We got going a little early today because we had some travel involved – we were going to the nearby town of Sintra, about a 45-minute train ride away. We got to the Rossio train station (the one with the cool Islamic-inspired facade) and onto a train that pulled out at about 9:15.

Sintra is home to several castles, and so is a popular tourist attraction. We got off the train with a couple hundred of our newest friends, and piled on to a full-sized bus that did an amazing job of squeezing up a small mountain. We passed by the Moorish Castle, which we came back to later (and so we will here too), and pulled up outside the Pena Palace, a fairy-tale castle from the mid 1800s, built by King Ferdinand II. It is completely over the top, with tons of colors and styles:  Islamic influences, Indian styles, and visions of medieval castles, all rolled into one.

Although it was clear in Lisbon and in the town of Sintra, the top of the mountain was enveloped in a thick fog. Since the sun was out lower down, I was confident it would burn off and give us magnificent views. So we got an hour-long audio tour of the castle, and wandered through the comfortably ornate interior. Since the castle was built on and incorporated an existing monastery, many of the rooms are normal-sized and more comfortable-seeming than opulent palaces like Versailles.

When we came back out from the interior, the fog was still swirling, but we walked the “wall walk” anyway, during which our audio guide rhapsodized about the views from the walls. They were still interesting, in a Brigadoon sort of way, with fleeting glimpses of the town below being swallowed up in fog.

It was about noon, so we grabbed some lunch in the cafeteria, and I was confident that while we ate, the fog would burn off. When we came out, the fog was still swirling. Pena Palace has extensive grounds with cobblestone paths (it is good to be king), and so I decided we should walk the lower-down grounds to give the fog time to burn off.

After a false start or two in trying to find any landmark other than the palace, we got situated. We found the queen’s fern garden, and from there we climbed though dense, vine-covered trees, with the fog drifting through it all. It was magical. Dubbs brought up the Lord of the Rings and Braveheart soundtracks on her phone for quiet atmosphere, and it suited perfectly. Every corner was a delightful surprise of nature and weather interacting in amazing ways. We found a small grotto where the monks would come for solo contemplation and prayer, and a view terrace favored by the queen. We couldn’t see anything but fog, but the sign post said she loved the view.

We finally climbed all the way to the highest point in the park, where there was a high cross erected. The views are spectacular. Or so we were told, since all we saw was fog. Still, the mystical quality imparted to the grounds by the fog was worth it. We headed all the way back down through the grounds, leaving two thirds of the grounds left unseen because of lack of time.

We next walked down the mountain a few minutes to the Moorish Castle. It was built by the Islamic Moors as an outpost to help defend Lisbon, and was conquered during the reconquest around 1100. It is a huge and impressive complex, with two well-defended hills connected by a wall. The castle inside the walls is so small as to have escaped our notice before we found it on a map – it is a keep tucked into one corner of the lower hill wall. But the wall and fortifications are remarkable. The castle is in excellent shape, as it was restored by King Ferdinand II as part of his palace complex, so the park would have a proper castle to look at. We wandered the walls from the smaller hill and up to the larger hill. The wind was blowing quite hard, and the fog was fairly thick on the larger hill, although the views from the smaller hill were quite good. It seems the fog had a strict elevation it stuck to.

We caught the bus back down, and then took the train back to Lisbon, getting back around 6:00. We ate supper near the train station, sitting outside in the windless, fog-free air. We then took the Metro and some trams around town in quest of crepes, failing on our first attempt, but finally finding an open place near Commerce Square. We walked back home, full, happy, and tired. It seems it takes at least twelve miles of walking to see the fogs of Sintra.

After a long day of touring yesterday, we slept in a little, finally getting launched around 9:30, and grabbing breakfast at a nearby cafe. Mer promised a much easier day today, and we started easily enough with grabbing a trolley heading west out of town. The trolley was ten minutes late, which meant it was very crowded, even at 10:00, with most of the passengers being tourists and heading where we were – St. Jerome’s Monastery in the nearby suburb of Belem.

St. Jerome’s Monastery was built around 1500 by King Manuel, and it is about three hundred yards long, with a large church on one side and the monastic halls stretching along from the church. You can tour the church for free, which meant it was fairly crowded. The church and halls are distinctive – the arches holding up the roof and the columns are shaped in the forms of ropes, and there are sea motifs all over. The church is large and airy feeling, especially for 1500. I liked the church well enough, but the cloister was lovely.

The cloister, probably based on the ten-euro entry fee, was far less crowded and much larger than the church, with a two-level portico built around a square. The entry fee also granted us access to the choir loft of the church, which offered better (and quieter) views of the church itself. Back out on the portico, we ran into some kind of play going on for a school group, with a devil (with horns), an angel, and several monks. We walked past the angel, who was sitting on a stepladder, and he smiled and nodded, since angels are friendly. These are the wacky, fun moments of travel.

