Wonderful day of exploring. I first headed to Gretna Green, however when I saw how touristy it had become, decided to head for my next stop – hiking along part of Hadrian’s Wall!
Category: Scotland
Scottish Road Trip
We headed off for what was only going to be two nights in Scotland, and ended up being almost a week! It was ever so lovely…
Scotland to Skopje
My final day in beloved Scotland before I head off to my next globe-trotting destination on this amazing world-tour I have created for myself…
Then, up ready to leave at 3:00AM to drive to Manchester Airport for my flights from Manchester to Frankfurt to Vienna and finally arriving Skopje, North Macedonia, just before midnight.
Farewell England…
It’s not all that clear from the photo taken from my phone, but that is a wind farm down there – with some sort of pipeline that stretches who knows how long in a straight line…
Airplane food tastes like cardboard? Not on my flights!
Hello Europe!
Hello Germany…
Gone are the days of Business Lounges being lovely places to rest… this was more like a Greyhound terminal – with monitors walking around to make sure no one drank anything, ate anything, and that their masks were fitted according to regulations and very tight… (Eeeegads – with this and the bullying tactics of the immigration officers every time I have been here, unless I absolutely have to, I am never, ever coming to Frankfurt Airport again – but thankfully, this was the only black mark on an otherwise lovely trip)
Who said German was difficult to learn? The swim vest be findeth under where you sitz!
Next flight – more delicious food…
…complete with gold-handled tea cup – very civilized!
…and finally arriving in Skopje Airport…
View from the front of my hotel…
~ Bella
Glencoe Massacre and Glen Etive
It was the beginning of February, 1692 and two companies of approximately 120 men from the Campbell Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot who were commanded by Robert Campbell of Glenlyon arrived at the home of the Glencoe MacDonalds, as friends, supposedly seeking shelter due to the fact that the fort was full.
The MacDonalds, honouring the Highland hospitality code, gave them shelter, and for 12 days they lived together, ate together, drank together, played music together, with neither the clan nor the majority of the soldiers knowing what lay ahead – as the commander awaited his orders from John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair. Dalrymple wanted to annihilate the MacDonald clan to make them an example of the power of the largely English throne over the Scottish Highlanders.
Dalrymple’s orders were explicit: the MacDonalds were to be slaughtered – “cut off root and branch” – “to put all to the sword under seventy”.
As the clan slept, a blizzard howled through Glen Coe, giving whiteout conditions…
…as the soldiers then set about systematically killing everyone they could; killing as many of the people as they could who had been their friends for the better part of two weeks…
38 lay dead the next morning, including the chief, MacIain. Many more escaped into the hills, some finding shelter before the elements could kill them, some, including MacIain’s elderly wife, dying on the mountainside.
~~~ and so, on February 12nd, 2020, we set out to explore Glencoe – an area that has hardly changed since that fateful day all those years ago…
Colintraive and Ardgarten
My last outing before leaving beloved Scotland…
The specks on the hill are sheep…
This is the view over to Inverary…
…and the castle belongs to the Duke of Argyl…
There are no words I could possibly find that would express just how gloriously beautiful this place is, nor how peaceful and serene it felt…
Loch Katrine
“The Lady of the Lake” is a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), and is set around Loch Katine and the Scottish Trossachs. Being a huge Sir Walter Scott fan (I have a first edition of his entire collection, and even travel with his biography that I am reading that was published in the mid-1800s (yes, I travel with 200-year-old books! Several of them!).
It was such a delight to visit the area about which I have read so much, and envisage what it would have been like back in Scott’s day…
Kilmartin Prehistoric Standing Stones and other monuments
Kilmartin is one of my absolute favourite places in all of Scotland – while at first glance there doesn’t seem much to see, there are in fact over 800 ancient monuments, stone circles, dolman, cairns, and other features within the Kilmartin Glen! Add to that, it just feels amazing… I am not one for camping (I’m more of a five-star girl, LOL!), but I would love to camp here…
Just in this photo below there are three monuments – a stone circle, a set of standing stones, and a dolman! …and the Templar graves I visited are only just up the road from this site…
Bridge Across the Atlantic
It was a lovely brisk 1 degree C (33 degrees F) as I set out to cross a bridge over the Atlantic!
Technically, it is known as Clachan Bridge, and because the Clachan Sound connects to the Atlantic Ocean at both ends, meaning it has Altantic Ocean water flowing through it, the bridge came to be known as the Bridge over the Atlantic (Scottish Gaelic: a’ Dhrochaid thar a’ Chuain Siar).
Friendly Invasion
The aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth paid us a visit, just a little way along Loch Long from my holiday home…
What was also interesting was the amount of air cover we had during that time – and afterward… chinooks, just about every type of jet you can image that is in the British (and some American, apparently) arsenal…
Fascinating!
Lost Castle, Funky Mill, and Bridge to Nowhere…
Out for a drive to see what I could find… and in this case it was not finding a castle that apparently one can get to, but somehow I ended up driving through some fellow’s property by mistake (Google said I could! LOL!)… anyway…
I did find the Preston Mill and Phantassie Doocot, as well as a Bridge to Nowhere…
…and home sweet home…
