Beyond whisky and haggis: Nikki's trip to Scotland
 

When my daughter Eileen told my husband Alan in March that she was considering spending six months in Edinburgh after her college graduation, my older daughter Lauren said, “You know what this means- Mom and Dad will be going to Scotland this summer.” Alan reportedly said, “Why do you say that?” Right.

As it turns out, we all got to go. The timing became a bit crazy, as Alan and I helped Lauren move from Denver to California over the July 4 weekend, renting a Penske truck and driving that as well as Lauren’s Jeep through Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. Spent a delightful day in San Francisco, helped Lauren get moved into her new apartment, then flew home to Massachusetts. A week later, Lauren flew to Boston and then on July 23 we flew to Edinburgh, connecting in Amsterdam.

Great people watching at the Amsterdam airport sushi bar. A group of ten or twelve men in colorful African garb, a guy sitting alone at the bar looking like Indiana Jones, a woman in a beautiful sari. Wyoming was nothing like this.

The flights are uneventful and we smile at the “Welcome to Scotland” sign in the arrivals area. Months of deliberation and tens of thousands of pounds went into the search for this public relations slogan, we are told. We take a taxi from the Edinburgh airport to the apartment we have rented for one night at the Harbour Apartments. We are going to return to this apartment complex for five nights at the end of our stay. These apartments are part of a large construction project at the end of a breakwater in Leith, the gentrifying dock area of Edinburgh. It is a bit remote from the center of things, but the bus line was recently extended to reach the area and there is a bus stop across the street.

We rented the apartment through lastminute at http://tinyurl.com/6dv7tg. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, as do all in the complex. The furnishings are sparse but the apartment has free wi-fi, a dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, dishes and utensils and we are on the fifth floor and the view is fabulous. We look out over the Firth of Forth toward a lighthouse and see the tugboats guiding ships in and out of the harbor. We see an island, but the next morning it has disappeared in the fog.

Eileen is waiting for us at the apartment and it is great to see her, as she has been in Edinburgh for two months. We get settled in and rest a bit before dinner, then we go out to meet Eileen’s boyfriend for dinner at The Compass, 102A Constitution Street, in Leith. This is a great introduction to Edinburgh. Nice atmosphere, reasonable prices, good food. I don’t remember exactly what was in my seafood risotto, but I believe there were crayfish, among other things. After dinner, Alan, Lauren and I stroll toward the water and look into some pubs there, ending up at the King’s Wark, at 36 The Shore, where Alan tries his first single malt. We notice a good looking menu here too and plan to come back for a meal when we return to Edinburgh.

Friday morning we pick up our rental car and Alan bravely negotiates the streets while we keep shouting, “Keep left, no, not that far left!” The roundabouts are particularly challenging and there is a lot of construction for a new tram system. The weather is beautiful so we head for Holyrood Park. We park in the lot next to Holyrood Palace and go have lunch in the café at the new Scottish Parliament building across the street. I like this building but wonder what the asymmetrical bamboo poles are all about.

After lunch, we drive up into the park. It feels like a preview of the highlands right in Edinburgh: purple wildflowers, steep hills, lochs with swans and seagulls. We park the car by a loch and explore on foot. Alan and the girls head up the steep hill known as Arthur’s Seat but turn around before attaining the summit.

Our next stop is Aberdeen, where we are visiting Sheila and her husband Keith, with whom we did a house exchange last year (not in Scotland, where they live, but in the South of France. This is our first time in Scotland.) We hit the road and only take the wrong route a couple of times, arriving in under three hours. We have a date to meet Sheila after work at the Aberdeen Grammar School Former Pupils Club at 5:30, and we arrive exactly on time.

Sheila is waiting for us and joins us at a table. While we are the object of some discreet curiosity, we do not meet any of the other members, not even Sheila’s friends, who apparently are glued to their respective positions at the bar. I take in the scene, feeling like an anthropologist, and enjoy some drinks as a welcome to Aberdeen.

After driving to Sheila’s house in the countryside, we all go out to dinner at The Red Garth in Oldmeldrum (www.redgarth.com). I enjoy an appetizer of two types of smoked salmon, then Aberdeen Angus steak. We pass around a plate of sticky toffee pudding for dessert. This is a fun and festive meal, a great way to finish up the fine day which has been my birthday.

Nikki. As always, a pleasure to read your reports.

Great report so far - looking forward to reading more!

Saturday morning we set off to explore the countryside with Sheila and Keith as our guides. The haar (coastal fog) is heavy, but reports say it will be hot and sunny inland, so we set off prepared for all eventualities. In general in Scotland this appears to be a good plan, as the weather is changeable at a moment’s notice.

Our first stop is the stone circle at Loanhead of Daviot. The parking lot is full of cars, leading me to believe this will be a crowded touring experience, but the cars turn out to be for an event at the adjacent scout camp. Lauren and I reminisce about campsites from her girl scouting days, in the woods in Massachusetts with nary a stone age monument in sight.