After the monastery, we crossed through a park and under a busy road to the enormous Monument to the Discoveries, a huge concrete block carved roughly in the shape of a ship with great men (and one woman – a queen) carved upwards to the prow of the boat. It was originally built in 1940 for a World’s Fair, but the gypsum model was torn down and a replica was rebuilt in the 1960s. It is a lovely place to sit, with the 25th of April Bridge behind it (looking back toward town) or looking down river toward the Atlantic. You can pay a few euros to climb to the the 170-foot tall structure, which Dubbs and Mer did, while I stayed below soaking up the sun and people-watching. Mer said there was also an exhibit in the monument called “Red Atlantic” about the slave trade and the native peoples who were exploited during the age of exploration and colonization.

We had lunch in an Italian restaurant that looked out at the monument and river, along with the bridge and the statue of Christ. We decided for the more efficient way back into town, and so we skipped the trolley and took the real train back home, where we rested in the apartment for about half an hour, until 3:15.

Mer decided to continue to take it easy on us by having us tour by trolley. We rode the #28 trolley around for most if the evening, which is a trolley that meanders through Lisbon, going through many of the tourist-friendly areas (and a few less-touristed areas too). Our first stop was at the end of the #28 line, at a large cemetery. Mer and I like to go to cemeteries – they are interesting and usually in pretty places. This cemetery got off to a good start, with a group of four or five cats hanging out near the gates. The attendant at the the cemetery church would not let us in the church for some reason (maybe it was too close to closing time in thirty minutes), but we got to wander the impressive rows of mausoleums of some of Lisbon’s wealthy families. The monuments were tightly packed together, and for the most part were fancy and well kept. Several had glass in the front doors, so you could see the coffins and the photos or flowers placed by the family. On the way out, we saw a momma kitty and her three kittens, so that made us smile.

We took #28 down to Estrela Basilica, a large church that allowed you to climb up to the roof (for a small fee). The views of the surrounding area were fine, and if you dared, you could go into the dome of the church and look down to the church floor. Meredith and Dubbs dared, while I got very interested in the outside of the dome. The inside of the church was clear of statues and columns, but the ceilings were painted in geometric patterns. They had chants playing on the speaker system, which was wonderfully atmospheric. We sat and contemplated or prayed, and then crossed the street to another fine Lisbon park, to use the restroom.

We rode #28 to the other terminus, which was in a fairly tourist-free area, so after a few minutes of searching for a restaurant, we gave up and got back on the #28 to go back to a crepe shop we had seen. We found out, as we walked in at 7:10, that it closed at 7:00. We tried a couple more places, but they were not appealing, until we finally found a friendly little place where the waiter spoke excellent English. There was a tiny old Spanish lady in one corner, and an Italian mother and child in the other. It was cozy, and the portions were unusually large, especially for Europe. It was a fun experience.

#28 took us back into town, where we got off at a lively square rocking out to a small group of drums and saxophones. We ducked into a bakery for dessert, where I was charmed by the girl behind the counter – she was energetic and friendly and had an adorable accent. From there, we walked a few minutes home.

Mer made good on her promise of taking it easier today – only 6.8 miles of walking!

Sometimes, the touristic journey of 29,700 steps starts with one misstep. We started today heading out a little after 9:00, and after a little searching, we found a bakery down by the river so we could have rolls by the water. So far so good. It was a perfect day – all sun and comfortable temperatures, and it was a beautiful spot to eat breakfast. Meredith was sitting on the sea wall while Dubbs and I sat on a nearby bench. At least until Hitchcock showed up and twenty seagulls swooped in on Meredith to add to her group of pigeons. That made her retreat back to the bench, and that is when we realized she had sat in some seagull guano on the seawall. So, back to the apartment we went so she could change clothes. Then we set off to the bottom of the hill that our apartment was on, before Mer realized she had forgotten her guidebook. I volunteered to go back for it.

So it was we got underway about 10:00 or so. At the airport, we had bought “Lisboa Cards.” These cards get you discounts or free entries to various places around town, and they give you free access to buses, subways, and trams. We walked back to the train station, where we picked up a Metro train to take out to Edward VII Park. Oddly, rush hour in Lisbon seems to last until 10:30 promptly, when our train went from crowded to almost empty.

Edward VII Park was named for the English king who visited here in the early 1900s. It is a park located at the end of the boulevard we had seen last night, and we wanted to walk from the park down the boulevard. The park is excellent – there are still-flowering trees, well manicured lawns, monuments, a (currently turned off) fountain, and a huge building that may have been a palace at one point, but today was hosting a convention on power (of the electrical kind, not the kingly kind). The main park section was open and gave great views all the way down to the river.

We stopped by a huge monument to the man who helped rebuild Lisbon after most of it was destroyed after a 1755 earthquake. It also had a fountain that was turned off. I’m not sure if the fountains get turned off from thrift or fear of freezing, but it was a small shame that there was no water in the ones we saw.

