The Scottish Highlands: Oban, Gateway to the Isles

We started our counterclockwise circuit of Scotland heading north from Glasgow. It didn’t take long for the scenery to turn rural and green, and for the roads to change from highway to one-lane in each direction.

We stopped at Loch Lomond to take an hour-long cruise. It was gray and misty, but this mini-tour was an excellent introduction to the geology and history of the area – from the boat we could see the effect of the Highland Boundary Fault, where the landscape changes from flat Lowlands to rugged Highlands. The Loch is the biggest lake by surface area in Great Britain and has many islands and fancy homes and castles along the shore.

The drive to Oban (pronounced “Obin”) was stunning, following the mountains, and passing several lochs and small towns. We arrived in Oban and were pleased we had selected a small guesthouse on the hill. Known as the Gateway to the Isles (the Hebrides), we were impressed with the views of the small bay (the meaning of the Gaelic word oban).

We had a celebratory anniversary dinner (28 years!) at a fabulous fish restaurant. And we enjoyed the stroll back up the hill. Being in Scotland in late May/early June meant lots of daylight. There was barely 6 hours of darkness during our stay, making blackout curtains a necessity!

We chose to spend our day in Oban on an island boat tour that took us to see the Isles of Kerrera, Mull, and Lismore, which are located in the Firth of Lorn. We saw seals and dolphins, along with lighthouses and several medieval castles.

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The views of Oban’s shoreline were fantastic. We were lucky to have a beautiful, sunny day (one of the last of the trip, unfortunately). The tour was informative, and another highlight was Archie, the captain’s pup.

Our afternoon activity was a tour of the Oban Distillery, established in 1794 and one of the smallest in Scotland. It predates the town and hasn’t changed the way it makes whisky in over 200 years. We enjoyed the tour (with tastings) but quickly figured out that we wouldn’t need to do another whisky tour. First, because the process is straightforward, and most tours would likely be very similar. Second, because tours and tastings won’t change the “whiskey face” I make when drinking it. We’ll stick to wine! (Note: we encountered very few quality wine glasses in restaurants throughout Scotland. They clearly prioritize whiskey and beer consumption.) Jeff doesn’t make “whiskey face,” but still isn’t much of a fan. Here’s a bonus picture of Archie since I only took one photo at the distillery.

You could easily spend more time in the area, with lots of island hopping by ferry from Oban available. We elected to move on to the Isle of Skye, the largest of the Hebrides Islands.

More to come soon,

Shana & Jeff

Scotland: Edinburg and Glasgow

We have returned from our 18-night trip to Scotland, and are finally starting to post about it -- we were busy while on the road. We started the trip with a three night stay in Edinburgh (Edin-burra) and two nights in Glasgow (Glas-goh), Scotland's two largest cities. We enjoyed them both.

Edinburg is clearly the historical and cultural center of Scotland. It is a lovely place with a charming old city and a well-designed new city with a good mix of restaurants, theater, etc. Below you can see some of the city's newer museums, but on the left is the old city, topped by Edinburg Castle at the rear.

Scotland has a very interesting (and bloody) history, which we will be discussing in future posts, but it also has a very strong intellectual history. Edinburg was the home of many famous thinkers during the Industrial Revolution including philosopher David Hume, inventor James Watt and economist Adam Smith, often considered the father of capitalism.

Perhaps the most famous Scot of this time, who is credited with reviving the traditional culture of Scotland after the 1707 Act of Union merging Scotland and England, which would ultimately lead to the English destruction of the Scottish way of life, is the author Sir Walter Scott. His monument in Edinburg, at a height of 60 meters, is believed to be the largest to a literary figure in the world, and was begun only 8 years after his death, a testament to how influential he was even during his lifetime.

Two other local authors, Robert Lewis Stevenson and the poet Robert Burns are also very much reverved in Edinburg, with a small museum dedicated to the three located in the old city. We spent one evening on a Literary Tour and Pub Crawl learning much about their influence. 

A much later Scottish author supposedly based her Diagon Alley on this cool street in the city. There is even a store that claims to be the basis for Olivander's Wand Shop.

