Scenic Scotland

Those of you who guessed Loch Ness in response to my teaser the other day win the prize!—any pictures of Nessie I was able to get.

Not surprisingly, that prize isn't worth much. But we weren't disappointed at the lack of reptile sightings: quite the contrary, as the scenery of the highlands that we were able to see on our quick trip north was really wonderful. The weather wasn't as good as it could have been, but it wasn't as bad, either. There was some heavy mist on Thursday, and lots of lighter mist on Friday afternoon, but Saturday, as we were leaving, it turned brighter.

Thursday afternoon, after landing at Inverness' cute little airport (just the right size for an airport, in my opinion) and picking up our rental Peugeot, we still had time for a drive and short hike in the lovely woods of Glen Affric, a bit north of Loch Ness. We hiked a well-marked loop trail whose main attraction was Dog Falls. At the left is a shot of the River Affric just below the impressive, but difficult-to-photograph falls.

The early November sunset, as well as a persistent, occasionally heavy, drizzle kept us from exploring this area further, and we headed to our small but comfy accommodations at the Drumnadrochit Hotel. Besides including a full breakfast, a wifi hotspot allowing occasional email checking, a staff of cheerful young people, most of whom were from Hungary, and welcome beds after exhausting sight-seeing, the location was gorgeous. Here's the view across the road from the hotel:


The next day we did some touring of historical sites, which I'll describe in my next post, but then headed down the Loch toward Fort William, where we'd heard the scenery was even better. We took the road less traveled along the other side of the Loch from Drumnadrochit. The narrow roads, wet conditions, and early darkness led us to cut our trip short. But we made a happy discovery along here—in addition to some great views of the Loch (in spite of the poor visibility) was a fabulous waterfall at Foyers, even the subject of a Bobby Burns poem. How Scottish could you get! Not only was the falls wonderful, but the views of the glen from various points along the path were some of the best we'd seen. Here's a sample:


Our final sight-seeing fling was a brief one Saturday morning before heading back to Inverness to catch our flight. We stopped by Urquart Castle, just up the road from Drumnadrochit, before it opened. Not regretting having to miss a detailed tour of the place, we were happy to just drink in the lovely scenery of its setting, right on the Loch, and enhanced by the proud Scottish flag flapping in the breeze.


Our return to Inverness wasn't entirely uneventful, as a flat tire needed to be changed in Drumnadrochit. But Steve handled that quickly and our little Peugeot motored just fine the short distance back to the airport on its tiny spare. Inverness, by the way, doesn't deserve the reputation we'd been given for it—namely that it doesn't have anything to recommend it except its proximity to the highlands. We thought it looked rather charming, with the Ness River running past a couple of impressive-looking churches. We didn't have time to take in any of its sights, but it did look as though it had some. It was considerably more interesting-looking than Merthyr Tydfil, at any rate.

And we also wonder about some of the advice we had from folks who said to skip the northeast end of the Loch in favor of the "more scenic" southwest end. We found the area we were able to cover in our very short days (Steve did a great job driving, but wasn't keen to take on those narrow roads on the wrong side after dark) was quite nice enough. Maybe next time we'll have time to see if these recommendations were warranted.

To the Tower!

This is what the south wall of the Tower of London looked like early last month when we strolled by. Most of those gorgeous red leaves are gone now, but I did spy one peeping through one of those really cool slit-windows. And, yes, this time I saw it from the inside.

We had a fun few hours listening to the cheesy (but still fairly informative) Beefeater tour that introduces you to the place, then exploring on our own. How exciting to be right where so much English history happened, and in buildings that have stood for so many (try 800 or so!) years.

Since it's right smack dab in the middle of super-urban 21st century London, there are many opportunities to cogitate on the contrast of old and new. Here is the super-slick London City Hall across the Thames, as seen through a Norman window. Or how about this hodge-podge of modern hotel, Victorian Tower Bridge, and 13th century ramparts?

The interior spaces of the buildings are as fascinating as the exterior is imposing, especially in the White Tower, not of Echthelion (sorry, another LOTR reference is irresistable), but of William the Conqueror and his progeny. Most of it is a sort of weapons museum, which is interesting, although a bit depressing as you see all the different ways people have developed for killing each other over the years. Here is an artfully-arranged column of pistols. We had learned at the Museum of London that it was very fortunate the great fire of 1666 stopped short of the Tower, as it was a huge gunpowder repository at the time. They had to keep the powder for all those pistols somewhere, I suppose.

What was even more interesting, I thought, were the little spaces that told you it was once, very, very, long ago, a residence. Here is a Norman loo—and we think indoor toilets are a relatively recent invention!

The most haunting aspect of the interiors of the other towers, though, were the inscriptions left behind by some of the many, many people imprisoned here over the ages. Some of the rooms that were very popular prison sites displayed scores of these sometimes quite elaborate graffiti-like mementos. Just think about how long you'd have to have been imprisoned here to be able to cut this much rock away!


Overall, we felt that touring the Tower was a worthwhile experience, and one that visitors to London really have to have, even though we also thought it was a bit over-priced. The early darkness of November cut short our exploring time a bit, but we did end up getting to see the Crown Jewels (no photos permitted in there, sorry) just before closing, which was perfect as the crowds had already departed. We weren't prepared to swap tower-exploring time for time spent in line waiting to see the Jewels. If you feel the same way, I'd recommend leaving them for last.

Next up: Scotland!

Highland teaser

I don't have internet access in our room here in Scotland, so don't have the time I need to keep my blogging in chronological order (next item should be the Tower of London, and I want to make that a fairly long post).