The boulevard was very pleasant, heavily lined with trees and shops. We took advantage of the latter by swinging in to a cafe to buy a hot chocolate for me so we would have a legitimate reason to use the bathroom. Rest stops like that are surprisingly important when touring, so you need to be strategic about them. Never pass up a free WC!

Mer started our official walking tour with a slight non-walking cheat – she took the funicular (uphill train) up to the Bairro Alto area above the main town. Dubbs and I walked up because we got tired of waiting for the tram and wanted to keep moving so things did not stiffen up from inaction. Portugal is built on and around seven hills, and so there are neighborhoods to explore that require changing elevation.

The Bairro Alto funicular stopped at a park at the top with great views of lower Lisbon and the bay. The very best viewpoint was under construction and so was fenced off, but it still had “a pleasant aspect,” as it were. We wandered the hill neighborhood until we came to a former monastery that had been converted to a beer hall. The inside walls were covered in tiles depicting scenes (the older ones dedicated to God, the newer ones dedicated to beer), and it seemed like an ideal place to have lunch.

After the earthquake of 1755, the town was rebuilt, but the town left the ruins of a convent intact as a monument, and this was our next destination. They have also added a small archaeology museum that is eclectic, to say the least, with religious objects saved from monasteries, to a small library, to three mummies, to a display on excavations of a nearby mound. The real jewel was the convent, though. The ribs of the vaulted ceiling held up only sky, and it was hauntingly beautiful. Meredith pointed out accurately that she loved how the place inspired an awed hush – people were talking in low tones, if at all.

Since Lisbon is situated on some serious inclines, people have designed ways to deal with elevation. The funiculars are an obvious choice, and have been around since the late 1800s. They also have multiple elevators, including an iron one built around 1900. It is reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower, and in addition has an observation deck on top of the elevator shaft, which is accessed by a tightly winding spiral staircase. Since it was free to Lisboa Card holders, I went up, even though I knew I probably would not like the height. I was right, but I did stay for about two minutes before beating a hasty retreat back down to the safety of the enclosed elevator level.

The top of the elevator is near a major shopping street, so we checked that out, which included a stop off at a gelato shop (Italian ice cream). The street itself had a few street performers and the cafes spilled out onto the street, so it was a festive place to walk down and back up.

We finished our walking tour by heading over to the Miradouro de Santa Catarina square, which also had grand views of the downtown. There was also a statue of a large humanoid monster that represented the Cape of Good Hope, which was treacherous. A small bronze man, representing Portuguese explorers, was staring it down along with a resident pigeon.

We made our way back to a funicular that we took down a long, gentle slope. Until the street seemed to disappear – the hill had suddenly gotten roller-coaster steep. It stopped at the bottom, and we found ourselves one block from the apartment, where we took advantage of it for a half-hour rest and snooze-fest before heading out on scenic walk number two around 4:30.

We headed back to the river and along it to Commerce Square. Since we had to pass under the huge arch on the land side of the square, and it was free on our Lisboa Cards, we decided to go up to the top of it. It was close to sunset, and the views were quite good, especially for being in the valley. There was a commanding view of the square, and the views of the shopping street behind the arch and surrounding areas were fine. We got to see the sculpture on top up close and appreciate how huge it is.

From the arch, we walked a short distance to an elevator, which took us up to a road, which after a short walk took us to another elevator, which emptied us out on a street which we could climb (up) to the castle. The castle and grounds were about to close, so we did not bother paying to go in, but we were able to wander inside the neighborhood inside the old walls, which is where the rich lived to be close to the king. Now it is filled with shops and restaurants and small homes of middle class people, which made it a good place to amble.

We left the ramparts behind, heading down through narrow streets. We lit upon a cute little square that had a restaurant with outdoor seating, so we had supper there. Mer asked for tap water to drink and the waiter shook his head no, but we laughed when at the end of the meal he brought Mer a small plastic bottle of spring water – it was very kind of him.

We were now at the top of the Alfama neighborhood, which is a cluster of houses and apartments that were not destroyed in the earthquake, and so the narrow, twisting streets still exist. We started from a pair of squares with excellent views of the valley, and then proceeded down stairs and streets, back down to the river. Mer then announced, at the unbelievably late hour of 8:00, that she had one more place to go see, so we found a Metro stop and took a couple of trains out to the Parque das Nacoes, a site where Lisbon hosed Expo 98 for 150-plus countries back in 1998.

But that is not what we saw when we came out of the train station. We were confronted with a large three-story mall, designed with nautical themes and flanked by luxury apartments that were shaped like sails. I was a bit surprised by Mer taking us to a mall, since she is not a shopper, but then she explained the mall and train station (which was funky with arches and tree-like supports) were both designed by a famous architect, who also designed the newest bridge in Venice, Italy, which we had seen.

We walked through the mall, and enjoyed the elevator, which had a TV monitor that gave you your elevation, and when we went below sea level by a few meters, it “plunged” us under the ocean on the screen. Nice touch for an elevator.

