Scotland VI: Glasgow, and Goodbye

I’ve been putting off writing about Glasgow, tried writing about it twice, but it's been hard to get my thoughts on (digital) paper. Glasgow was different from Edinburgh, different from the Heilan' towns we visited, and different from the German cities and towns I know so well. Aside from the lilt of Scottish accents, it had more the spirit of Berlin than its neighborly brother, Edinburgh.

Glaswegian humor: the government tried to make the Duke of Wellington less accessible
by putting him on a plinth. The cone re-appeared on his head the next day.

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!

 

Scotland III - Exploring the West Coast (Dunstaffnage)

Ft William was the northernmost point on our Highland Loop. On Wednesday morning, we packed up our trusty Vauxhall and wound our way back down along the coast towards Oban. Our plan was to wander leisurely southward, catch the ferry in Oban, and spend the afternoon duffing about on the Isle of Mull. Things didn't go exactly as planned, but plans are flexible, and we had a stellar day regardless. It helped that our first stop was a castle, which we would have missed except that it popped up on Google Maps as I was looking at our route!

The MacDougall family chapel at Dunstaffnage 

Scotland II - Highlands and Hiking

  "Did it rain much?" "Did you have sunny days?" "How was the weather in Scotland?"
          - Yes, Yes, and Wonderful.

Honestly, it rained every day. We had blowing rain, light mist, torrents, spits, sprinkles, still fog, and and more. We walked outside in sunshine and were wet by the time we got to our destinations. Did it matter? Not really. Only when we thought about it did it become a problem. Thinking about the hike in the rain kept us from hiking up Ben Nevis, and it shouldn't have. The times we copied the locals and said "Nae bother," we had grand adventures.

Scotland I - Edinburgh

This is part 1 of a 4-part series on my trip to Scotland with A - Stay tuned for segments on hiking in the Highlands, sitting in on a "session," visiting a whisky distillery on the west coast, and Glasgow!

Last Friday we boarded our flight from Stuttgart to Edinburgh, touching down in what we would later term "not really raining" between the green fields flecked with woolly backs. There is a convenient light rail which took us within 5-10 minutes' walk from our Air BnB, then we were out to find some food, a pub, and gear up for a full day tomorrow...

An afternoon deluge was followed by a brilliant double rainbow!

Burg Hohenzollern

... And I'm back in Germany! Truly, I just landed here again (from the UK, not the US, but more on that next week). This trip started out the way the last one ended; with a visit to a lovely Swebian castle, perched on a hilltop above farms and villages. Wanting to make a hike out of it, we parked in the little town of Bisingen and slowly made our way upward. I felt a bit like a peasant, watching the towers grow taller as we approached! 

Secret Cities (New Mexico Hikes)

I spent a week recently in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment, working in what was once a hidden city. Los Alamos is a town even smaller than my hometown, but with a few thousand more scientists! In fact, it would likely still be a small farm land if the US government hadn't set up its central nuclear research facility there! The statue of Mr Oppenheimer in the park downtown still overlooks a stream of researchers, machinists, technicians, etc. towards the bridge that takes them to the state-of-the-art facilities on the other side of the canyon. While I didn't actually get to see the research center, I did take advantage of the wonderful hiking that was so close to town! 

Moonrise at Sunset over a distant Santa Fe

Skyline Divide

While we were wandering about the Alps, Jon (J2) told me about a Pacific NorthWest hike that we definitely needed to do when we got home. In his words, it was "the best views for the amount of effort that you put in." Mumsy is training for Kilimanjaro, and I needed a recovery trip after hiking the Enchantments a few weeks before... so on a weekend while I was still in Washington, we headed up the mountain!

 

Enchanted

I've had this hike on my bucket list for a while. To overnight camp there, you need to win a lottery... or, take it on as an 18+ mile thru-hike. Having a weekend free and a cousin willing to commit to 12 hours of suffering (also, to leave at the other trailhead), it was on! 

the top of Asgard Pass

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!

