Scotland V: the Road to Invararay

We had to return the Vauxhall on Thursday afternoon, but were in no particular rush to get back to Glasgow. Instead, we plotted a winding route through Argyle, looping down to the Campbell clan seat at Inveraray before returning to Loch Lomond and truly starting the march back to Stuttgart. Once again, I found myself both enjoying the challenge of driving on the left (my lane placement had much improved) and frequently wishing we had set up A as a second driver. It's hard to gaze up the craggy shoulders of a Ben while keeping your eyes on the road! With a frequency and style particular to Scotland, the landscape tripped us into gasps, oohs, and ahhs at regular intervals. You never knew when a castle would appear between the trees just as a patch of sunlight skidded off a hill to illuminate it! 

Kilchurn Castle in a splash of sunlight

Inveraray Castle is a famous stop-off on Highland tours, and although the structure one sees is largely 17th-19th century, its roots are medieval. The part that we (and a tour bus of Swiss tourists) were allowed to tour through included Rob Roy's sporran, displays of weapons that were probably used during Jacobite uprisings, and a supposedly haunted bedroom... next to a room full of family memorabilia. Elephant polo trophy, anyone? The house is still the residence of the current Duke of Argyll and his family.

Some of the bayonetts have notches in them...

Nearly as impressive as the house were the grounds, including a large formal garden and both wild and of woods. The clouds had broken as we walked the crushed gravel paths and wove around dripping foliage. Bits of elegant stone architecture lured us deeper into the grounds and away from the tour busses. We didn't have time to take the full Woodland Walk, but we crossed one of the Stone Bridges and followed the road towards a white tower. It was just another of those moments where we thought we had stumbled into a fantasy story, or at least into a Jane Austen novel!

A pausing for an Austen moment

 

Our Inverary wanderings were fueled by Roxy's Cafe in Oban. When I woke up that morning, I realized it would be the last "real" morning in Scotland. The focus on the next day would be getting to Edinburgh, then getting to the airport, then getting to Stuttgart. One of the joys of travelling with a coffee- and book-loving friend is the shared joy of finding a cozy space, enjoying a drink, and opening individual books to read or write. So it was that I had my last stomach-bursting dollop of clotted cream, sandwiched between Buckley-sized meringues. It was a lovely farewell to the Highlands, as we returned to Glasgow and tried not to think about the fact that we had less than 24 hours left in Scotland...

Buffalo-sized meringue, or meringue-sized buffalo? 

Scotland IV: Oban

I grew up in a ferry town, so I know that there's something to be said for "Island Time" that extends to the ports that tether those islands to the mainland. Wind, tide, and mechanics are the deciding factors in when "the boat" leaves, or if it leaves at all. We were already a little windblown and soggy when we arrived in Oban, but ready to brave the elements when we hurried to the ferry dock to catch the 11:20 boat to Mull. What we learned is that yes, the 11:20 boat would be leaving, but they were expecting to cancel all later sailings due to weather... in other words, we could get to Mull, but there was no guarantee we would get back. Since our rental car was due in Glasgow the next day, we decided to use this stranding as an excuse to slow down and explore Oban.

Oban might not have amounted to much more than other villages along Scotland's west coast, except for the fact that the railroad came there in the Victorian era. With the railroad came tourism, and with tourists came the sort of 19th century architecture that I've come to expect in coastal UK towns; stone hotels growing up several stories, brass bannistered and capped with slate roofs. We discovered several other remnants of Oban's 19th century boom as we explored. Fortified with tea and flapjacks (hint: not a pancake) from the Little Potting Shed cafe, we climbed the hill to McCaig's Tower, which gave us a view of the town and a starting point for more urban hill walking. The "tower" itself is an eponymous monument to Mr. McCaig's family, and encircles a lovely, wild garden.

Our wanderings took us through neighborhoods and up to a hill on the south side of the harbor, then back along the promenade to the north side of town. By this time the sun was trying to come out, and the reason for our cancelled ferry became evident... the wind was blowing out of the NorthWest at what I estimated to be a "small craft advisory," at least outside the harbor. Inside the harbor itself, the water turned a slate grey colour. We had donned all of our layers at this point (long sleeves, insulators, jackets, scarves...) but still found ourselves wind blasted by the time our distillery tour came around!