Behind the mall was the park, which is vast, and largely covered over by cobblestones and buildings from the Expo. We walked along the row of flags of the countries that had attended, then along the river, and ended near the new huge bridge across the Tagus. From there, we made our way back to the Metro, two trains to the central station, and by foot back home. The total walking for the day was about 29,700 steps, or 15.4 miles. It was also past 10:00. We were quite ready for bed.

After the great success of the Thanksgiving trip to Paris last year, we decided we should take another trip with our friend Ami (“Dubbs”). We looked long and hard at Barcelona, but in the end we could not get a direct flight there, so we started to look at alternatives. Amsterdam came up, but by far the cheapest flight was to Lisbon, Portugal. We decided that going somewhere none of us had ever been before was attractive, and the fact that Lisbon in late November tends to be in the high 60’s and low 70’s helped the decision along. Lisbon it was.

As always, we flew out of Toronto. Toronto is a bit of a pain due to the the six-hour drive, but the cost of airline tickets is about half that of tickets out of any U.S. airport, and they have lots of direct flights to Europe, which we prefer; it reduces complexity when you don’t have to worry abut connecting flights.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:15, so I figured three hours at the airport (in case security was backed up), a six-hour drive, and two extra hours for traffic or a backup at the Canadian border. So, we got up at 7:00 am and Dubbs picked us up at 10:00 am. We were off! We made good time, even with stopping for a quick lunch, and so we got to the border slightly ahead of schedule. We got in line, but when we were second to go, the line stopped moving, and then they eventually closed our lane. Happily, Dubbs is a…persuasive…driver, and we got over to the next lane, and so got through the border in under twenty minutes total.

There were no traffic issues, and so we were parked and unloading by 4:00, right on schedule. We took the train to the airport, walked up to the counter to see about checking bags, and discovered that they could not take bags until three hours before the flight, or 5:15. Ooops. We found chairs and puttered around for an hour, and then checked our bags.

The security line looked long, but then I realized it was just a back-up for the first checkpoint, where they check your passport and boarding passes. They checked mine, and then asked me to step aside for a random chemical swab test, so all three of us waited for them to do the test, which I passed. Being Canadian, the security person was very polite, and then told us to take the NEXUS (pre-approved) fast lane through security. We breezed past a half-hour wait (or more).

As a result, we got to out gate at 6:00, a little over three hours early. These things happen when you travel with a Riordan. We grabbed supper, and then sat near the gate, reading and grading papers. On top of our being there early, the flight got in to Toronto late, so our outgoing flight was delayed by about an hour. I guess we could have slept in until 7:15 instead of 7:00.

The flight was less than half full, so after we were in the air I got to try stretching out across a middle row of three seats to try to sleep. It turns out that folding a six-foot frame into a four-foot space is challenging, especially when the seats are designed as seats and not as a bed. Still, I was able to sleep fitfully for about four hours of the six-and-a-half-hour flight. The flight itself was a tad bumpy a couple of times, but it was fine and smooth most of the time.

We got good views of the coast as we flew in, and the land was splashed with sunshine. We knew it was supposed to be warm sunshine, but it is hard to process that when you leave Toronto in a forty-degree rain. The palm trees we saw outside the airport helped convince us.

We had to wait over forty minutes for the airport bus to take us downtown, which was a bit of a drag, since we knew it was delaying our napping time. As we got on the bus, Dubbs accidentally whacked a woman in the nose with her backpack, and in the ensuing apologies, we got to chatting with the whacked woman, who turned out to be a nice older woman from Bath, England. It was an odd way to meet someone, but she was a lot of fun to chat with.

We got off the bus in a large square right on the huge tidal river of the city, the Tejo (Tagus) River. It is wide enough in Lisbon that I thought it was a small bay. We made our way to our apartment for the week, about a ten-minute walk, and grabbed a three-hour nap. Mer wanted a quick shower afterwards, so we were ready to go explore Lisbon around 5:00.

Mer wanted to follow a walking tour laid out in our Lisbon tour guide, which was written by the always-present Rick Steves. That got us started back in the square facing the river, just at sunset, overlooking the huge bridge across the water, and with the Brazil-like Christ statue looking down over the town from the hill on the far side. It was spectacular. Lisbon agreed – the place was packed, but in a low-key, taking-it-easy sort of way. We walked along the river to get to the real start of our walking tour, the huge Commerce Square.

Commerce Square was a main entrance to the city from the river at one point, and the square is the biggest we saw today, but the people of Lisbon do not hang out in it much. There was activity, with cafes and taxi stands and bus stops and such, but it was not a place people were lingering. There was a packed restaurant sitting on one corner, and as we were getting ready to leave the square, I saw a cafe. We checked it out as a place to eat, and it was very agreeable – good food and lots of outside seats facing the square. We loved sitting outside on November 19th. Life seems very good when you are eating outside on a European square.