Of course, Scotland would not be a European country if religion did not play a big part in its history. Ultimately, the country went through a Protestant Reformation, but adopted a different form of Protestentism than in England (of course). St. Giles' Cathedral is lovely and has a statue of John Knox, one of the leaders of Scotland's Reformation.

The primary site in Edinburg, which looms over the entire city, is Edinburg Castle.

The castle is huge, and its commanding presence on a volcanic plug overlooking the city made it a wonderful defensive position for almost 1000 years -- the first castle was built in that location during the reign of Malcom III in the 11th century. The British military still has a post there.

Before leaving Edinburg, we want to mention one more famous Scot -- Dolly the Sheep, the first successfully cloned mammal. Dolly now resides in the National Museum of Scotland.

From Edinburg, we took the train to Glasgow, which is a much more working-class city. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our day walking around the city and seeing the various sites including the Royal Concert Hall showing the city's coat of arms, which represents the life and legends of the city's patron saint, Saint Mungo; and the ubiquitous war memorial (much more on Scotland's role in the "defense" of the UK later).

We were also really amused by this beautiful old building, the Charing Cross Mansions, one of the oldest and grandest residences built in 1891, which, of course, now has a Burger King at street level.  

After five days in the major cities of Scotland, we collected a rental car and headed for the beautiful west coast. More about that soon.

Hasta pronto.

Jeff and Shana

 

Keeping Busy Between Trips

We’ve enjoyed the past few weeks at home after our Northern Europe trip before heading out again next week, this time to Scotland for 17 nights. It’s been a wet and cool Spring so the opportunities to be outside have been more limited than we’d like. In between trip planning and getting doctors’ appointments and related routine tests taken care of, we’ve had a few adventures.

Our friend Connie is in town and she’s good at organizing things, including games with friends and bike rides. On Mother’s Day I joined her for a long ride that went to an old mine. The scenery was terrific along the way.

Then we had a surprise visitor:  our friend Atsuto from Japan. He was in town with his boss and colleagues doing research for the group of Spanish restaurants his team runs. We had a great time catching up and reminiscing about when he and Rieko lived here.

Last week we went back to the spa in Orio to enjoy the water circuit and lunch. And this weekend we finally had a sunny day, so we went for a walk on the beach. As of June 1, dogs will no longer be allowed on the beach until after the summer season. We love seeing dogs frolicking in the sand and sea. This time we saw one special pup who was jumping over and even body surfing the waves – it was incredible.

We’re excited for Scotland, even though the weather might be like our last trip – cool and rainy. We’ll do our best to roll with whatever comes our way.

TTFN,

Shana & Jeff

Haarlem and The Hague

Having been in Amsterdam less than two years ago, we had done a lot of the big sites, which gave us the opportunity to take two day trips out of town to Haarlem and The Hague.

Haarlem is very close to Amsterdam (only 15-20 minutes by train) and has become a kind of suburb for people looking to get out of the craziness of the big city. However, in the middle ages, Haarlem was an extremely important North Sea trading port, and in the 17th century home to Franz Hals one of the most important artists of the Dutch Golden Age. We decided to skip the Hals museum because there was a large Hals exhibit in Amsterdam, which meant the museum in Haarlem would have been a bit bare.

Instead, we headed to the Verwey Museum Haarlem, which in addition to some small art exhibits, had a truly impressive exhibit on the history of the city. Haarlem was a city that was run on a guild system: in order to work in a trade, you had to be a member of the guild for that trade. In addition, they closely controlled immigration to the city (easy to do with a walled city), and had extremely harsh sentences for lawbreakers. In the end, it sounded like a bit of a police state, but it was interesting to learn about a very different way of living. 

The exhibit was extensive, starting from the middle ages and going all the way through the current day, including an exhibit on WWII (a bit of a repeat from the Resistance Museum) and through a period in the 1960's and 1970's when Haarlem had a significant music scene. We saw several (loud) school groups at the museum, which makes sense for a great local history museum. 

