Michael

<b>Trip report</b>: <i>Our Scottish Journey</i> (with apologies to Edwin Muir)

After spending a short week in London (see <b>Trip Report</b>: <i>London</i>, May 2007), we took the GNER train ($84.77--all prices are for two unless otherwise mentioned) up the North Sea coast of England to Glasgow. We stayed for four nights at the Old Schoolhouse Hotel (&pound;60 per night with breakfast) which is right next to the Glasgow School of Art, a major Mackintosh building. One of the main reasons for going to Glasgow was to see Charles Rennie Mackintosh architecture. I suspect that we had the lowest rate available in the hotel, which meant a back room with no view in the new addition. I guess a upstairs front room might have been more pleasant, providing some view of Glasgow (I�m not sure about this) but on second thought, it would mean living with the kitchen smells. The hotel offers a full Scottish breakfast (the standard breakfast items including eggs, bacon, pork sausage, black pudding , haggis and kippers) and the smell of the sausage products permeates the front hall of the hotel. Throughout our trip in Scotland we generally ate a full breakfast which was part of the overnight stay and had a scone and tea as a snack in the early afternoon to keep us going until dinner time. We had one day of rain on our last day in Glasgow, but for the rest of the trip, the weather was at best chancy, so that picnicking was not a good option. I like black pudding (or morcilla, or boudin noir for that matter), haggis is OK and I did not eat it every day. It has an undeserved reputation as something awful, but to me it was just another type of sausage. It may be that I never had the real thing since it was served like sliced sausage and clearly was not a stuffed maw. Kippers turned out to be smoked herring, which was fine, but the portion was so large that I had to leave three quarters on the plate; I did not order it again.

Our stay in Glasgow can be summed up as follows: Mackintosh buildings and other museums. We visited the Glasgow School of Art, which was interesting although limited in that we did not see actual classrooms or art studios. The library is very impressive and some of the hallways are positively medieval; it is said that Mackintosh took his inspiration from native Scottish architecture and both his houses--<b>House for an Art Lover </b>and the <b>Hill House</b>--and the<b> Glasgow School of Art</b> have a fortress-like appearance. The <b>Willow Tea Rooms</b>, the <b>Scotland Street School</b> and the <b>Mackintosh Wing</b> in the Hunterian Gallery are lacking these features, or at least they are attenuated. On the whole I see Mackintosh in the similar light as Gaudi or Guimard--the final expression of Art Nouveau and the Craftsman movement that did not lead to anything further. I will always enjoy the pictures that I have of the Mackintosh architecture, but I will not go our of my way to see his buildings anymore although I will visit one it happens to be close by--unlikely since all his work except for one renovation somewhere in England was done in Glasgow. We had seen a Mackintosh exhibit in L.A. where it was suggested that he stopped getting commissions in part because he apparently had sympathies for Germany during W.W.I.; there is no hint of that in anything we heard or read about him in Glasgow. For pictures: http://tinyurl.com/ynuatp

We followed the Green Guide and visited the Cathedral, maybe worth three stars in Glasgow, but not comparable to the great cathedrals of the Ile de France. The museums were interesting. One day we sent to see the House for an Art Lover, which is a contemporary structure built according to the plans Mackintosh submitted for a competition in Germany. It is presumably a meticulous creation of what Mackintosh envisioned, and photography is allowed, contrary to what is the case in the Hill House in Helensburgh. From there we went to the <b>Burrell Collection</b>. It is a long walk, and I do not know how to avoid it. There is a direct bus connection from downtown to the House for an Art Lover, there is a direct bus connection to downtown Glasgow from the Burrell Collection, but it appears that there is no bus connection between the two, and my impression is that we walked 1.5 hour to get from one to the other, contrary to estimated directions and time. At one point we thought we had gone too far, asked for directions and were no more than 100 yards from the closest car entrance to the collection. The Burrell Collection is eclectic, not necessarily that great although worth a visit, but is in a wonderful building that maintains its ties to the surrounding nature. It also has a pleasant cafeteria.