After supper, the tour continued. We walked up the main shopping district, which is pedestrian only, and we saw several street performers, including a man playing musical saws, and an excellent cello player. We grabbed some dessert from a store, and ate it on the steps of a church on a small square just off the shopping district. We crossed a couple of more good-sized squares, got to see the Moorish-inspired facade of the train station, ducked into a very swanky hotel where we got to hear a piano player in the lounge, and finished off walking along part of the Lisbon imitation of Paris’ Champs-Élysées – a large boulevard lined by shops and trees. After that, we headed back home, a walk of about a mile, getting back around 8:00. Getting in a four-hour touring day on the first day, especially with the sunset and dinner on the square, was wonderful.

There is always a certain amount of relief when I get to drop off a rental car, especially when the car company employee says everything is okay, and especially when I’d refused insurance coverage thinking my credit card covers it (I checked today, and it does, but I was nervous about it). So today we turned the car in at the Glasgow Airport, and became dependent on public transportation and feet again. Not a bad thing in Glasgow – the streets are not anywhere I would want to drive, thank you.

We got a bus to the central bus station and walked the five minutes or so to where we were staying the night – the Pipers’ Tryst Hotel, which is attached to the National Piping Centre. It was a little before noon and the room was not ready, but they told us it would be in fifteen or twenty minutes, and that we had free admission to the bagpipe museum in the building. Naturally, we did that. It is really small, but well done, especially if you like the pipes. Meredith and I got a couple weak and sick bleeps out of a practice chanter (the melody part with no bag attached), and I got the drones going on a full set of pipes, but not the melody chanter – it would not sound at all; maybe it was broken or there was a valve I was missing. Still, good photo op.

We checked into our room and set off, stopping at the Glasgow Art School cafe for lunch, where Meredith reminded me of her dominance in ping pong, 10-3. After lunch, we walked over to the Tenement House Museum, which is very interesting and unusual. Tenement, in this case, refers to a style of shared building, and did not mean it had to be a slum. This house seemed to be fairly middle class, with four rooms. What was unusual in this case is that the woman who lived in the tenement home lived there for over fifty years, and she changed almost nothing in the rooms and kept many of her documents and such – so much so that when the flat was opened up after she died, which was after a ten-year stay in the hospital, they found canned jams in the cupboard, some dating from 1929. Somehow, a woman saw through the dust and mildew of ten years of the place’s being empty, and she bought the place, cataloged everything, and then sold it to the Scottish National Trust as an example of early twentieth century life in Glasgow. The place was so untouched that they only had to put gas lighting back in to replace the electric lights installed in 1960. It was an interesting museum based around a very normal working woman and her home.

We got all-day passes for the subway, which is in a ring around Glasgow, and it is a bit cramped – I hit my head while standing in the car. But it got us near the Kelvingrove Museum, which is Glasgow’s eclectic museum. It has a Spitfire airplane from WW 2, dinosaur bones, various taxidermy animals, ancient Egyptian items, sculpture, paintings, and lots of Scottish art and history. Their art museum has a number of individual works by great impressionists, and I was impressed. Their most famous piece is Dali’s Christ of St. John of the Cross. It is a fantastic work, but there was public outcry at the 8,200 pounds spent on it in 1952. It is now estimated to be worth 60 million pounds, and put the Kelvingrove on the international map. I had not known it was attacked by a man in 1961, which resulted in much of the bottom section’s being torn. I actually could not tell – the restoration went very well.

There was also a comic art collection special exhibit going on, but sadly, by the time we went to check it out, we realized that it cost seven pounds each, and we only had about forty-five minutes until the museum closed. Next time.

After supper, we finished our Glasgow evening with a thirty-minute walk back to the hotel. We like walking in cities so that we can see them at a slower pace. We detoured through a pedestrian area just to see people out and about. The weather was perfect, and people were just milling around, shopping and eating and hanging out.

That wraps up Scotland for this trip. Our flight is at 8:30 am tomorrow, so the only sights we will see will be the bus stop and airport. The trip was a wild success, with only a few bumps along the way and with mostly good weather (once we figured out to carry up to three layers of clothes with us). My goal of not being too hot was met, and it was nice to be in a country where I could speak to the locals, mostly. Glasgow has a bit of an accent.

Here is to future travels! Let’s see where we go….

She burst into tears suddenly, fleeing out the door onto the moor, her blond hair wildly blowing in the wind. Her egress was noted by the ominous figure watching from the window above. He moved suddenly, motivated by concern: what if the cats got out? He pursued the retreating figure, his dark form standing out starkly against the fading light.

She fled, her heart torn in two – the man following her was the cause and cure of her pain. She longed both to embrace him and to slap him, the beginning and ending of every bitter thought.

“Waaaaaaaa!” she cried suddenly as she tripped and fell into the fell foul fen. As she struggled to free herself, he appeared, silhouetted against the failing sun. He reached down to her, throwing his arms about her, and lifted….and dropped her a moment later as his back went out.