When we get to the stone circle, we are alone. It is beautifully situated on a hilltop overlooking rolling farmland. Three wind turbines stand on a ridge across from our viewpoint, contrasting neatly with the old stone monuments before us, which date from approximately 2500 BC.

We drive from there to see the Maiden Stone in nearby Pitcaple. This is a large carved stone with Christian and Pictish imagery, dating from the eighth or ninth century. The carving of a mirror and comb near the bottom has been interpreted as an association with a girl or woman, and there is a legend that a girl who lost a bet with the devil was turned to stone here.

The countryside in Aberdeenshire is rich in such sites, and I get the idea that it would be fun just to drive from one to another for days. We have other things to see today, though, and we drive off to Huntly to visit the ruined castle there, the ancestral home of the chief of Clan Gordon. My mother has requested a scarf in the Gordon tartan, and I find it here, as well as a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes. I didn’t think I would need one in Scotland, but on this day (though not too many others) I do. There is a playing field attached to a school next to the castle, where a multi-generational group is playing cricket.

After visiting the castle, we go into the town of Huntly seeking lunch. We find it at the cafeteria in the visitor center for the Deans shortbread bakery. After lunch we browse through the store and pick up a few packages of shortbread seconds at a discounted price.

Next we are off to Dufftown, for the Dufftown Games.

Your report brings back a lot of fond memories.

As we drive toward Dufftown, we pass through beautiful countryside, getting hillier and hillier. The farms are replaced by grazing sheep, and finally by treeless slopes covered in purple heather, just coming into bloom.

Dufftown is hopping with people who have come to see the highland games. A large field is ringed with booths selling ice cream and beer. On the field, several events are taking place simultaneously. Two groups of men wearing blue jeans and team shirts are engaged in an intense tug of war. Minutes go by while they remain motionless, straining at the rope. Kilted observers watch for any movement of the rope away from the center, while coaches for each team are down on their hands and knees, shouting at the contestants like drill sergeants, exhorting them to pull harder. When one team finally wins, they all take a break for a few minutes, then come back and start pulling again. They do this for hours.

A stage on the far side of the field is the site of a dance competition. Little girls in pinafores are dancing to the strains of a lone bagpipe. A massed band of pipers and drummers parades around the field. When not marching, the pipers are engaging in a piping competition off in one corner of the field.

Large men in kilts are throwing heavy weights around, spinning and leaping. There are races around the track for various age groups. The most entertaining race is the last one, in which people from the crowd step forward to compete and are placed in positions along the track according to their age and perceived fitness. The game older woman who volunteers is given a large handicap which turns out to be far too short, but she appears to have a good time nonetheless.

The final event is the throwing of the caber, an enormous log (think telephone pole). The object is to throw it so high that it turns end over end. The caber used in the Dufftown Games is so large that only one man succeeds this afternoon.

As we leave the games, I reflect that while the event was certainly exotic and outside my experience, the atmosphere is highly reminiscent of more familiar venues such as the Fourth of July in the New England town where I live.

After the finish of the athletic events, the massed band of pipers circles the field and marches through the town, followed by the crowd, creating gridlock among the cars attempting to leave the event. We manage to find a way out of town and drive back to Sheila’s house, where we enjoy a dinner that includes our first taste of haggis, as well as a dessert called cranachan, made from raspberries, cream, oats, honey and whisky.

This has been a wonderful day.

Do we get an honest opinion on Haggis ? :)

Sure. I liked haggis. I ended up having it several times. I had expected something at least partially revolting after reading the descriptions and the jokes, but it was actually quite nice. Sort of like hash. Comfort food, often served with mashed potatoes and turnips (haggis, tatties and neeps).

Sunday morning we drive to the market in Aberdeen. Many of the vendors are from France, selling produce, cheese, olives, sausage, and prepared foods. I have a brief moment of wishing I were going to France on this vacation, but I comfort myself by buying olives and duck saucisson. Sheila buys cheese and wild mushrooms for supper.

Then we head up the valley of the River Dee, known in local parlance as Royal Deeside, to Crathes Castle. Unlike yesterday’s castle, today’s is intact and fully furnished. Some go inside to tour, but I opt to explore the gardens instead. There is a brass band playing outside the castle. As I emerge from the gardens, the conductor announces that it is very tiring for the musicians to play outside, so they are taking a break. I smile to myself (OK, maybe to everyone else too) at the reaction such a statement would provoke if made by the conductor of the community band in which I have played for thirty years. I hear no hearty guffaws from these musicians, however.

We drive on up Royal Deeside to the town of Ballater, but decide not to continue as far as Balmoral Castle (summer home of the royal family) since it is getting late and the castle is closed. Our last stop for the day is at a cemetery in Inverurie where there is a medieval motte-and-bailey and some carved Pictish stones. The motte-and-bailey is a form of earthwork fortification consisting of a high mound that was used for defence and a lower mound that served as a courtyard. This one is in a scenic location alongside the River Urie.

Over dinner and drinks until late at night we learn more Scottish history from our hosts, and we are sorry to have to say good-bye to them. But Monday morning we set off on our own toward our next night’s destination, Aviemore.