The ferry we would have taken back from Mull docking in a harbor full of whitecaps 

the "just let me get my hair out of my face" selfie

 If I'm being honest, I was more concerned about missing our scheduled tour of the Oban distillery if we were stranded on mull than I was about getting our rental car back to Glasgow. It turns out that I rather like a nice whisky, and Scotland is known for exceptional whiskys (Scotch being that subset of whiskies that is made of malted barley and aged 3 years + a day in Scotland).  The Oban distillery has been at it since the 1790's, and they are rather good at it! I was happy to learn that my home state contributed the pine for their newest Washback (the tubs where fermentation happens), and thus contributes indirectly to the creation of Oban's fine product. Of course, our tour included a taste straight from the cask. "Cask strength" whisky comes in at 50%+ ABV, which is diluted to 40%+ ABV for packaging. Much of the final flavour comes from the casks themselves, so our guide couldn't tell us what the final aging process entails. Regardless, the final product was delicious!

 

Silver Falls

Feeling a little bit of Euro-travel hangover, I got out of the house my first weekend back to check out some new trails in Oregon. Silver Falls State Park is just over an hour from home, filled with incredible basaltic rock structures threaded with 10 waterfalls and one heavily beaten trail.

Burg Hohenneufen, und Auf Wiedersehen

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland! Another trip in the books, we're homeward bound. We did a little final shopping in Stuttgart, including a visit to the tower at Killesberg and some refreshing Schorle (fruit juice mixed with sparkling water, coming soon to a cider pressing near you!) in the park. We missed out on visiting the museum of Jon's new employer (the Mercedes-Benz museum is closed on Monday, Google lied to us!), and Jon had blisters from previous weeks of hiking up and down mountains, and it was bloody hot... but the Apfelschorle was all the more refreshing for it!

St Anton in the Clouds

St Anton is one of my favorite places on the planet, so of course it was one of the stops on our trip. This time it was a bit different than I'd ever seen it. Thanks to the heavy snow last winter and cool spring, there was sill snow on the mountains and most of the huts were closed. So there was no return to Darmstädter Hütte this trip, but we made some new friends and got a taste for the mountain life! 

Tegelberg (and a check off my bucket list!)

 Since I discovered their existence, I've been wanting to stay overnight in a mountain hut. It's been on my bucket list since I first visited Austria. So when we decided to go to Füßen, we scheduled it for 3 nights and planned on spending the middle ones on the mountain, weather permitting. And did it permit! As we stepped off the mountain at the top of the Tegelbergbahn gondola, we realized we had discovered a magical place.

Finding magic in Prague

Prague is one of my favorite cities, and not just because far-away friends often come and wander about with me when I'm there. It is truly a gorgeous city, with gilded theaters and graceful arched bridges, and the thousand spires it is famous for. The one thing I don't care for is the press of tourists, from gangs of Brits on stag parties to flag waving tour group leaders trailing mats of cameras like boats trail millfoil. It is frantic, loud, a press of people. But there is a magic moment in the day, after the sun rises but before the tourists do, when cafés are grinding espresso and shopkeepers flick cigarette butts from their doorsteps with straw brooms. 

the canal on the south side of the river, looking towards the National Theater

Friesland

I finally did it, one of the last travel things I've been afraid of. I rented a car and drove in Europe. Granted, we were only in Amsterdam for about 10 minutes, and most of where we spent our time was, as the guy at Enterprise put it, "much slower." It would have been a little faster had I  realized that a passport is required for car rentals and not left mine at home, but fast enough it was. On a raining sideways morning, we finally set off across the Afsluitdijk towards the land of our grandfather's fathers.

a Preview of San Francisco

My current sunny coffee shop seat is sun warmed and the familiar sounds of steam foaming milk, mugs clinking into their saucers, humming conversation between the silent page turners and highlighters bent over texts. Since this will also be at least a 3-part trip, I had better get caught up... I'm only a month behind! So, today, here's my walk through San Francisco.