Meredith has been delighted to see little bits of moor over the last few days, since so much English literature takes place on moors. Despite my protests that nothing good ever happens on a moor in a book, she still said she was able to see herself as a heroine in one of the works she teaches since she could now visualize the moor. As we left the Glencoe area, we drove through amazing mountainous territory, emerging onto a huge moor on the other side. Thus was born the above narrative as I tried to work out what our novel would look like.

We drove on for an hour and forty minutes, arriving on the southern tip of Loch Lomond in the town of Balloch. Why Balloch? First and foremost, they had a room at a good B and B in town. But I also wanted to be close to Glasgow (thirty minutes away) so the car return tomorrow could be easier, and I wanted to see Loch Lomond because of the song that mentions it (the high-road/low-road one). Those seemed good enough reasons to me, despite the fact that Mer’s guidebook said there was nothing much to see here.

Ha! We saw a lot of the town! Multiple times! Because the map I was given was stylized without street names. And house numbers are rare in town – most houses are named instead. So it took several tries and a long, roundabout way to make it to our first stop, the Loch Lomond Bird of Prey Centre. To be honest, I thought we might get to see hawks and falcons in flight, but not in this case. There were about thirty birds of prey, but they were all tethered to the ground by a long lead on the leg. They seemed fine with that, and it allowed us to see them up close, which was really cool. They had many different types of owls, which was very cool; owls are fun to watch. They also had some hawks, and falcons, and buzzards (not vultures!), and one gorgeous golden eagle. She was beautiful. We got to listen to the owner/trainer chat about the birds some, and it was clear he loved the birds.

By then, we were hungry, so we went looking for a cafe we had been told was near the base of the hill that held the castle. Once again, the map did not come to our aid. So, after wandering for thirty minutes, we gave up and went into a regular restaurant for a very late lunch. After a quick trip back to the B and B to check on some things, we decided to go find the castle itself, which is in the middle of a huge and well-kept park. The castle is small, but tidy, and it overlooks the loch and has extensive grounds, and great benches for sitting. So, while we were sitting at a castle overlooking Loch Lomond, a bagpiper came along and started playing, just for the heck of it (not busking). How is that for a bonnie Scottish moment?

We strolled back down the hill and along the loch, and checked out the boat cruise schedule. We had just made it for the 7:00 “sunset” cruise, which lasted a little over an hour. It seemed a mellow way to get to see the loch, so off we went. There was occasional narration from some famous historian, but the narration ran more or less along the lines of “people with too much money built huge homes here in the 1700s and 1800s” followed by “people with too much money now play golf here.” Still, seeing the mountains over the loch was worthwhile, and we outlasted everyone on deck as they fled the cold and wind, so we had he deck to ourselves for the return trip.

We got supper at a restaurant that our hostess had recommended, and it was a cozy spot, except for the MacMontezuma that hit me just after I ordered. Sadly, Mer ate most of her meal alone.

That wraps up my turn of being in charge. Meredith has Saturday in Glasgow, and then we fly home really early on Sunday morning. Lord willing, we will be home by supper on Sunday, but first we have Glasgow to explore.

The musical Brigadoon is about a Scottish island that appears out of the mist once every hundred years. Gazing out the window this morning, Mer commented on how she could see why Brigadoon was set in Scotland.

When we woke up, we could not see across the loch because of mist and fog, but by the time we went down for breakfast, we could see a little ways up the mountains on the other side. By the time we were finished with breakfast, they were fogbound again, and settled into a fog ceiling about fifty feet off the water. My plans of going hiking today clearly (foggily?) had to be changed.

Our hotel had a binder in our room that included things to do in the area. One item caught my eye – “The Hollow Mountain” – a hydro-electric station built one kilometer into a mountain. I think Mom had told me about it, or one like it, so away we went. It was about an hour away, and the fog lifted quite a bit, so that by the time we got to the station, Cruachan, you could make out most of the low-lying mountains, and an on-and-off rain was falling. Not that that matters much underground.

Cruachan was the first pump-and-generate station in the world, finished in 1965. They can bring power online in less than two minutes to meet high demand times. The do that by using water stored in an upper loch that falls down into the mountain to run turbines, and then empties into the lower loch. The station can operate for up to fourteen hours straight if needed. Then, when the demand for power goes down (like after midnight), the station buys cheap excess power to pump the water back up to the upper lock to be used at next peak demand times. For comparison, it takes up to eight hours to bring oil or coal plants online, whereas if the Cruachan technicians think demand may be coming, they can pre-spin the turbines and have additional power online in forty seconds. Nifty.

Our tour took us into the mountain on a bus, while a cute-accented Scottish woman talked all nerdy to me. I need a moment. We got to look into the main chamber where the top of the spin-up generators are for pumping the water back up; the actual turbines are below those, thirty feet below where we could see. The space was enormous, and took fifteen hundred men at a time five years to excavate it, all by compressed air and dynamite, in twelve-hour shifts. For the noise, dirt, hard labor, and dangerous environment, they were paid about twenty times the average wage, but still, most men quit after eighteen months.