We also visited the <b>Kelvingrove Museum</b>, which had an interesting exhibit of the evolution of Scottish 19th Century paintings under the influence of the French Impressionists. The museum itself is a late Victorian red sandstone building whose main hall reminds me of a train station. The<b> Hunterian Art Gallery</b> was interesting for its Whistler collection, especially the sketches as I was not familiar with them, and the Macintosh Wing. The one other museum interesting museum that was close to the Glasgow School of Art was the <b>Tenement House</b> Museum (http://tinyurl.com/2fqr44). It is similar to the NYC Tenement Museum in that it is a location that somehow was preserved in its turn of the century, i.e. 1900, condition, but different in that a tenement in Glasgow is simply an apartment building, and a house is an apartment in that building, with no association with slum conditions. This tenement house represented lower middle-class housing of that time. Only one apartment is open, plus a downstairs general area which includes an exhibit of how the other apartments were changed and combined to create roomier modern apartments which then were sold.

We went to the Barras, a flea market which my wife remembered from her childhood year in Scotland, but got there too late to get a good feel for it. They were closing up, and what we saw for sale was mainly cheap clothing of little interest. We had been looking for a quick snack and were in front of a Lebanese/Syrian fast food place that had plentiful and cheap but deep-fried food when it started pouring rain. We ordered too much, not realizing how much there was in each portion. It satisfied our cheap fast food desires for the rest of the trip--even fish &amp; chips in a pub was less greasy than that food and there was more protein in relation to the batter.

Food: Tea at the Willow Tea Rooms even if you can see the inside without ordering. Unfortunately the front rooms were closed, but I did get to see one of them as they were cleaning up after a reception. One night we ate at the top of the George Hotel, The Windows Restaurant. The food was fine, not particularly memorable, at a cost of $113. Caf&eacute; Antipasti, where we basically had a single pasta dish each, probably a glass of wine, came to $43. The Mussel Inn (there�s one in Edinburgh too) has good sea food, and the meal cost us $77. One interesting place was on George Square across from City Hall. It has signs saying that it is a club, but it is a pub in the style of a beer hall (and apparently is a chain: Counting House (JD Wetherspoon--http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/--2 St Vincent Place, 24 George Square,). An enormous open space with alcoves around it. There�s an enclosed bar at the center with many serving stations. You sit down (if you can find a seat, because it is very popular with the locals), note the table number and have someone save the seats. Go back to the bar, pay for the drinks and food order, give the table number and the food will be delivered at the table. It is the closest I�ve seen to a German beer hall. The food is not fancy, but it is very acceptable--I recall the cost as being similar to other pub food.

For pictures of Glasgow, go to: http://tinyurl.com/2ht6ss

Michael

We rented a car through Autoeurope ($308 for 11 days, and a tank of gas would cost about $55). We had to pick up our car at the airport because it was a bank holiday . That cost us an extra &pound;17, which with other fees added up to a little over &pound;34. I stupidly paid this in cash, and recently discovered that I was billed for the same charges on my credit card, and to add insult to injury, with DCC. DCC is almost unavoidable because there is a line in the rental contract indicating that any subsequent charges (car damages, road infractions caught on camera) will be billed in the currency of the user’s home country. Don’t sign and you can’t get the car. I finally noticed the charge while preparing this report by looking over the credit card statement. I had not noticed it before because the usual 1% conversion fee by Visa was missing. I called AutoEurope, who after an exchange of e-mails and sending a copy of my credit card statement agreed to question the charge with Europcar. I pointed out that Europcar should have a discrepancy in its books or it has a dishonest employee at the Glasgow airport. So a word to the wise: <b>all</b> transactions concerning car rentals should be accompanied by receipts. Hang on to them until the final billing comes through, although I never received one from Europcar in Scotland while I did for a subsequent rental from Europcar in France.

We were given a Skoda Fabia, which was an upgrade from the Daewoo Matiz on the original Autoeurope contract. Luggage space might have been a problem with the Daewoo. As for the trunk space of the Skoda, here’s a photo: http://tinyurl.com/yrlcw9. I recommend the smallest car possible for Scottish roads, which is not necessarily the smallest car available. Driving on the left side was not an overwhelming problem although at the beginning I tended to be too much over to the left. I hit the side-view mirror twice on the first day, including scraping it against a wall--I was not charged for that. I also had some hesitation when looking for the gear shift, wanting to use my right hand. The “notorious” single lane roads of Scotland were not a problem. Turnouts are well marked and we did not encounter any wild drivers on such roads. The more common secondary roads were more of a problem because the feeling is that these roads are really only one and a half lane wide (they’re not), cars and trucks go by quickly, and it’s only frequent driving over a long period of time that will stop the driver from flinching when a truck or bus roars by in the opposite direction.