So instead I'll offer a teaser of Scottish posts to come with these pix. First, one from a haunting pre-historic site near the equally haunting, but very historic Culloden Battlefield:


And this one, which includes a slight glimpse of a famous body of water. Any guesses what it's called?


The answer, and more Scotland photos and info, in a few days.

V&A re-redux

I have a feeling there will be a lot of "revisited" titles in my posts from here on out. I've made it to all the "big ticket" tourist sites, and some I'm satisfied with, but others I know I'll want to see again before I leave. Sunday it was the Victoria and Albert Museum's turn.

As you can see by the picture, third time was a charm and I finally found the cleverly-hidden musical instruments gallery. It was worth the hunt. An amazing array—surprise!—of mostly stringed instruments that were simply gorgeous and often quite curious.

After a somewhat overpriced, but delicious lunch in the Museum's cafe, I tackled the British Galleries, which took up the rest of the afternoon. Everything from teapots to china, to clothing, weapons, locks, and all manner of mysterious and beautiful objects. With the added advantage of learning some more of the amazing and wondrous (and sometimes infuriating) history of this green and pleasant land. Side trips into the Middle East and Chinese galleries meant that I probably have seen all I need to see at the V&A. Although I wouldn't turn down another trip if the opportunity presents itself. It's become one of my favorite places in London, for no other reason than that you really never know what you're going to find there. Or what curious and fascinating facts you'll learn about the objects you see.

Remembrance

I'm posting this on the 90th anniversary of the Great War Armistice, which is a very, very big deal around here. There have been floods of moving, fascinating, and well-produced documentaries on the War on the BBC all week, and this morning I watched the ceremonies at the Cenotaph where 3 surviving veterans (all aged 100+) placed wreaths in commemoration of their fallen comrades.

I was at the Cenotaph ceremonies in person on Sunday, when the big wreath-laying happened, lead by the queen. There was a very large crowd and I was content to watch the parade around the corner in Parliament Square, thereby not seeing HRH myself. But I was able to see bands and groups of veterans marching, a very impressive display. The two minutes of silence, beginning when Big Ben, just a block away, began to strike 11, was a very profound experience, and I was proud to sing "God Save the Queen" along with the crowd.

The large picture at the top of the post was taken in the yard of Westminster Abbey, where a Field of Remembrance contains groups of crosses for many regiments and other groups, honoring the dead of wars up to and including Iraq and Afghanistan (which have their own, different type of memorial, in the shape of these permanent protesters in Parliament Square—a sober counterpoint to the ceremonies). The lines on the wreath are taken from Laurence Binyon's famous poem, For the Fallen, which you can read here. These lines, and the unbearably sad ones just before them in the poem, are often carved on war memorials and recited in memorial ceremonies.

I've learned a lot about the Great War in the past few weeks, and although it still makes me rather angry to think about the colossal, unnecessary loss of life that it caused (what glorious literature, art, scientific discoveries, etc., etc., could even a small percentage of those poor young men have contributed to the world, if they'd been allowed to live into a productive middle age?), and the terrible sadness and grief experienced by so many families....I've also developed an interest in learning more about it. It was an inevitable effect, I suppose, of being in London. You really can't escape its impact here, where they definitely still remember.

Multicultural London

Friday the students went for a neighborhood ramble in the East End, finishing up with a really great meal at one of the many Bangladeshi eateries in the district, and I was happy to join them. The idea was for them to see an area of London that they might not ordinarily get to, and to try and appreciate the way this area has changed and adapted over the past couple of hundred years as it has welcomed different waves of immigrants.

Now it's home to this mosque, one of the largest in the city, we were told, and a thriving and energetic Pakistani/Bangla ethnic enclave. The street signs tell the story, as they're bilingual. I'd noticed the street signs in Chinatown, earlier, were in Chinese as well as English, too. I wonder how many different alphabets London street-sign-makers have to know? (Note the English language school sign, too; I must have seen 4 or 5 in the short time we were in the neighborhood.)

The neighborhood stroll was fun and interesting, thanks to the expert commentary of the students' British Culture prof, who was our guide. And the food was really good, very different from anything I'd had before—also incredibly spicy! Plus I was able to do some needed shopping, both for groceries and souvenirs. An altogether rewarding few hours, on a beautiful day, something that's sort of becoming a rarity around here.

The next night the rain held off for a while and my guests and I made our way downtown for the Lord Mayor's fireworks show, going by this gathering in Trafalgar Square. We're pretty sure the flags were Polish, and the speaker under the shell sounded somewhat Slavic, but we knew she wasn't speaking Russian, so we think it was some sort of Polish celebration. The subject of the event eluded us, but it was just another example of multicultural London, where the cultures are many and ever-present—what a show!

Catching up

I really am almost caught up! It helps that I did very little last week except work. But I did have time on Monday to have a delightful lunch, and a different kind of catching up, with a former St. Mary's colleague.


I was so pleased to hear from Andy and find out that he was going to be in London for the day and wanted to have lunch. We met at the restaurant at the Globe Theatre, which was a terrific recommendation from him. Great food, great views, and great fun catching up with him and his family and their far-flung activities. He was in from Cardiff, where he's been studying; he'll soon be starting further studies in Dublin. You can get more details and see more pictures on his blog.

Andy and his wife were London faculty 6 years ago and so it was fun to swap tales about the experience and get some tips from him on what I still need to see and what to expect the last few weeks in London. It's always great to see a face from home! Not to mention to dine in style with views like this out the window: