Just before the start of the school year, my wife and I made a 10-day trip to Scotland. She was presenting at an invitation-only conference in Glasgow (I wasn't invited but came along anyway).
We decided to document our trip in "realtime" (or close to it) by maintaining a 'geo-blog' of our travels for friends and family back home. This was an interesting - and time consuming - experiment. Scotland is a 21st century country (technically it is part of the UK, but the relationship is complicated), but it is also a still a rural country. Finding a stable Internet connection was almost always a challenge.
View Larger Map
An interesting thing about the state of online maps and directions. We discovered - the hard way - that Google Maps consistently underestimates travel times in Scotland. By contrast, Multimap (a British product) provides much more accurate estimates of travel time. Google has a national bias (surprise, surprise), or at least it doesn't take into account the unique quality of British roads or hapless American tourists trying to drive on the left side of the road. The difference was significant and we nearly missed a crucial connection on a car ferry. Luckily, the Scottish people are very forgiving.
Edinburgh is suitably beautiful and romantically Gothic - thick walled castles on craggy peaks dripping with damp and history. The newer buildings (those less than 300 years old) are still black and sooty from the city's coal-fired past.
We were warned that Glasgow would be a gritty contrast (and a waste of time), but I found it to be easily as engaging as Edinburgh. I spent 3 full days walking that city. Where Edinburgh is a beautifully preserved museum, Glasgow is a living, breathing, frenetic metropolis. Many of the buildings are products of the city's wealthy heyday - the mid to late 19th century. High Victorian architecture and a strong Gothic revival - flying buttresses, extraordinary gargoyles and grotesques, incredibly carved, multi-hued stone. And inside and all around this 19th century architecture flows the modern day Scotland - well dressed people occupied with modern pursuits. Lots of good 'ethnic' restaurants too.
Modern day Scotland is a bundle of contrasts. Our visit to Eilean Donan, one of the most beautiful and charismatic castles, provided a jarring example. While the local guide (dressed in full kiltish reglia) explained the fairytale-like saga of clan battles and rediscovered histories, the reality is that much of the surrounding lands are now owned by Saudi families (why, I don't know).
The Highlands were breathtaking. Treeless and green. The Highlands are a region of long, unbroken views, low skies, and steep-sided giants. "Moody" is a cliche description I've often heard, but now I understand. It's not just the constant damp and cloudiness, it's also the consistently unpredictable light. Clouds and mist move and shift with eerie speed.
Must go back.