Am Bodensee (on Lake Constance)

In our tasting flight of a trip (Jon's description of our sampling of middle Europe), Jon had requested that we go to Switzerland. The default train route from St Anton to Stuttgart passes through a corner of Switzerland, but what if we took a different route and stopped for lunch there? After changing trains twice and my second visit to Liechtenstein, we reached the Romanshafen Harbor ferry terminal.

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.

At the foot of the German Alps

We took the slow train from Regensburg to Füßen, stopping for a lunch (Käsespätzle, of course!) in München. From there, as we went south, the mountains came out of the clouds. The land became more rolling, swiss cows replacing wheat fields, hay sheds dotting green fields. The alps grew taller with every mile, without as much of the hilly preamble that those of us who live near the North Cascades are accustomed to. They are green shouldered and stone toothed, and standing on the top of the nearest shows nothing but spines running east-west as far as the eye can see. We went as far south as we could by train, and stepped off the platform in Füßen, at the foot of the mountains.

Palace Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau (knight's castle turned palace), Füßen to the far west

Regensburg, St Paul's Cathedral

We discovered one of my new favorite towns in Germany on a quick stopover from Prague to the Alps. It has all my favorites: Roman gates, a towering cathedral with medieval foundations and Gothic spires, twisting streets, pedestrian bridge from the 1100's that connects a biergarten on one side of the river with the ice cream spot on the other... 

Regensburg across the River

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

Bad Schandau / Schrammsteine Hike

A few months ago, Jon and I started a shared Trello board to brainstorm ideas for our trip. Jon posted a few places that have shown up as backgrounds in my new Chrome tabs (I use Momentum), and one of them was en route from Berlin to Prague. So we left Berlin in the morning and set off for Bad Schandau, gateway to the National Park Sächsische Schweitz, Saxon Switzerland National Park. Our train wound through Dresden and into the Elbe valley, glimpses of sandstone cliffs sometimes cutting through the thickly forested valley. Eventually, we hopped off the train, applied sunscreen, and caught a ferry for a 10 minute cruise upriver to Bad Schandau. 

the Elbe river valley

A quick visit to Berlin

I told Jon to bring walking shoes on this trip, and we set our benchmark early with a walking tour in Berlin. We were only there two nights, with a single full day in the city... according to my pedometer watch, we covered over 15 miles in the warm Berliner sun!

Buckley's solution to hot weather

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.

Im Schwarzwald Verlaufen (lost in the Black Forest)

Two months ago, tucked into the box of chocolate that arrived as usual from Germany around my birthday, was a little card that read something along the lines of "Credit towards a memorable day." Yesterday I cashed it in for an adventure in the Black Forest with Anne! She planned a hike for us in a beautiful, cliff-lined gorge that proved a little elusive...

Löffingen peaking over the hill... A view we wouldn't have had if we hadn't missed the turn!

PDX Layover

I’ve traveled frequently in the last several months, but for some reason they didn’t feel like things I wanted to write about. Portland explorations have been occupying most of my time, mixed in with my work trips. My new home base is in Northeast, an ideal start point for wanderings through Portland’s many neighborhoods. Hollywood, Alberta, Belmont, Ladd’s, and Kerns, to name a few, have lured me on adventures. Work has sent me to Ohio, Texas, up to Washington, out to Quebec… but as I sit here in the Delta lounge at PDX (Portland International Airport), I’m waiting for my first “vacation” in almost a year to take off. A trip entirely unattached to work or a holiday.

It's true, we love it in Oregon!

New Mexico Wanderings

After my weekend in Boston, the next stop on my trip was Albuquerque. I wasn't sure what to expect from New Mexico, except maybe to see some folks from Calvin while I was there, enjoy some sunshine, and and eat some chili. Over meals with friends, I had green an red chili in several forms (each of their suggestions was delicious!) and finally got my time in the sun on my last day, before flying out. 

Sunrise on a red snake