Great job Nkki! 10/10 for trying Haggis - Looking forward to more.
Can we have some photos?

Photos, you ask?

Aberdeenshire and Highlands:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=...localeid=en_US

Islay:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=...localeid=en_US

Edinburgh:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=...localeid=en_US

Lovely - looking forward to more . . .

Thanks for all the comments. I'm going to try to write a pretty large chunk today.

Lovely writing, Nikki - enjoying your descriptions (of places I haven't been :-) ) very much.

Enjoyed your pictures. My favorites were the night pics of Edinburgh, but they were all nice.

Lovely photos Nikki - thanks for sending the link!

Ah nostalgia! Of course, I was just there a month ago myself :) Great report so far!

Also brings back memories, but it has been over ten years since I've been to Edinburgh...

Enjoying your report. :)

Our route Monday takes us up Donside, the valley of the River Don. We pass Kildrummy Castle and Corgarff Castle but opt not to stop and visit them. We stop for lunch at a store near Corgarff called Goodbrand Knitwear, which sells Scottish made clothing and crafts and has a tea room with an outdoor terrace. At Tomintoul we look into a store called “Whisky Castle” but Alan pronounces the prices too high to purchase anything.

Shortly after this, we veer off onto a single track road toward Nethy Bridge. Every time a car approaches, Alan starts swearing. At some point he starts asking, “Are we there yet?” Eventually we reach the main road in Aviemore, and we turn south toward Loch Alvie to find our hotel, the Rowan Tree Country Hotel (www.rowantreehotel.com). This is an old coaching inn that is beautifully renovated with nice public spaces inside and out. Our room is under the eaves, and after hitting his head on the ceiling next to the desk only three times, Alan learns that it slopes down in that corner.

We take a ride into Aviemore, which is a ski town in winter. Lauren, who has spent three years in school in Denver, says it has exactly the same stores as the ski towns in Colorado. Back at the hotel, we go walking in the fields out back toward a small loch. The weather is beautiful and the location is peaceful. Dinner at the hotel is excellent. It begins with a drink in the bar while we look at the menus; then when the first course is ready, we move into the dining room. We find this pattern at a few restaurants, and I like it. Unfortunately, I do not remember what I ordered here, but I do remember liking it very much. The hotel appears to be owned by the chef, and we are all glad we decided to have dinner here.

Breakfast is equally good, and we take off afterward for a morning at Loch Insh, a wide area of open water along the River Spey. There is a center here offering boat rentals (www.lochinsh.com) and Alan and the girls rent kayaks while I go on a wildlife cruise. The weather, which was very rainy early in the morning, improves dramatically for us. I see an osprey nest and not far from it an osprey on a branch. We see ospreys on Cape Cod regularly, where they have been encouraged to build nests on telephone poles set out on the marsh for them. Evidently they reached the brink of extinction in Scotland but have been making a comeback.

The river here was used by the logging industry for transporting timber down the river during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to the captain of the boat on which I am cruising, there was a lawsuit brought in the seventies by the landowners downstream attempting to keep boaters from the Loch Insh center off the river where it ran through their lands. The House of Lords ended up deciding the case based on the right of access as exemplified by the historical logging activities, and today there is a free recreational use of the river by canoers and kayakers.

Back on terra firma, the kayakers in our party change into dry clothes and we resume our drive.

Nikki: great trip report...it's full of great stories, keep it coming!!

What a great report :)

And touring around w/ Sheila must have been a special treat

Tuesday’s itinerary sends us south along the River Spey and then along Loch Laggan. We stop at the Laggan Dam, built in 1934 to provide power for the aluminum (I can’t bring myself to write aluminium) plant operated by the British Aluminium Company (it’s the name of the company, what’s your point?) downstream at Fort William.

We stop for lunch at Auchendean Lodge (www.auchendean.com), an attractive roadside inn with good food. A brochure I read while sitting at the table points out the short distance to Loch Ness, and there is a movement afoot among the company to make a detour just to see it. The day is young, and what are the chances of coming by this way again? So we head north at the crossroads at Spean Bridge and drive along the shore of Loch Lochy past Invergarry, cross the Caledonian Canal at Fort Augustus, and stop the car by the side of the road to gaze at the water of Loch Ness. No sitings of an unusual nature to report.

We retrace our steps to Spean Bridge and pass through Fort William, driving along the shore of Loch Linnhe until we reach the turnoff for Glencoe, which is our destination.

We are staying at the Clachaig Inn (www.clachaig.com) but we pass the turnoff for the inn due to construction on the road. This is fortunate because we pull over on the road and take some photos of the mountains and the sky in the dramatic, changing light of early evening. The inn is located in an extremely scenic spot, and there is a wonderful view of the mountains from our room. There are two bars, and we go to the more rustic one for drinks before dinner. There is an enormous selection of malt whisky arranged alphabetically, beginning in the first bar and continuing in the second, so Alan tries some new ones. We move to the other bar for dinner, but this turns out to be a mild mistake. Children are allowed in this bar and there are several running around and screaming. Fortunately the children aren’t ours, so we just smile and order. Alan notices that a large percentage of the plates coming out of the kitchen contain haggis, tatties, and neeps, so that is what we order. By the end of the meal, the children have left the room, and the atmosphere is warm and friendly.