Mountain Berry Buffet

Late summer/fall hiking is my favorite. The trails are dry and no longer covered by snow. The weather is reliably better, requiring sunscreen instead of rain jackets. And even if there are more people on the trails, it doesn't matter - there are enough mountain blueberries for everyone! 

Lancaster and York counties

Last week York sent me out to Pennsylvania for a a week of training. I looked up the area on Google Maps, and a couple of things kept popping up. First, it's the factory tour capitol of America. Harley Davidson and Snyder of Hanover pretzels, to name a few. The other thing that popped up was nearby Lancaster, seat of Lancaster County and a hub of Amish country. So, despite the tours all being over by the time I was off work, I decided to visit both. 

Amish country, sunset, hot air balloon

Bend to Boise

We skipped breakfast in Bend and hit the road early, pointed towards Boise. It turns out that there isn't much along SR 26... and Brothers, OR is nothing like Sisters, OR. We made our Camp Oats at a pull out which asked us to not camp on their lawn. I couldn't find the lawn, so I don't think they have much trouble with people camping on it.

Brothers, OR

Darmstädter Hütte immer wieder gerne!

Our second day was forcasted to be sunny, so we walked into town and used our St Anton Sommerkarten to go up the gondola towards the Valluga peak. It was still a little cold and cloudy at the top of the first gondola, so we decided to go up the other side of the valley on the Rendelbahn and hike around for a bit... after buying hats to keep us warm on top of the mountain! 

Rainy day hike (St Anton)

From Vienna, we took the train up the Inn valley to where one of its tributaries ends at the Arlberg Pass. There are a series of villages there that are relatively quiet in the summer (a few thousand inhabitants) but bustle with skiers as soon as the snow starts falling. We were too early in the season for snow, so the precipitation that fell on us left us a little soggy! Regardless, we headed up a beautiful valley to Konstanzer Hütte

Ducking out of the rain in a covered bridge

Wieder in Wien

There are some lovely cities in Europe. Prague is romantic, Amsterdam is egalitarian with wild tourists, and Vienna is elegant. I miss it. Turns out, there was a way to get on a train in the Czech, give ourselves a couple hours' "layover" between trains in Vienna. So, we walked from the beautiful new Hauptbahnhof (main train station) into the city center. 

Fountain at the Oper (Opera house)

Crashing a Czech Wedding

The pretense for our trip was a friend's wedding. That wedding took place in the middle of our trip in Ostrava. Lucie and Ales picked us up in the morning and took us to a cafe that looked like there Ostrava Mafia was meeting. Half a dozen friends of the bride and groom sat around a coffee table, wearing suits and dresses with yellow accents (their parents names the original group the “waps”). They had gathered to discuss ”the Plan.”

Brno

The day that it started raining in Baden-Würtemberg, we jumped on the train and headed to the Czech Republic. After a train ride, frantically running around rainy Nuremberg trying to find our bus, a double-decker ride to Prague, and a helpful Czech conductor (with cousins in the US) putting us in the correct train, we were relieved to see our friends waiting for us at the train station in Brno. Lucie and Ales whisked our hungry selves off to one of the good local eats in downtown Brno. Pilsner Urquell, fried cheese, stuffed peppers, knedliky, and excellent company brought us back to wakefulness.

Stuttgart

I visited Stuttgart three years ago at about the same time of year. This time around we waited until the last day of our stay to go into the city because the Wine Festival started that day. While we did eventually spend a wonderful evening in the city center eating Maultaschen and chatting friends of our host, we had an entire afternoon to explore the city before everyone was off work.

Über Ulm

In German there is a "Zungenbrecher" (tongue-breaker) about a city in Baden-Würtemberg, Ulm. It goes like so: In Ulm, um Ulm, und um Ulm herum. Try saying that 5x fast! "It doesn't flow as well in English, "in Ulm, about Ulm and all around Ulm." On our third full day in Germany, we added a preposition; we went Über Ulm. The thing that the city is most famous for is its church tower, the tallest in the world (aside from the yet incomplete Sagrada Familia). On the recommendation of a friend's friend, we headed over to hike to the top.

Löwenstein

We spent our first full day in Germany with friends in the wine region around Stuttgart. Bea, who visited us with Anne in April, is from a town called Löwenstein. Most of her family still lives there and operates a wonderful winery.