One site that we walked by was the house of the Ten Boom family (now a museum). During the Nazi occupation of Haarlem beginning in 1942, the Ten Boom family hid hundreds of Jews and other refugees in their home upstairs from their watch shop, which was right on the main shopping street in Haarlem. Unfortunately, the family was betrayed in 1944 and several of them were killed in concentration camps.

Walking around the city, we also saw the Windmill De Adriaan, which was a distinctive part of the Haarlem skyline from when it was originally built in 1779 until it burned down in 1932. In 2002, the city rebuilt the windmill, which is now a tourist attraction. Shana also had to get a picture of this house, which seemed to be sloping dangerously, even having pulled away from the building next to it.

The Hague, which is the administrative center of The Netherlands, is about 45-50 minutes from Amsterdam. There, we visited the Eshcher Museum, which is housed in a former royal palace. Although Escher is not among our favorites, it was quite interesting to see his evolution from a more traditional artist toward his more well-known pieces depicting impossible structures and things turning into other things.

Another related exhibit of visual artists contained this globe, which appears to be totally reflective, but as you can see from the left photo is not. On the other hand, the right photo suggests it is reflective. Essentially we have no idea how the artst created this optical illusion.

After the museum, we found a fantastic and very authentic Italian restaurant, where we ate pasta despite our usual rule of not eating pasta outside of Italy. It was definitely worth it.

After lunch, we walked around the city, which is very pretty, although it is probably even nicer in better weather (a definite theme of this whole trip). Even so, The Hague had a good vibe to it.

Finally, on our last night in Amsterdam, we returned to a place we ate on our last visit to the city: Fromagerie Abraham Kef. There, we had a wonderful cheese tasting with very good French wine for dinner. On our way there, however, we had to take the ferry from the main part of Amsterdam to the north part of the city. During this voyage, we saw some of the strongest rain of the entire trip.

And that concluded our trip to Paris and the low countries. The flight home wasn't the best, supporting the general rule for local travel -- trains can be more comfortable and pleasant.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana

Tiptoeing through the Tulips in Amsterdam

When we visited Amsterdam in July 2022, we felt it was a destination worth returning to in the not-so-distant future. Thus, we were happy to meet up there with our friends Cathy and Karen. Having done the most popular sights on our first trip, we were able to explore other options.

Our first stop was the Verzetsmuseum (Dutch WWII Resistance Museum), which has a compelling and well-done exhibition on how the Nazis governed in the Netherlands, which was different from other occupied countries based on the expectation that the Dutch might eventually embrace German rule. Ultimately they did not and the efforts to undermine, support, or tolerate Nazi rule were told through more than 100 individual stories. Afterwards we walked by the nearby Holocaust memorial.

We continued to enjoy the architecture and scenes on the canals, especially at sunset:

The highlight and reason for visiting in April was to see the tulips in full bloom. Our trip to the seasonal Keukenhof Botanical Garden did not disappoint. The Keukenhof is like Disneyland for tulip aficionados, with display after display after display by different growers. We were super lucky with the weather this one day of our trip.

We strolled through the grounds for nearly two hours enjoying the amazing displays of color and the creative names of the various tulip types. Fortunately, we got there early thanks to good planning by Cathy. By the time we left, the crowds were intense.

That afternoon we enjoyed the World Press Photo Exhibition 2024 at the De Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), showcasing the most important photojournalism and documentary photography of the last year, with award-winning photos from the 67th annual World Press Photo Contest. As you can imagine, the majority of the photos on display were hardly uplifting, but because the show highlighted stories from every continent we also learned about events and stories we were not aware of previously.

As always, we ate well, with Indonesian and Nepalese food being highlights. We also enjoyed meeting Cathy’s friends Jason and Sean, who are happily living in Amsterdam. It was fun to discuss the ups and downs and challenges of expat life with them.

We left before King’s Day – always the current monarch's birthday, and a national holiday in the Netherlands, but you’ll notice our celebratory headpieces that I couldn’t resist.

It’s always fun to see friends on this side of the pond. More to come on our day trips from Amsterdam soon.

Shana & Jeff