We grabbed lunch at the cafe, and so we spent over two hours at the plant – thirty minutes for the tour, and the rest in looking at the small museum and then lunch. When we came out, the fog had lifted, but there was a steady heavy mist/light rain falling. We headed back to the hotel, and as we got close, the rain stopped. It looked as if my hike might be back on! Because of my last-minute booking, the hotel was able to accommodate me for two nights, so we had to move rooms. The new room has sliding-glass doors looking out over the loch, so the room with a view got even better.

On to the hike! Because the fog had been moving in and out, I decided on a hike called “The Study” which was an easy hike along the valley floor near Glencoe. It was supposed to have great views of the valley, and if the fog was obscuring the mountains, then we would have a nice walk. It was past the Signal Rock walk from yesterday, on the same road, so we drove on. And on. And on. I was looking for signs, and finally I pulled into a pull-off and saw a sign. “The Devil’s Staircase.” This was actually my first choice for a hike, but it was labeled as “strenuous” in the guidebook and topped out at eighteen hundred feet, which would be a drag if the top was in a cloud. But sometimes fate hands you a different hike, and who was I to question that, especially in a country where turning the car around can take three miles?

The fog and rain were still holding off when we started the hike. At first, the path was wearisomely muddy; it would be unpleasant to trudge up in mud for an hour. But the mud was replaced with gravel in only a few hundred yards, so we were in business. The path wound uphill next to a mountain stream, and that was pleasant. The incline was noticeable, but not bad. For the first two thirds of the path. Then it got steeper. But the path wound back and forth, and we took frequent breaks to look around, so it was manageable. We had the path mostly to ourselves – there were two other groups behind us, but the relative solitude made each turn feel like a discovery. The mist swirled around the upper reaches of the surrounding mountains, which made it feel a little magical. We laughed when we saw a small slate sign proclaiming “Shop – 1500 m.” I wasn’t not sure why someone would haul that up the hill for a joke, but they did. And then we saw a sign again at 500 m. and again at 200m. And then there were two tents set up with an honor-system store of various snacks, each one pound apiece, with a tupperware container for the money. Honest folks, these hikers.

The views from the top were grand. We could see a new ridge of hills, and the path continued on for several miles to the next town. Since our car was behind us, we were turning around, but we lingered at the top for a bit, until it began to look as if the rain was coming. We walked down, walking in and out of variously light and hard mist, so that by the time we got to the car, we both looked as if we were covered in dew. For a day that had started out with scrambling for new plans, the hike was a huge success.

We went home to our swanky room, and did something we have never done – ordered room service. It was just too good a view to give up. After supper, Mer flicked on the TV and we got hooked on a show about Welsh and Scottish castles under King Edward I of England around 1300. The nerd runs deep in these two. Mer then got caught up in watching Men in Black, so I wandered to the lounge to type up Ye Olde Bloge. A day of healthy mind and healthy body.

Skye set our new northerly position record – Skye sits at the same longitude as the southern Alaskan peninsula. We turned south today, heading to the Glencoe area, which also constituted our trip’s longest drive to accommodations, taking about four hours to get here. My brother Shannon had insisted we go to Glencoe, so we did. Of course, since I do these things on whims and last minute, the only hotel I could find was about $150 a night.

That turned out to be an okay thing, as we finally pulled in to the hotel in the afternoon, and it was sitting right on a seawater loch, Loch Linnhe, in the small town of Kentallen. Our room looks right out over the water to mountains all around. Not bad. In fact, after just an hour or so here, I booked us a second night, realizing that we would not fit in everything I wanted to see and do. Looks as if Shannon made a decent recommendation.

After lunch and our getting situated, it was about 4:00 when we finally got going on seeing the sites. That is late, of course, but Scotland is helpful with daylight until 10:00 or later, so we made good use of the time. We drove over to nearby Glencoe, which is dramatically surrounded by mountains. This greater area actually has Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, at 4,400 feet; there are plenty of hills around.

We drove past the town to a parking area where there was a short hike I wanted to do, Signal Rock and An Tor. Mer’s guidebook had it marked as scenic, and it was right at the foot of the Three Sisters mountains, as well as another one. I figured Signal Rock would have great views, so I consulted the handy map in the parking lot, which showed three hikes, and set off on the black trail, which Meredith pointed out that her book said was strenuous. Phah! It led to Signal Rock! Up we go!

The trail started off well, crossing a bridge over a beautiful river that ran through a gorge with the mountains just beyond. It climbed up into a dense woodland area, and eventually the black trail split off from the lesser and unimportant blue and yellow trails. Of course, as befits the dignity and importance of the black trail, the trail went from a wide gravel trail to a deer path climbing steeply uphill, promising grand views. We did get them, actually – all along the trail we had the mountains looming over us, and it was not hard to take a breather after each steep section, pausing to look around.

