The land of kilts, whiskey, lochs, open green vistas, kings and castles beckoned us and so we marched on the tunes of the bagpipes and landed in Scotland.
Glasgow:
Arriving by Virgin trains, after a very comfortable 4 hours journey from London we reached Glasgow. Coming out of the Central Station, the first sight that had us go all agog was police officers riding on horses. Another thing that struck us was these huge and really imposing victorian buildings with straight lines and humongous facades. And we also realised our folly in referring to google weather charts to pack for clothes, because even though the temperature was a balmy 14 degrees Celsius we had forgotten to account for the wind chill factor. And the winds, boy! in Scotland are icy.
I wouldn't go into the itinerary of our stay in Glasgow. I am sure there are enough blogs and write ups dedicated on that. But that city was a very very unique experience for someone like me coming from the hot and crowded spaces of Mumbai. To my eyes the city seemed weirdly empty. All these vast spaces and just one or two souls on the roads. Yeah! you could spot people in the parks and the central places but overall the feeling of emptiness as we walked around the city was engulfing.
Glasgow is truly a green city. The kelvingrove park, the queens park, the pollock country park were just some of the parks we visited and they all offer a sense of quietude and oneness with nature.
But what I carry back in my heart is an imagery of mammoth structures, a city that has these solid Victorian buildings on one side and these huge modern dark glass panelled commercial buildings on the other side, gusts of cold winds, few and fewer people and empty roads.'
The view from my hotel room "Park Inn by Raddison'
Enway to the Science Park
All these architectural curve-balls
The botanical gardens
Somewhere inside the Botanical Gardens
And those flowers are here because JUST
The flora and the fauna
While we were walking towards the Kelvingrove museum
And that is the Kelvingrove museum
Well! Thats just another angle
The insides of the museum
The weird 'Necropolis'
That painting in the middle of the road was pretty stunning. No?
Its a church. I know that. The name I don't remember:(
I loved the arches. And you?
Inverness:
Inverness on the other hand, felt far more personal, way more cosy right from the word go. A small city centred around the river Ness, the brooks and the nooks felt very very familiar. The walk down the river Ness is something I could get used to doing every single day of my life. Inverness is known as the gateway to the highlands and we took a one day tour to 'isle of Skye'. Stopping by the Donan Eilean castle, we made our way into the highlands.
Our tour guide regaled us with folk lore of the highlands, telling us about the clans of the highlands, their gaillic culture, the story of how and why men came to wearing kilts and how it got integrated to become a pan Scottish culture symbols. For eg. the original billamore kilts were designed for a far more functional use. The highlands with their unique topography and fluctuating weather conditions necessitated an all weather garment for the men of yore. And that is why the kilts were more of a loose garment back then which could be used as a sheet for sleeping in the nights, as a protection against the rains and so on. Infact, at one point the Brits had banned the Scots to wear the kilts for they thought that it fuelled rebellion. Of course later when the Brits were looking for ways to integrate the Scots into the armies they fell back on the same old kilt to create a sense of cohesion. The present day stitched skirt type garment called kilts is an invention of this need.
Well! All I could think is that kilt is probably more of a cousin of the humble Indian 'loongi' than the skirt. chuckle!!
We stopped by Loch Ness and as we looked into its dark deep waters, the monster seemed to be illusive but the surrounding natural beauty more than made up for it. Loch Ness is not the deepest or the longest lochs in Scotland but it does have the highest volume of water. Infact it has more fresh water than all the water put together in all of England and Wales. Scotland apparently has 31000 fresh water lakes.
I have an avid interest in history and geology and Scotland has a flavour of both these in ample measures. So the story of 'Mary queen of Scotland' and 'bonnie prince charlie' were really interesting for me.
At the Royal Highland Hotel. Can we swoon over the stair case for one second please!!
And that water of the river Ness is spectacular. No?
The 'yellow' always flutters my heart a bit.
At Inverness, 'stunning' is just all around
Don't believe me just watch
Some more!
Whilst we were deciding which bridge to take!
A church and my baby!
The Inverness castle.
Of purples and pinks!
@Eilean Donan Castle
A view within a view
At the Skye on an amazingly clear day
Pretty creatures at the pretty SKYE
@Pitlochry
Taking all of the Skye with us
Skye
While she was capturing the Skye, we captured her!
Pitstops back from skye to inverness
@Urquhart Castle
The cruise that we took
@Urquhart castle
Edinburgh:
We were staying at a hotel near the royal mile and I think the whole stretch of royal mile is where all the action in Edinburgh is. The Scottish parliament, the Edinburgh castle, the queens palace, the grass market, the St. Paul's church are all situated along the royal mile.
But for me - is I ll forever remember Edinburgh as the ghost city. So it all started on one fine morning when we went to see the 'Edinburgh dungeon' show. The whole show is just a nice fun experience in itself except that it actually draws from the city s dark past. The whole idea of women being proclaimed as witches and all the torture tactics seemed too much of a stretch till that point. But then we went for a ghost tour organised by Mrket tours towards the afternoon and the chilling tales by our guide made us realise that all of this used to be more gory than what one can possibly imagine. I mean the Mrket square is where women were tortured for being witches if they as much as cursed, muttered under their breath or wrote with their left hand. I think history is proof enough that when civilisations are in a state of ruin, humans can quickly transform into beasts.
The dungeons were cold dark places and all the ghost stories being narrated by our guide started creeping me out even though I amnt such a great believer in the supernatural but then with a child in tow I just didn't feel upto experimenting much and so decided to quit the tour midway. I mean yeah! So be it.
London: London is the true blue blood megapolis which is a potpourri of many cultures and people and races and you feel it in the vibe of the city.
It's equal part historical, and equal parts brand new. As the river Thames watches on the city seems to be ever changing and ever evolving.
For me, since I was a child the Greenwich meridian had been such a big thing. Imagine the whole zero degree longitude paraphernalia. So Greenwich was definitely on. We took a cruise tour from Westminster pier straight to Greenwich. And the experience of fulfilling a childhood ambition of actually standing at the zero degree longitude was so fulfilling.
I actually clapped in glee when the needle on my cellphone's app said zero degree.
Another defining feature of London for me is Harry Potter. Now unfortunately we couldn't get the tickets for the warner bros show as we hadn't booked in advance. So instead we booked ourselves on Harry Potter tour that took us to some of the most famous Harry Potter movie locations. And I think it was sort of very nice because our guide took us to these lanes and bylanes that we would have probably not explored on our own.
Interesting trivia : Harry Potter was once supposed to be directed by Steven Spielberg who insisted that the shooting be done in the US. JK rowling refused as she insisted that both the shooting and the cast be in all Brit. She prevailed and rest is history. Btw an American Harry Potter would have been such a travesty in my personal opinion.