Alan and I take a stroll down the road after dinner. It is a lovely evening, but the midges are out, and we have to keep moving to avoid attracting them.

It rains heavily overnight, but it has cleared by the time we meet for breakfast. Wednesday morning we explore a bit around the inn on foot. Then we hit the road again, heading south along Loch Linnhe and past Oban. Gorgeous scenery all along the way. We are heading for Kilmartin Glen, where there is a heavy concentration of prehistoric monuments to explore.

By the time we get to Kilmartin, it is pouring. There is a museum and visitor center (www.kilmartin.org) but the parking lot is mobbed. When we get inside, we buy tickets from the woman in the gift shop, who says it is the busiest day of the year. Everybody seems to be in the gift shop and the theater where there is a video presentation, but the museum itself is not overly crowded and we tour the small, informative exhibits there. By the time we return for the next video, the crowd has dispersed and we get into the theater easily.

Leaving the museum armed with a map of the area’s prehistoric sites, we head out to the parking area for a group of standing stones known as the Nether Largie stones. It is raining lightly. The stones are located in a field where sheep are grazing. The evidence suggests that there have been quite a lot of sheep there over a period of some time, and it is imperative to watch one’s step. Alan and the girls spend a few minutes here and return to the car, but I walk across the field, following signs to the Temple Wood stone circles. I am rewarded with a wonderful site, consisting of two stone circles. One of them contains another inside it. The earliest constructions have been dated to about 3500 BC. Burials in cists within the circle were added after 3,000 BC. The area was used for over two thousand years; coins from the ninth century were discovered while workers were digging up peat in the nineteenth century.

I walk back across the sheep meadow and find Alan and the girls in the car. I talk them into driving along the back road to the stone circle, which we do, but it is pouring rain again and they make a brief visit before running back to the car.

We attempt to visit one more site farther down the valley to see the Achnabreck stone carvings. We get to the parking area and set off up the path, which turns out to be longer and steeper than we had bargained for, and the rain starts falling steadily again. Everyone turns back except Alan, who makes it to the most extensive group of prehistoric carvings in Scotland.

By now it is getting pretty late and everyone is hungry, but there is nowhere to stop along the road. We have a ferry to catch, and have to be at the pier in Kennacraig before 5:30 to check in. We arrive at Tarbert around 4:00 and find a place in the village to eat a very late lunch. There are carnival rides set up along the waterfront, and two girls are jumping on a giant trampoline despite the rain.

We get to the ferry landing with plenty of time to spare, and while it has stopped raining, it is extremely windy. We drive the car onto the ferry and cruise toward the magical island of Islay.

We ensconce ourselves at a comfortable table in the lounge on the ferry. The bar is serving malt whisky from Islay’s seven distilleries. The wind outside has led us to expect a bumpy ride, but it is surprisingly calm. I go out on the deck with Alan and find the skies clearing and the wind subsiding. Once we get away from the shelter of the surrounding peninsulas and islands, we feel the rolling of the ocean, and the motion of the boat sends me inside.

The ferry pulls up to the pier at Port Ellen after a little more than two hours and we drive off toward the B&B where we will stay, Glenegedale House (www.glenegedalehouse.co.uk). There is a long straight road between the two main villages on Islay, running over an enormous peat bog along Laggan Bay. The road was laid out for a railroad that was never built, and the current road was built on its foundations, reputedly from bundles of wood and sacks of wool. The road does bounce quite a bit when traffic goes over it. Glenegedale House is located in a former coach stop along this road. The island’s small airport is just across the street, a mile or so from the Machrie Hotel and golf course. Other than these landmarks, there is very little along this stretch of road besides peat and sheep.

We are welcomed warmly by Rachel Whyte, the innkeeper, and shown around the house. The place is beautiful inside and out. It is nearly 9:00 and I ask whether any place is still serving dinner, so Rachel rushes to call the Machrie Hotel and squeeze us in before the kitchen closes.

We drive to the Machrie Hotel, which seems to be populated largely by golfers. We have drinks in the bar, peruse the menus, and are brought into the dining room for our meals. I remember enjoying some roast smoked salmon with a peppery coating, highly reminiscent of the salmon smoked by my favorite fish market on Cape Cod. Then, continuing on the theme, I had a main dish of smoked haddock with creamy leek sauce. I seem to remember a melty chocolate dessert as well.

We all meet in the breakfast room at 9:00 AM. We have had some fine breakfasts during our travels across Scotland, but this one is special. There are home made scones and butter and home made jam and marmalade on the table when we arrive. There is a buffet set with fruit, cereal, and yogurt. Then there is porridge that has been cooking on the stove overnight. Pouring cream onto the porridge from the pitcher, I realize that this isn’t the cream we buy at the supermarket. After that there is a choice of three breakfast plates: kippers, a plate of Scottish cheeses and oatcakes, or the full Scottish breakfast. This consists of farm fresh eggs from the innkeepers’ chickens; home made haggis (cooked, Rachel assures us, in a pot, not in a sheep’s stomach); local bacon, sausage, and black pudding; tomato, potato, and mushrooms. And I’m sure I’m leaving something out. Oh yes, the toast. There are, not surprisingly, some scones left on the table, and Rachel gives us a bag to bring them along for a snack during the day.

After this feast, we head out to Bowmore with the intent of touring the distillery there. I have a bag filled with buttered scones and fruit from the plate left in our room. We find that the Bowmore distillery is closed today for maintenance and I consult a brochure to find that the Ardbeg distillery has tours available. We drive back past Glenegedale, pass Port Ellen, and go on to the Ardbeg distillery, the last of three on this road, just in time to find that the next tour is filled. There is another in an hour and a half, and we sign up for this, then we go off to find the ruins of Kildalton Chapel and the Kildalton High Cross.

Thank you, Nikki, for a wonderful trip report. I am thoroughly enjoying it :)

Are you writing your report from memory or did you take notes each day?

Your description of breakfast made me hungry. Sheila, are you taking notes?

Thanks for all the continuing nice comments.

Yelpir, I am patching the report together from my memory (which is why I want to do it as quickly as possible), some notes on place names and random observations, materials I collected during the trip, and research on the internet to fill in gaps in my knowledge.

Roger, Sheila has no need to take notes.

We drive up the narrow road to the chapel and begin to hear a rattling underneath the car. Sounds like we picked up something and it is dragging underneath, but nobody can see anything there. Fearing the worst, we leave the car in the parking area and explore the site. The cross is from the eighth century, the church from the twelfth or thirteenth century. There are many interesting stones here, and we spend some time before getting back into the car and listening to the rattle get worse and then stop altogether. It never comes back, so we pretend it never happened and drive on.

Back at Ardbeg, we take an informative tour given by a young man whose father is the oldest employee of the distillery. We learn that Islay’s distilleries are all on the shore because there were no roads, and all transport was by boat. We learn why the Islay malts are known for their exceptional peatiness and smokiness, and we learn just how hard it is to cut peat by hand. It is now all done by machine, although one of our tour guide’s summer jobs is to cut peat to burn in his family’s house all winter for heat. The worst part is the midges, he tells us.

At the end of the tour there is a tasting and there is some purchasing as well. We have lunch in the café in the old kiln building.

We drive back toward Port Ellen but turn off the road just before reaching the Lagavulin distillery. Our goal is Dunyveg Castle, dramatically situated on a rocky promontory. The remaining parts of the castle date from as early as the fourteenth century but mostly from the sixteenth century. The light, misty rain adds to the moodiness of the spot.

Dinner Thursday night is at the Lochside Hotel in Bowmore. We wait at the bar and order drinks, then go to our table with a great view of the harbor. There is a large and jolly group of folks celebrating a birthday, and we see one of the party pull out a small flute and play a tune. I order an excellent homemade lamb soup and venison casserole. We make our way back to Glenegedale, where I sit up reading in one of the comfortable sitting rooms until it is time for bed.

Friday morning the weather is miserable. A soaking, steady rain is falling. Uninspired, we drive to Bowmore to visit the eighteenth century Round Church, built with no corners so the devil can’t hide in it. From Bowmore, we drive to the Islay Woollen Mill (www.islaywoollenmill.co.uk ), nestled in a wooded riverside spot near Bridgend. The proprietor shows us around the historic mill, takes us through the rooms where cloth is being woven on Victorian looms, and tells us that they produced the tartans used in the movie Braveheart. We leave with scarves and hats, and we figure if the weather stays this damp and chilly, we might be wearing them.

Then we take to the road again and head for Port Charlotte. Here we visit the Museum of Islay Life in a former church building. There are informative exhibits and books about Islay for sale. We drive on to Portnahaven, down a single track road, as Alan continues to curse at the sight of approaching cars. This feels like a drive to the ends of the earth.

At the ends of the earth there is a colorful harbor and a welcoming pub, An Tigh Seinnse. We order homemade pizzas with goat cheese and olives, and stay long enough for the rain to stop. Emboldened by the improving weather, we drive on increasingly narrow roads through stunning countryside, passing more ruined churches and old stones than we can stop to visit. We do make one more stop back in Port Charlotte, to examine a five thousand year old chambered cairn set next to a town recreation field and campground.

Back at Glenegedale, Rachel calls around to try to get dinner reservations for us, but we are running out of restaurants. One has a wedding party, two small ones are filled, and we have already been to two. We end up at the Taj Mahal in Bowmore, an Indian restaurant that does a large takeout business. We enjoy our meal there quite a bit.

Yes I know she is. Just a tease.

Nikki, I can't miss this, but I'm off to look after my dad for a week. I'll put a marker here so I can find it when I get back.

