Haggis Day 3

July 16th

Welcome to Skara Brae Mini-Golf. This is historic evidence that the Scottish fascination with golf dates back over 5000 years.
One of the best preserved holes, obviously designed to frustrate even the most persistent neolithic mini-golfer.


The weather wasn't as beautiful as yesterday's, but it was fine in the morning. Here's a greying tower, alone by the sea (the memorial to Field Marshal Earl Kitchener at Marwick Head).

Rain set in for the afternoon despite our celebration of summer in the stone circle.

If the weather fails to do your bidding, try another stone circle. (It still kept raining.)

Haggis Day 2

July 15th

On Sunday, Scotland turned on a brilliant sunny day. We could see for miles and miles.

The Orkneys were clearly visible from John O Groats. Unfortunately, the puffins weren't. (It's the end of the season, and we weren't looking at the right times of day.)
Only seagulls, no puffins...

The local residents were happy to have their photos taken.

Time to say goodbye to mainland Scotland. We've got a ferry to catch.


We've been looking at some of the old stately homes of the Orkneys:

Some were drearier than a tomb.

One of the oldest Orkney community members:

Haggis Day 1

July 14th
Part of today's drive was a history lesson, or perhaps a page from horrible histories. We learned about Bonnie Prince Charlie and how he chose to make his army stand to face the Brits on the field of Culloden (where they had no cover to support their preferred style of fighting), using cannons (that they hadn't been trained to use), clustered close together (which made them much easier targets for the British guns), commanded via messengers from Charlie (who was too far back to see what was happening). And even when his Jacobite forces managed to rush the British lines, they found the British soldiers had been trained in new fighting techniques to counter the melee style of the northerners.
Charlie saw how badly his battle was going, and boldly ran away.
End of history lesson.

Our bus driver and guide, Fergus, has been introducing us to the sexiness of Scotland. Other countries brazenly display all their splendour, leaving nothing to the imagination. Scotland keeps its mystery shrouded in a veil of cloud. It always has something more to reveal. Give me time. I may come to understand his point of view. So far, the romance of the highlands is like having a bucket of cold water thrown over you.

The sun smiled on us when we arrived at Loch Ness.
I trust you can all see the edge of Nessie's tail in the photo.

We're staying the first night in Carbisdale castle:


That's about the most impressive room. The castle's been converted to a hostel. Lots of rooms all fitted out with bunks. We've already been filled with its ghost stories--children starved to death by a nanny who was overly concerned with food hygiene...

Which sounds more likely:
1. Our tour guide is one of the few in this company that will even stay in the castle. He has experienced the ghosts, but doesn't fear them.
2. Our tour guide knows he must tell sincere, convincing stories of hauntings because they add to the atmosphere of the tour.

I think the only manifestations tonight will be alcohol induced.

At least the ghosts here are elegant:

Limited Access

We're on our bus tour around the islands of Scotland. It's a hoot.

Internet access is very limited. I'm still taking photos, but we'll need a good connection before I can do an update.

Pottering around Edinburgh

Yesterday and today we pottered around Edinburgh, peering into its castle, shops, museums, alleys and festival preparations. Most of our time was spent in the castle. There's a lot of Scottish history crammed in there.

Just near the castle was a shop with a working tartan loom--clanking, whirring, rattling, but nevertheless working.

Edinburgh is built on different layers. Walking to the end of one alley, you find yourself on top of the shops of another layer. From a distance, all you see is the upper terraced texture.

The castle itself broods over the city. This afternoon it stopped brooding and started moping and wailing over the city. Or was that the weather?


Once inside the castle walls you discover a source of embarrassment: the Scots didn't know how to make good billy-carts. These are hopelessly heavy, have high friction wheels, and absolutely no steering. (That's what comes from using a gift from the Duke of Burgundy as a model.)
With Edinburgh's sloping streets and a better billy-cart design, the Scots could have ruled the world.

Just too late

Rue d'Amsterdam to Charles de Gaulle Airport.

We thought an hour would be plenty to get from point A to point B. After all, the RER train from Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame to Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 1 is supposed to take less than 30 minutes. The Metro connections from our hotel to the RER line should have only taken about 10-15 minutes. Leaving a couple of hours before the flight should have given us about an hour and a quarter to check in.

What we didn't count on:
- the first Metro train was bulging at the seams with no room for extra bodies with suitcases, so we waited a couple of minutes for the next
- the Metro to RER connection is a long, long, long walk, and the moving walkway was broken
- the next two RER trains to come along were not heading for Charles de Gaulle--right direction but wrong destinations
- once we got to CDG, we had to wait for a little shuttle train that stops at the car parks on its way - a time factor that the airport website doesn't seem to have factored in
- once we got into the terminal, the flight board told us that our flight check in was at "satellite" number 18 when it should have said "hall" 18, so we innocent travellers had to go back to find the information desk and ask where to go
- when getting to the baggage & boarding check in desk with 30 minutes to spare, they'd already closed the baggage check, so we couldn't fly.

We had to buy tickets for a later flight. Ouch. How to waste half a day.

On the bright side, the apartment here in Edinburgh is lovely--three rooms, fully furnished, equipped and serviced. It's sheer luxury after the Paris room where maneuvering two people was like solving a sliding block puzzle, and using the toilet meant having your knees pressed up against the wall.

Gobelins

While touring art galleries and palaces in France, we've seen a lot of tapestries. It seems that most (if not all) of them come from Gobelins manufactory. We toured the sweat shop ateliers today and watched some of the painstaking and very, very manual work that goes into their tapestries and carpets.

Transferring patterns onto the strings is done by hand, using a wooden stylus dipped in paint, and twisting each string as the paint is applied so that each outline is visible on each string.


Therapy time. Shuttle under a few threads. Pack it down. Check against the pattern. This beats basket weaving. For carpets all the loops are trimmed with scissors, like hairdressing--snip, snip, snip, check for evenness, snip again.


Needless to say, the results are stunning. This one by Guðmundur Guðmundsson was on display in their gallery.