered over shelves and steps of Welsh slate, like you can see at the right here. But we loved seeing the four gorgeous waterfalls along the trail (called, appropriately enough, Wood of the Waterfalls, or Coed y Rhaeadr). Not to mention that the good exercise was both needed and welcome!

One real advantage UK hiking has over its Rockies counterparts, though, is that you don't have to deal with the thin air of extremely high altitude. It's great to have views of fabulous-looking mountains that don't require being at near-stratospheric heights to enjoy.

Another charming sidelight of UK hiking is the occasional random ruin, adding to the picturesque quality of the scenery immensely. Here's an example from the Arthur's Seat hike in Edinburgh:


The fabulous trees nourished by all that moisture are another distinction that I enjoyed. Don't get me wrong, I love walking in the Rockies and would have to pick them as a preferred location over the mountains of the UK—if I had to choose a favorite. But the trees I saw all over the UK were a real treat. At the left is a particularly scenic specimen along the Coed y Rhaeadr hike.

And below is one of the extraordinary trees we saw during an enjoyable, but completely different type of hike. This was in the artificial countryside of the Blenheim Palace grounds. A profoundly weird place, with its artificial lake and manicured, designed landscaping. But, you have to give them this: they planted some really amazing trees there....


I believe I was taken enough with British trees that I have enough pictures to make a separate post on the subject, so that will be my next Favorite Foto collection.

Edinburgh, continued

[To see an introduction to our time in Edinburgh, click here.]

This is the rather imposing volcanic feature called "Arthur's Seat" that we proposed to climb as our first Edinburgh activity on Saturday. We found out later that some of the students had climbed it the previous evening and said the sunset was amazing from up there. That would have been a nice thing to see, but the trail was steep and rocky enough that I'm glad we did it in daylight (and me with my trekking poles).

It looks pretty far away and high here, but it only took about an hour to get to the top from this vantage point, which was near some public conveniences in a park across the street from the start of the trail.

As I said, the climb was a little rugged, but the views kept getting better and better, and, much as scenery such as this looks like above-treeline in the Rockies (although much greener) there's plenty of oxygen in the air.

Below you can see a sample of the views from the top. What you can't see is how incredibly the wind was blowing up there. I'm actually surprised that I could hold the camera steady. But great views in every direction. It was really neat to look out and see the North Sea and the Firth of Forth, but it was a little hazy and pictures aimed in those directions didn't really come out so well.



Here is another view from the Seat, showing the Castle that we would visit later.



Our next stop after descending from the Seat was the National Museum of Scotland, an amazing collection of objects that we were a little frustrated not to have more time to see. And we just focused on the two floors that covered Scottish history. But we wanted to be sure we allowed ourselves plenty of time at the Castle. But because of the first-rate displays, which were all explained by well-written information boards, we learned a lot. Here is one of my favorite displays, of delicately-engraved powder horns.

After a quick lunch on the run of granola bars, and a brief shopping stop along the Royal Mile, we climbed up the steep street to Edinburgh Castle. We were looking forward to exploring this ancient site, and other than being perhaps a bit too tired to appreciate it fully, we enjoyed it. I invested in the audio guide, which was probably worth the £3, although I probably didn't listen to half of its informational bits. Here is a view looking east through one of the many gun embrasures. The second church steeple from the right (the one that's sort of open in design) is St. Giles, which we saw later.

A rather unusual sight that added to our Castle visit was the end of a wedding that was being held in the St. Margaret Chapel, a tiny edifice that's the oldest surviving part of the Castle—built in the 1100's! Cool place for a wedding, complete with personal bagpiper. But how weird to have a bunch (like, hundreds) of tourists taking pictures of your wedding party as you leave the church?!

One of the more impressive buildings in the Castle compound is the the Scottish National War Memorial chapel. It was dedicated in 1927, and is very well-designed. However, the plaques and memorials inside, to the soldiers and sailors lost from different Scottish units, I find as heart-breaking as most of the interwar memorials I've been seeing. I'm impressed, but also somewhat angered, by the "glories of King and Country" that these memorials seem to feel justify the staggering losses of the Great War. Sorry, but some of these places are getting to me.

Our final verdict on the Castle was less than enthusiastic, possibly, as I indicated, because we came to it late in the day and were a bit fatigued, but it also started to get really cold while we were there, which didn't help matters. At the end of the day, we thought the £12 was a bit steep, especially given that Westminster Abbey was £11 and was, we thought, a more worthwhile site.

St. Giles, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise because we just happened to go in. You can walk around all you want for free; they make their money by charging £2 if you want to take pictures. Which Hal and I did. Here is a sample of the gorgeous stained glass windows in the church, with an idea of the medieval character of the building, the oldest part of which dates from the 1200's.

We ended up our day with a another surprise: chicken fajitas for supper! They were pretty decent and a nice reminder of home. We found the dish fairly reasonably priced at the Frankenstein Pub, just a couple of doors down from the Elephant House, where J. K. Rowling wrote her books. (We didn't stop in at the latter, but the coffee smell was enticing!)

A fortuitous wrong turn on the way home led to a charming little alley with fantastic sunset views of the Castle—a good way to end our very full day in the city. Edinburgh's night life was just getting started, but we were really pooped and decided on taking a pass on that aspect of this amazing place.