Anselm

Saturday morning we have our final breakfast at Glenegedale and spend some time talking with Rachel. We have learned much about life on Islay from her, as she and her husband both grew up on the island, speaking Gaelic as their first language at home. We have learned of people near my own age who were strapped at school for speaking Gaelic. Rachel was lucky that her mother was a teacher who taught her English before she started school, but her husband was less lucky. We have learned of people living on Islay who are supporting themselves on public assistance, and who have been shut off for days because the one ATM in Port Ellen has been out of operation. When the internet connection for a large part of the island goes down, days pass before it can be fixed. We have heard about the plans for Rachel’s son’s wedding this autumn, for which Rachel is hosting a dinner the night before the wedding, cooking everything herself, baking the wedding cake (she makes a good sponge, if she does say so), preparing canapes. We kiss goodbye and I feel sad to leave this warm person and warm place but happy that we have been able to come and share this special space.

We drive down a dirt road toward the beach. It runs alongside the runway for the airport for some distance before heading toward the water. There are old buildings and remnants of old runways left from the Second World War, when this airfield was used by the military. Today the weather has finally cleared and it is a beautiful morning to walk along this fine stretch of beach. It is known as the Strand, and reaches for seven unspoiled miles.

We drive to Bowmore and visit Spirited Soaps, a store selling hand crafted soaps made with Islay malt whisky (www.spiritedsoaps.co.uk ). We buy souvenirs here and Alan talks to the soap maker, who has escaped the fast paced city life to move with her family to Islay. She tells a story that sounds similar to the situation on Cape Cod, in which real estate prices have been pushed out of reach of local residents.

Today there is a half marathon which begins and ends in Bowmore, so there is a festive gathering in the town. We picnic on the pier and then walk to the park in the center of town to cheer on the returning runners. We recognize a couple of the runners as guests at the Glenegedale House. We then drive back toward Port Ellen and veer off the main road to explore the peninsula known as The Oa. There are beautiful beaches and walks and a square lighthouse, as well as a ruined chapel in a cemetery. When we have seen as much as we can absorb in a day, we head to Port Ellen and buy some cold drinks while we sit on a bench overlooking the beach and the ferry terminal, soaking up the sun. We catch the 6:00 ferry to Kennacraig and watch the magical island retreat into the mist.

Nikki I can't get enough of your photos they're really beautiful! You've captured so much life in them and the kilts are quite nice!

We spend the night at the West Loch Hotel near the ferry landing (www.westlochhotel.co.uk). This is another old coaching inn with a nice bar, where Alan and I stop for a drink and a snack before driving down to the West Loch Pier, not far from the hotel. There are two wrecked boats half submerged in the water, and a rock next to one of them advertises wildlife cruises on the loch. We’re hoping the cruises are in a newer craft. There are several fishing boats at the pier, and we spend some time watching the loch change color with the setting sun.

Sunday morning we set off on the final day of our road trip. After this, we will be in Edinburgh for five nights. We drive back through Tarbert, then up the shore of Loch Fyne past Inveraray to the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar (http://www.lochfyne.com/About-Us/Loc...estaurant.aspx). This restaurant spawned a chain throughout the UK, but the original remains independent. It was founded by a large landowner and a fish farmer to grow oysters in the loch and sell them throughout the UK. There is now a restaurant and a retail shop. We share oysters, smoky seafood chowder, mussels steamed in wine, and organic Loch Fyne smoked salmon. We visit the shop to buy a whole side of smoked salmon and some other goodies to have in our Edinburgh apartment.

The road toward Edinburgh takes us along the shores of Loch Lomond. I refrain from singing (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). We drive through Glasgow and arrive in Edinburgh with plenty of time to settle in before we are due at the theater this evening. This time we get an apartment with a different view. I miss the lighthouse and the island, but we see Leith Harbour with the Royal Yacht Britannia, and there is a distant view of Edinburgh Castle. This apartment is in better shape than the one we had our first night, and there are two sofas in the living room instead of just one.

We have planned to be in Edinburgh this week to take advantage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This is the opening weekend of the largest arts festival in the world. I have purchased tickets to a number of shows but I have also left much time open for us to fill with events we discover as we go along during the festival. My plan is to gorge on theater and music and comedy rather than to see the tourist sites of the city, so I am certain we miss out on much of interest. But I love the experience and would repeat it in a heartbeat. I shake off the slow country pace that we have adopted, especially on Islay, and prepare to participate in the big city cultural smorgasbord that is the Edinburgh Festival.

Our tickets Sunday night are for a play at the Traverse Theatre (www.traverse.co.uk), whose mission is to present new writing from Scotland and around the world. I have been told that this is the best theater venue in the festival, so I have ordered tickets for several presentations here. There are two theaters in the complex, each presenting four shows a day during the festival. There are three restaurants: an upscale restaurant, a moderate restaurant, and a casual bar café in the theater area. We dine this evening at the moderate restaurant, Blue (www.bluescotland.co.uk). I order home cured beef, rocket and parmesan for a starter, then Aberdeen Angus ribeye. All very good.