The other problem I had was the roundabout system. Frequently, if in the left lane, one does not have the opportunity to go around the roundabout but must exit at the first exit because that lane is only a tangent to the circle, but that is not indicated until the last minute when entering the roundabout. On the other hand, if using the next lane, one often finds oneself on the center lane of the roundabout and I was honked a few times for cutting someone off when trying to exit from the roundabout. Somehow I could never figure out the proper protocol in going around, whereas I have never had problems on the continent.

We picked up the car and drove off, missing the exit to the bridge over the Clyde because of construction confusion and unfamiliarity with the car and driving on the left side, but we managed to use the next roundabout to get back to the bridge and finally go in the right direction. Our first stop was Dumbarton, where my wife had spent a year with her parents in 1954. We missed the exit to central Dumbarton, took the next exit and asked the first pedestrian where we might find the street we were looking for. We were within 100 yards of our destination. We found the house which my wife did not recognize. But it still had its name on it (back in 1954 the houses had names and no numbers) so we assume that it was the correct house even if it was smaller than she remembered. She decided not to knock on the door even though the outer door of the front vestibule was open, an indication that someone was home, so we drove on. We arrived in Helensburgh, stopped in a pastry shop for some cookies or a scone, and then went to the Macintosh <b>Hill House</b>. The house is well worth a visit, as it has been returned to its original interior design--the exterior had not been changed--with the exception of the kitchen which can’t be visited anyway. I find it frustrating that many of the working rooms (bathrooms, kitchens) of such houses often cannot be seen.

Our destination for that day was Oban via <b>Invararay</b> described as an 18c planned village by Michelin. From another description it was nothing of the sort. The local lord decided to move the town because it was in the way of the building or rebuilding of the castle and its views. We did not find the town that interesting although it is pretty, and I did find the 19c prison interesting. The beginning was a little gory in the detail of some punishments, and being given a brief history of punishment and incarceration in that prison, I skipped any other prison museum during this trip (Stirling has one). We did not get to Oban until 5 p.m., when the tourist office was already closed. There is a posting of B&amp;Bs on a bulletin board, but it becomes impossible to figure out what would fit our needs or where to find them--I do not recall the existence of a very accurate map. But driving into town we had noticed a series of B&amp;Bs, and decided to try them. The first one we tried had an en suite room which actually was the converted front parlor of a row house. That and breakfast cost us &pound;50 in cash--none of the B&amp;Bs accepted credit cards, which we expected. This was the lowest price we ever found for an en suite room. That evening we ate at a fish restaurant (EE-USK at the North Pier--http://www.eeusk.com/) where we had a very good fish dinner ($113) starting with unforgettable plump and very cold oysters, probably the best we’ve ever had.

Our plan ws to get to the <b>Inverewe Garden</b> (http://tinyurl.com/6bfnp), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We drove off the next day, stopped in Fort William which has a large tourist office, but they could not help us with a room in the area of Inverewe. The B&amp;Bs of that area were not on the Scottish registry although it was thought that the local tourist office might be able to help. We continued on, stopping here and there to admire a very cloudy scenery--we rarely saw the tops of the mountains, and from Glasgow onward, rain was always threatening. We arrived in Gairloch half an hour before the closing of the tourist office, and it was obvious that finding a B&amp;B on our own would not be possible. There are few signs for them along the road and we would lose a tremendous amount of time just going from one to the other. The tourist office had the anxious atmosphere of those looking for a room but it found a room for us in Poolewe (&pound;50 plus &pound;3 service charge), and when we got there, the landlady told us that our phone call came just before other people had just passed by looking for a room. In this instance it looked as though the house was built fairly recently to have two or three rooms with bathroom for guests. I feel that reservations are most useful in that area even if it looks like it is at the end of the world. By then the weather had really turned rainy. That evening we went back to Gairloch for dinner, and then a ways farther --it seemed like miles--to a recommended pub, the Badachro Inn (http://tinyurl.com/2y3o88) We had a plain single dish dinner there, with beer and wine (all pubs have wine by the glass) for $55. No matter what we did, our meals were between $50 and $60, some higher and not always by choice. We shared our breakfast table with a Swiss couple traveling by motorcycle with a sidecar through Scotland. They remarked that B&amp;Bs were more expensive than similar accommodations in Switzerland, but what was really expensive was the ferry ride from Zeebrugge to Edinburgh. They felt that the ferry trip from Venice to Greece was just about as long for half the price. They left before us, heading north in a pouring rain. We went to visit Inverewe Garden whose rhododendrons were in their full glory. It was pouring rain, and after two and a half hours we were absolutely soaked, which meant that we did not see as much of the garden as we would have wanted. But because it was raining, we were spared the midges (similar to no-seeums in the Adirondacks) except for a 20 minute period when it stopped raining . Gardeners are fully covered and wear hood screens to keep the midges away. Repellent will keep them away, and the shop at the garden will sell the head screens.

From Inverewe we headed east, with the weather following us. While the weather was constantly chancy for us most of the time, the western part of Scotland had sun according to the weather reports. We by-passed Inverness and stopped in Nairn, eventually found a B&amp;B (they are not on the main street going through town) for the standard &pound;50, although this time the bathroom was across the hall but reserved for our exclusive use. The room itself barely had space for the suitcases around the queen-size bed. The new owner was a recovering widow who had been a hair dresser for thirty years in Nairn, but because she came from England, she was still considered an outsider. Nairn is an old resort town which has a nice park along the water, just the thing for an evening stroll It also has a good restaurant serving nouveau Scottish food: The Classroom ($89).

From Nairn we went south through the Cairngorms, although we missed the highest part. We could see some snow in the distance when the weather lifted slightly. We stopped in Balmoral to use the facilities near the parking lot--we are not fascinated by existing royalty--and drove on to Ballater for our standard light lunch--tea and a small pastry. By early afternoon we were in <b>Meigle</b> (http://tinyurl.com/yplnnh) to visit the small museum of Pictish stones--highly recommended--and then when to see <b>Glamis Castle</b> (http://www.glamis-castle.co.uk/). They have some animals on the grounds, and it was one of the few times we saw the native Highland cattle, which I think are kept for tourist and sentimental reasons like the longhorns in the States and are not really used in the meat commerce. The castle still has its Victorian kitchen, which is now its tourist dining room, and has an interesting history in terms of its construction over the centuries. Photographs are not allowed inside. After seeing the castle we continued to Perth. We found a row of B&amp;Bs and they were all full. But someone thought that there might be one around the corner with an available room. There was a room, but for &pound;60, which we took (it’s on the road to Scone Palace). It was in a neighborhood of large houses right along the river and was a brand new house built as a B&amp;B by a retired publican; just keeping his hand in the business. The room was quite luxurious, the breakfast ample, and the host helpful with various information. He gave us the suggestion of the French restaurant where we ate (http://www.cafebreizh.co.uk/--$46). The place is quite popular and relatively cheap. It has a definite French atmosphere, with a French staff, and a predominant Breton menu as indicated by its name.

We decided that the interior of the <b>Scone Palace</b> was not that important to us, but our host suggested we might want to see the grounds. We arrived to early for them to be open, but we did see three magnificent albino peacocks near the parking lot. It was worth the little detour. Having had problems finding a B&amp;B and knowing that we were going to the more crowded areas of Scotland, we decided to book ahead through the tourist office in Perth. It took the woman behind the desk a good hour to book us two B&amp;Bs, so I guess the &pound;3 per booking was worth it. The first booking was in the countryside between Stirling and Falkirk (nothing within our price range was available in the town itself) where we stayed for 3 nights, and the second was a booking in the center of Galashiels to be used as a base to see the Tweed Valley area. In both cases the B&amp;Bs cost &pound;50 per night, but there was a world of difference between the two. The “farmhouse” had been built by one of the sons who had just finished his training as a carpenter/.contractor. Everything in it was oversized--the kitchen, the family living room, the guest bedrooms, our bathroom. Our bathroom was all in marble. Our room had two king-size beds in it, and it was not the biggest one in the house; all in all it was as luxurious as our B&amp;B in Perth. It was the only place where we stayed more than one day where we were given washcloths after cleaning personnel saw our own in the shower stall. Videos were available for our viewing--mostly old and mostly of no interest to us, and I think were obtained when the local library cleared out some of its video holdings. Our room in Galashiels was the least attractive and probably the smallest of all our stays; somewhat of a shock given that its price was the same as the preceding one. But we inquired about a laundromat and our hostess immediately offered to do the laundry for us. The house was in the center of town, and the hostess was one of the more informative about things other than tourism. In some ways it evened out the limitations of the room itself.

We used Stirling as a base. We visited the castle, and found it less than overwhelming although its location on top of a rock is impressive. Most of the rooms are empty, with a lot of text suggesting the way they were used, but with nothing left to show it. The fact that it was used as regimental headquarters means that the historical artifacts probably disappeared under barrack life. This is not an exceptional case. The Pope’s Palace in Avignon suffered the same fate (barracks under Napoleon), and when I saw it many years ago, precious little was left of its glory as a pope’s palace except for its sheer size. Similarly the old town of Tomar, Portugal, has a former synagogue which was a store house for centuries so that the only thing remaining of its original use is the shell and its supporting pillars. But <b>Argyll’s Lodging</b> is far more interesting than indicated by the Guide Michelin, with fairly extensive interior furnishings. The guide was a little defensive about what was actual period furniture and what may have been replicas. Nonetheless, one gets a sense of a noble’s space in the 17th century. For our excursions we went one day to <b>East Neuk of Fife</b> (http://www.eastneukwide.co.uk/), enjoying the various picturesque fishing villages, and on the next drove to <b>Loch Katrine</b> to view a location made famous by Sir Walter Scott. The clouds hung low and the walk along the lake was very pleasant. But its beauty is no greater than other watery locations in the Highlands. It is not a necessary detour for those who have traveled in the Highlands unless they are enthralled by Sir Walter Scott (Edwin Muir has a few choice words about him and that other literary icon, Robert Burns). Lock Katrine is a highly controlled lake since it is the main reservoir for Glasgow’s municipal water system.

We ate twice at a restaurant on the edges of Stirling recommended by our hostess. It is a family place with fairly good food--The Hollybank Restaurant($58 &amp; $40)--where we had an interesting timbale made of smoked fish as an appetizer. We also ate in downtown Stirling in a good Italian restaurant (Ristorante d’Agosta--$55--http://tinyurl.com/2e6utt).

After our last breakfast at the B&amp;B we drove off to see the <b>Falkirk Wheel</b> (http://www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk/index.asp). It is a mechanical wonder, and it is well worth taking the boat tour to get a full sense of its workings. The Wheel has replaced eleven locks by having a giant rotating device raise and lower boats 160 ft. Because the basins going rotating up and down--the boats are raised and lowered at the same time--the energy expanded is relatively little: the equivalent of three kettles of boiling water for half a rotation. It is unique and probably will not be replicated. For one thing, it was very costly to build and was part of the millennium project to restore the canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh for pleasure boating. I cannot imagine the size required of such a wheel if it had to handle standard commercial barges. I think that this wheel can take 4 to 6 narrow English barges at a time. Even my wife who does not have a technical bone in her body found the Falkirk Wheel interesting. If it pays for itself, which is doubtful, it is because it is unique and attracts visitors who take the boat ride on the Wheel. We then went back to <b>Culross</b> (http://tinyurl.com/25prf4) because on the day we went to the East Neuk villages the “palace” in Culross was closed. It really is not a palace, but is the compound of the richest man in that town during the 16th century, and is interesting to visit to get a sense of life at that time. I am always surprised on how the outer edges of the European Renaissance were so far behind the core. The secular magnificence of Italy and France at that time is simply lacking in Scotland--as it was lacking in pre-Columbian Catholic Spain. We toured the palace and then had a guided tour of the town and the interior of one of the old houses. The town itself is very pretty, although not as well set by the water as some of the villages on the East Neuk coast. It is close to being “un des plus beaux villages d’Ecosse” , which means that its preserved look borders on preciousness. From there drove across the bridge intending to by-pass Edinburgh, but we got lost and found ourselves on the outer edges of the city, stuck on city streets with no signs. We eventually made it back to the motor way and then eventually to the <b>Rosslyn Chapel</b> which was our next destination. It is a gem, full of intricate carvings. It is covered with a temporary scaffolding and protective roof which allows the visitor to go up and see the exterior roof carvings up close. We ended the day in Galashiels. Our hostess recommended two Indian restaurants and one pub. One of the Indian restaurants was closed, we went to the other (Spice of India) and were served the most expensive meal of the trip given the amount and quality of the food ($50 with no drinks) and the positively lousy service. It started on a bad note when we were asked if we wanted anything to drink before we even had a chance to sit down. Then the waiter did not come back for 15 minutes because we had not ordered anything to drink--there was only one other table occupied in the entire restaurant. We did not order rice at first, thinking that we did not need it. But we did because of the sauces and when it came it was a few spoonfuls for &pound;1.60. Our other acceptable meals while in Galashiels were at the Traquair Arms Hotel ($47) in Traquair and at a recommended pub in the center of Galashiels (cash only, so I can’t look at my Visa statement to see the cost of the meal).

We chose Galashiels for our stay because it is well located for the sites we wanted to visit. Selkirk is slightly more out of the way, but nothing is very far in that area, and my impression is that Selkirk is a prettier town. Galashiels used to be a mill town, and we expected to find the Loch Carron mill and its store there, but the company had moved to Selkirk. Instead of mills, Galashiels is banking on being a regional shopping center and there’s talk of getting a light rail system from Edinburgh so that it would revive as a bedroom community. There already are two Wal-Mart type (one may be the European branch of Wal-Mart) stores facing each other across their parking lots and a third is being built. The center of the town was dead in the evening, so I would recommend the town as a base only if it is to be used as a base with no expectation of finding it interesting in its own right. In its defense, we discovered the same with Stirling, whose downtown simply closed up around 6 p.m., leaving only restaurants and pubs open.

Michael

From Galashiels we visited <b>Traquair</b>--it has its own brewery and sells very good beer in its gift shop (http://www.traquair.co.uk/), went to <b>Bowhill</b> but it is opened only during high tourist season, <b>Melrose Abbey</b>, <b>Mellerstain</b> (http://www.mellerstain.com/visit/index.html) and <b>Dryburgh Abbey</b>. We also took a drive in the Tweedsmuir Hills, experiencing the wilder part of that area. Of the places we saw, I found Traquair and Mellerstain the most interesting, particularly when seen in a continuum with Culross. The latter is a 16th century house, and Traquair is very much a 17th century castle architecturally, while Mellerstain is to be seen as an 18th century construction. Dryburgh Abbey is in a lovely setting although there is little left on the church, but quite a bit of the attached buildings. Melrose Abbey has more of the church and its carvings and less of the outer abbey buildings remaining.

On our way back to Edinburgh we made a detour to see <b>New Lanark</b> (http://www.newlanark.org/index2.shtml) which became a model and profitable mill town under the direction of Robert Owen. He demonstrated that better working and living conditions for the workers did not necessarily eliminate profitability. Unfortunately we went there on the day of Lanark’s annual parade which meant that there was no traffic allowed through the town until 1:30 and it is impossible to get to New Lanark without driving through Lanark itself. Our visit was a little rushed, but very much worthwhile. The one element that I disliked intensely was the little ride through an exhibit trying to give us a sense of life in New Lanark. It was aimed at 9 to 12 year old children and was almost an insult to an adult mind. I do not think that it can be by-passed if one wants to see the actual working mill. I think that New Lanark would be a good day’s excursion, with a picnic somewhere upstream in the woods. Most of the buildings have now been converted either to condominiums and a fancy hotel, but Robert Owen’s house is as it was, and some of the houses can be visited with a reconstruction of the life of the worker’s families. The schoolhouse can also be visited and the staff offers friendly information.

From New Lanark we went to Edinburgh and dropped off the car at the train station. There was no attendant, just two parking spaces identified as Europcar spaces and a lock box for the keys. We wondered about that, in case there we question about scratches (I did scratch a side-view mirror) but had no problem in that regard. The problem mentioned at the beginning of the report about double-charging the airport pickup and local taxes would probably have occurred anyway because the attendant is not the one who determines the charges, he just determines the condition of the car, if that--in Paris we dropped off the keys with an attendant behind the checkout desk who was not interested in looking at the car three levels below in the garage. We then took a taxi to the apartment our friends had rented.

Here’s the information for the apartment in the New Town:
Accommodation: 25 Saxe Coburg Place
Dates requested: Thu 07 Jun 2007 - Mon 11 Jun 2007
Duration of stay: 4 nights
No. of persons: 5 persons
Price chargeable: &pound;360.00

The apartment was clearly carved out of a much larger dwelling. The living room was kept as much as possible in its original shape. The kitchen was so small that only one person could work in it (the refrigerator, dishes and silverware were in an armoire/cupboard type structure in the living room) and my wife who is short could hardly reach the faucet of the small double sink which was located in a corner, although it was not designed as a corner sink. I was all for cooking because I get tired of restaurant food after a while, but that was vetoed by the others as being a general pain. Besides, the only table for dining was near the window on the other side of the living room. The apartment had two bathrooms, one attached to the master bedroom. Our friends took the master bedroom (their daughter slept in the living room), which was nicely arranged, with space around the queen-size bed. We had the second bedroom which was smaller but incomprehensibly furnished with a king-size bed, leaving little room for anything else. The second bathroom was very small. The sink was a modern glass bowl with no shelf space around it. Turn on the water too strong and it would hit one side of the bowl and swish right out on the other side. The shower was so small that my wife said that now she understood what being in a womb was like. Everything was brand-new and worked fine, but every time we looked around we could not help but try to imagine how the apartment could have been better designed.

We did not see Edinburgh as we normally visit a city because our friends are not museum goers. We did see the Grass Market St. area, where we abandoned them to their shopping urges, after having purchased picnic items at the outdoor market and picnicked in the West Prince Street Gardens. We also went to the Botanical Gardens the first evening we came to Edinburgh, and had a quick walk through it, but not the green houses. We managed to interest them in St. Mary Close and the Georgian House on Charlotte Square. We did not use time most efficiently, but we managed to visit Holyrood Castle without them.

<b>Saint Mary Close</b> (http://www.realmarykingsclose.com/) is the fascinating remnant of housing that cascaded down the hill from High St. Most of it was closed off in the second half of the 18th century when the houses on the High St. level were razed to street level and what was below was used as a foundation for the new City Hall, thus forgotten for 150 years. It is very much worth the tour, in spite of some of the hokeyness which must have some effect as one man crashed against me as he fainted in the “plague” room. Our friend’s daughter is a nurse and came to his help, I provided the flashlight (this is a plug for the Pak-Lite flashlight) because the tour guide, after calling for help, continued the tour, leaving only my flashlight as the available light with the patient--he rejoined the tour a few minutes later.

<b>Palace of HolyroodHouse</b> is the official royal residence in Edinburgh, and we were more interested in that palace than in the Castle on the other end of the Royal Mile. From the Green Guide description, it sounded to me as if the castle might be a repeat of Stirling Castle, although on a larger scale.

We also saw the <b>Georgian House</b> (http://tinyurl.com/2edahm) furnished in the 1790-1820 style. It has an incredible kitchen with three different coal stoves, each serving its own purpose. Compared to that, a kitchen such as the one in the Merchant’s House (ca. 1840) in NYC is positively primitive. There’s upper class and there’s upper class.

Meals: For this part of the trip we had to have lunch since nobody was offering a full Scottish breakfast. Most of the lunches were forgettable. Once we ate in an Italian restaurant on the Royal Mile--they tried to insist that the tap water was no good because the holding tank (!!!??) was questionable, and of course the bottled water was outrageously priced. I did not get sick from the tap water which was fine. We had the aforementioned picnic which was probably better than any other light meal we had. One evening meal was before the theater (42nd St.), but have no recollection of its quality. Three stayed in my mind: The first one was in a vegetarian restaurant (http://www.hendersonsofedinburgh.co.uk/--$70) that was a throwback to the early days of vegetarianism. Even the lasagna tasted as if it had tofu, as if a traditional lasagna could not be vegetarian--although since it advertises that it offers vegan dishes, that may have been the problem (they need lessons from Millennium in SF). The live jazz duet (guitar and double bass) provided pleasant background music. Our friend had simply put in her mind that the restaurant sounded good, but it was a disappointment. The Blue Parrot Cantina’s 49 St Stephen Street, Stockbridge. Edinburgh ($138 for 5) food had been adapted too much to the local palate. But the best meal we had in Scotland when taking account the food, the ambiance and the service was The Stockbridge Restaurant ($77) (http://www.thestockbridgerestaurant.com/). We found it because the local neighborhood held a flower/garden competition and the first prize was a meal at that restaurant. Given the neighborhood--New Town--and the probable income levels, we figured that the restaurant must be quite good to be offered as a first prize, and it was.

The next day we vacated the apartment, took the taxi to the train station and from there the airport bus to the airport for a flight (FlyGlobespan) to Nice. That will be another report.

For pictures of Scotland, go to: http://tinyurl.com/38x3q6

scotlib

I've been looking forward to your Scotland report, Michael. Thanks for all the details! I've got a few more ideas for my own visit now bookmarked, Yay!

I'll be very interested in what you thought of FlyGlobespan. I've seen some notes to avoid them. I hope you fared well.

Cheers!

Michael

I notice that a few URL references do not work. Just delete the last characters up to the last slash (/) and they should work.

bettyk

Interesting report. However, I cannot imagine visiting Edinburgh without seeing Edinburgh Castle. I found it fascinating.

teacher33

I enjoyed your report. I too am interested in architecture and looking at residential interiors, trying to imagine how people led their everyday lives. I also find kitchens and other plumbed (or not plumbed) facilities interesting. They always make me grateful to live in the present century and the end of the one before.

sheila

Great report. Thank you for taking the trouble.

noe847

I missed your report when you posted it, Michael, so am glad the link came up in your planning thread. Very interesting details, and a good variety of things seen and visited. We found Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle to be similar, so if you didn't care for the one you probably wouldn't care for the other. We liked both, but I am very fond of medieval spaces (the stones themselves are fine with me).

Your pictures are great. Pity you had such cloudy weather!

travel2live2

Thanks for posting, Michael. I have been to Scotland several times and love to hear about others' experiences. I have been to each and every place you mention and it is so much fun re-living our trips! Scotland is incredible.

caroline_edinburgh

Interesting report - my thanks also for taking the trouble. I wish I could have recommended restaurants in Edinburgh to you ! There are a couple of really good vegetarian restaurants and plenty of places to get a full Scottish breakfast.

I visited Edinburgh Castle for the first time last week (after 14 years living here !) and found it very disappointing - IMO the Palace is much better.

Nikki

I just found this excellent report and read it because Scotland is starting to appear on my radar screen. Thanks for posting.

Michael

Caroline,

I was not looking for the Scottish breakfast in Edinburgh. My normal breakfast is just a cup of coffee. Nor were we looking for vegetarian restaurants. It's just that one of our party was attracted by it. But I would have liked to have your restaurant recommendations.

suspire

bookmarking - thank you!

charlieg

bookmarking

CAPH52

Michael, thank you for directing me to this report. I read all of it, not just the bit on Mary King's Close! And enjoyed it very much.

I will definitely try to remember to pack a flashlight! If I recall correctly, Scotlib gave me the same advice about Mary King's Close on another thread.

scotlib

Hey, thanks for the topping CAPH52. I've been wondering what I should do for next April and this reminds me of some ideas

For the underground tours, definitely take a flashlight and wear shoes that can handle uncertain walking surfaces. Cheers.

CAPH52

Sounds like more good advice, Scotlib! I've already bought new walking shoes that I'm saving for the trip!

Michael

I've reposted my Glasgow pictures on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...7623346603583/

The rest will come at an other time.

Michael

All my pictures of Scotland can be found in my British Isles collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...7623454170770/