Tonight’s play is “Pornography”, a new play inspired by the London bombings of July 7, 2005. I feel the need to see this, since on that date in 2005, Alan, Lauren and I had flown to London, arriving at Heathrow just as the bombs were exploding in the underground and on the bus. The play is interesting and different from what we all had expected. I later buy the script, which is available at the theater, and see that the playwright has indicated that the script is to be read by any number of actors and in any order.

Monday morning I peruse the various pamphlets and newspapers I have picked up containing previews of the festival offerings and decide to go to a contemporary dance performance at the Assembly venue at George Street, in Edinburgh’s New Town. The building is an old theater with several performance spaces.

We see a show entitled “The Cholmondeleys and the Featherstonehaughs Present ‘Dancing on your Grave’ Featuring Corpse de Ballet”. How could we resist? This turns out to be an extremely entertaining production resembling vaudeville as much as a dance performance. Two guys play banjo and sing very clever original songs about death while three dancers sing and dance with them. All are made up as the living dead.

After the show we look for a place to have lunch and notice a pub called the Standing Order on the same block as the theater that has a sign listing comedy acts that take place there throughout the day and evening. We have lunch here; there is food and drink for a reasonable price in the building which used to house the head office of the Bank of Scotland. The bar is in a huge space with a beautiful ceiling. There is an enormous green door to the old vault in one of several side rooms.

In one of the rooms there is a stage and chairs for continuing comedy acts during the festival. After lunch we watch an improv act presented by a group of young comics from London. It is humorous, but these folks probably shouldn’t quit their day jobs yet.

Our next tickets are for a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the Footsbarn Theatre in a tent at the top of Calton Hill. This is a park with stunning views in all directions. There is a monument representing part of the Parthenon; if I understand correctly, the idea was to portray Edinburgh as the Athens of the North, but enthusiasm waned and the project was never completed. The theater company has camped up on this hill, and we overhear a member of the company on his cell phone in the bar telling someone that they are living like gypsies, with one shower for 35 people. But it is an exceptional venue for theater and this is perhaps the most entertaining production of Shakespeare I have ever seen. Amazing costuming, puppetry, gymnastics. And Bottom somehow ends up on my lap during the show. There are many children in the audience, and they appear to be completely entranced. So are we.

After the show we climb down the steep steps and walk to a pub, the Conan Doyle, where we finish off the evening before heading back to our apartment. A great day.

nice nice report...like your writing style.

Tuesday afternoon we are back at the Traverse to see “New Electric Ballroom”, a new Irish play set in a remote fishing village with a theme of jilted lovers frozen in time à la Miss Havisham. We all sit puzzled through the first half of the play, but by the middle of it, all is clearer, the parts we have heard in puzzlement are repeated to our greater understanding, and we all enjoy it. After the play, Alan runs into one of the actors outside the theater, who says it is a challenging play for the audience. It is definitely also a challenging play for the actors, who are excellent.

Tuesday evening we meet Caroline, an acquaintance from the Fodors message board, and her husband for drinks at The Shore, a pub in Leith. We move on to dinner at the King’s Wark, the pub we discovered our first night in Edinburgh and to which we want to return. Alan, however, leaves us after drinks, as he is going to a home match of the Hibernian Football Club at their stadium nearby in Leith.

Dinner consists of terrific food and conversation. I love my appetizer of rabbit, leek and smoked bacon risotto and also enjoy the pork stuffed with chorizo. Caroline’s stuffed lobster looks good and is very reasonably priced, but Scottish lobsters are smaller than New England lobsters. We talk about the festival. I am extremely grateful to Caroline, who has given me the information I needed to make sense of the overwhelming choices available (the catalogue of events is the size of a telephone directory). We compare notes on the shows we have seen so far and the ones we plan to see, and we talk about life in Edinburgh. Caroline, who hails from England, says that she wouldn’t mind moving to London, if only for the weather. I can’t say I’ve ever heard that opinion expressed before, but I guess it’s all relative. We say good night, having made friends once again with people we never would have met if it weren’t for the internet.

Wednesday morning we have tickets to a 10:00 performance of “Fall” at the Traverse. This new play is a joint production with the Royal Shakespeare Company. It follows a more conventional narrative approach than the previous two plays and is therefore easier to follow. It examines the moral choices made by a variety of people in the aftermath of a war, following all choices to their consequences and demonstrating that there are no easy decisions. I like this the best of the new plays we have seen so far. Coincidentally, or maybe as the sign of a trend in contemporary staging, this is the third play in which at least one actor undresses on stage.

We have lunch at the Atrium (www.atriumrestaurant.co.uk), the upscale restaurant in the theater building. There is a good value set lunch, and I have organic lamb pie with tomato chutney followed by sea trout with eggplant and mussels. White chocolate cheesecake for dessert. All very good. Over lunch we decide what to do for the rest of the day. We have tickets for a 10:00 PM show back at this theater. It is pouring rain and promises to do so for the rest of the day. I had hoped to see the Royal Mile or perhaps the castle today, but nobody feels like being outdoors.

Lauren and I decide to stay at the Traverse and see the afternoon performance of another new play, “Free Outgoing.” This is set in India and tells the story of a girl in a traditional society whose sexual behavior in a classroom is captured on a camera phone and distributed widely, with disastrous consequences for her family. Very good acting makes this story of a clash of cultures within a single society a fine afternoon of theater. While this play is about a girl taking her clothes off in public, it is the first play we see here in which nobody does so on stage. We notice that some of the actors from the play “Pornography” are sitting in the audience.

We take a break from the building and return to our apartment, where we meet Alan and go out for dinner at Skippers on Dock Place in Leith. www.skippers.co.uk. The weather is miserable, but there is a view of the harbor from the glass-walled room. This is a terrific meal. Alan and Lauren have cullen skink, a wonderful smoky chowder filled with all sorts of seafood. I start with grilled wood pigeon breast and move on to a fantastic mixed seafood grill. Portions are quite large and we all leave very satisfied.

We meet Eileen and her boyfriend back at the Traverse for our final play there, a comic monologue by Daniel Kitson called “66a Church Road”. This is a great favorite among our crowd, ranking as top performance of the week by everyone except me. I do like it; Kitson is a wonderful storyteller who strikes just the right note talking about the apartment he has loved and lost.

Thursday we meet Eileen and see a great feel-good concert by the Soweto Gospel Choir at noon. Amazing voices. Then we go to lunch at the Standing Order, staying for another comedy act consisting of three stand-up comics who were somewhat entertaining but, once again, shouldn’t quit their day jobs any time soon. We go, finally, to the Royal Mile, but have very little time to spend there because we have tickets at the nearby Old Saint Paul’s Church for a 5:00 production of “Murder in the Cathedral,” starring the former Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway as Thomas Becket.

While the church provides an atmospheric (if chilly) space for the performance of this T.S. Eliot play in verse, the production with its chorus of church ladies is somewhat hard to follow. Perhaps it is the variety of accents and the difficulty in hearing some of the speakers that makes us restless. The most accomplished speaker by far is the former bishop. We all leave with at least the intention of looking up the historical background when we get home.

We go for our final dinner in Edinburgh to the King’s Wark once again, so Alan can finally sample the menu there. He has a wonderful smoky chowder. So far we are three for three on chowder in Scotland. I repeat the risotto I had Tuesday and love it again, and finish with a last Aberdeen Angus ribeye. Another really good meal. Outside the weather is misty and rainy; the waitress tells us the local description is “dreich.” Onomatopoeia at work.

We say goodbye to Eileen, who will be staying in Edinburgh until November, and return to the apartment to pack. Friday morning we drive to the airport and finally find it after an unintentional detour that takes us seemingly half way to Aberdeen.

We have a four hour connection in Paris, which is just about enough time. There is no gate for us when we arrive (did we hear the captain say he forgot to tell the airport when we were going to arrive?), and we taxi toward Burgundy and wait for a while on the tarmac. Then we taxi some more and come to a stop. A bus meets us and drives around every accessible part of the airport. We are standing on the bus surrounded by guys speaking French. I am hit with a sudden urge. Out there somewhere they are speaking French and eating foie gras. I want to jump ship and stay in Paris. Oh well. We arrive at a door to Terminal 2E after 50 minutes. We then have to take a train to the other part of Terminal 2E to make our connection.

We go through security there, throwing out our water, and there are no benches to sit and put my shoes and ankle brace back on after going through. Worse, there are no stores for real people anywhere in sight. If you want to buy Armani or Chanel, no problem. Water? Magazines? Keep on looking. Finally, near our gate, we spot a Relay store selling the necessities. I’m pretty cranky by now, but it’s nothing that some French magazines and chocolate won’t cure.

Our flight home on Air France is comfortable, with many empty seats. Video and audio on demand. Reasonably good food and free drinks. We land in Boston and our baggage has all arrived with us, our friend is there to drive us home, and the trip is over.

Enjoyed your report and happy to got to spend time with Sheila.

Nikki,

Thansk for an excellent trip report. it brought back memories of places I've been and provided inspiration for places to visit in the future.

Very interested to read of all the other things you did in Edinburgh, Nikki, and thank you for your kind words - I am very glad if I helped. You chose some good places to eat ! Slight clarificiation - I don't think of moving to London now, I just miss the weather from when I used to live there. Another slight clarification - The Standing Order was just an ordinary bank branch ! The BoS head office is the domed building at the top of the Mound.

Thanks for the continuing interest, and to all of you who stuck with me through this very lengthy trip report.

Caroline, thanks for the information; I based my claim about the Bank of Scotland on the Undiscovered Scotland website: http://tinyurl.com/pjczh

Ah right - well, that website is incorrect, it was just a branch. Don't know if you also saw the Dome bar / restaurant / nightclub or the Centotre restaurant, also on George Street ? They also used to be (even grander) bank branches. (BTW We both actually work for BoS !) All the best, C.