Finally, after a fair amount of up, I saw a small side trail that led to a rock. This MUST be Signal Rock! I happily strode up to it! All eight feet of it. Densely surrounded by trees. Huh. Maybe this was just a false Signal Rock. The real one must be further along the trail. Off we go! We did come to an opening in the forest that gave almost full views of the Three Sisters, so that was a rest stop for us. The trail went down for awhile before climbing again, which was promising, before falling again, which was not. Eventually we rejoined the blue trail, and I saw a sign for Signal Rock, pointing back the way we’d come. The underwhelming rock must have been it, but at least the hike was great. We got back to the parking lot, and I looked at the map to see where we had gone. And there it was – Signal Rock. On the blue trail.

Off we went again, across the bridge, up the hill, spurning the black trail and staying on the wonderful blue trail. This was easier going, and it also started going up. Great sign! We went on for about fifteen minutes, and started hearing German-speaking voices ahead. Great sign! Tourists! We walked up to an information placard and a huge rock – the placard explained this was indeed Signal Rock, and we could climb it using the stairs at the back! The Germans were already on the rock! Yes!

The rock was indeed huge, and the stone stairway was cool, and we made it to the top. To see six Germans and their dog, and lots and lots of trees. Surrounding Signal Rock. The Germans said hello and made their way down. After a minute or so of being swarmed by midges in the (first-time) breeze-free area, we followed them, and walked back to the parking lot. During this return walk, I noticed that for the first time of my being in Scotland, I was sweating. A first! The walk was still pretty, and at least we found Signal Rock.

We headed north to the tourist mecca of Fort William, the second-biggest town of the Highlands, with about ten thousand people. We happily found parking and made our way to the Crannog Pier, where there was a seafood restaurant and a place for boat tours. I wanted to catch the 7:30 evening tour, which is accurately not a sunset tour since the sunset is so late. But the evening sun is very pretty here, and it promised to give us great views of Ben Nevis, which towered over the back of the town. There was even a chance that we would see seals, otters, or porpoises.

We got on board and headed out on a ninety-minute cruise. Having been sweating less than two hours before, I was now wearing four layers of shirts and jackets. That did the trick. The captain announced we were making a beeline for the right side of the loch further down. It turned out that the cruise offered a good view of the Jacobite Steam Train, which is sometimes known as the Hogwarts Express, having filled that role in the Harry Potter movies. Since Meredith teaches tons of Potter-crazed fans, this was an exciting prospect, if we could make it in time.

The scenery kept changing delightfully, with the loch all around, and different mountains coming into view, including Ben Nevis as we looked behind. We passed a campground on the right, and we waved at the family strolling the beach. We got past the campground to the train tracks, and we waited for a couple of minutes before we saw steam plumes in the distance. We had made it, and we got our picture of the Hogwarts Express.

The rest of the cruise was pleasant, with calm seas. We never did see any wildlife other than sea birds, but the surrounding views made up for that. As we returned to Fort William, Ben Nevis dominated the skyline, but some bare-rock peaks, shining in the evening sun, came into view as well. We also got to see a sea loch that marked the entrance to the Caledonian Canal that crosses central Scotland.

We got off the boat and grabbed supper on the main shopping street before getting back to the car and heading back to Kentallen. Meredith got a delightful surprise – she teaches The Great Gatsby, and in the book, a major symbol is a green light at the end of a dock. From our room, there was a visible green light across the bay. It was on a buoy, but to Meredith it was Daisy’s dock and she was happy to have found it. In Scotland.

[The internet here is verrrryyyyy slow, so more pictures later.]

I decided to continue the guidebook-recommended northern loop of the Trotternish Peninsula, since our hostess also recommended it. Much of the initial driving was on a single-lane road, but there were plenty of pull-offs, so that was never an issue. I think I got out less than five miles before we pulled off to look around at the mountains. It was also very quiet. Apart from the bleats of the sheep in front of us and the very occasional car going by, there was nothing to hear. It was very peaceful, and we stayed there for about ten minutes, watching sheep and enjoying the sunshine.

We continued around the drive, stopping once more by the ocean where a cliff towered over the road. Again, it was quiet, and we stayed for five or ten minutes, before heading over to the Skye Museum of Island Life, a little museum of seven thatched cottages depicting how people of Skye lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Again, as we have seen several times on this trip, life was hard and not all that different from over one thousand years ago.

The museum had one “big” house where the parents and ten children lived in three rooms. This house was actively lived in until 1954. There was a small barn, used to keep the milk cow warm during the winter, a weaver’s hut, a blacksmith’s hut, a social/music house, a general store, and a couple of other buildings. Many of the houses had lots of information about the people of island, including religion, farming, fishing, and such. Fishermen were very superstitious people, thinking it bad luck to see a woman, a minister, or a redheaded person before going out to fish. The farming (“crofting”) was incredibly hard work where the ground was often too rugged to be worked by horses, and where it could be worked by horses, the tenants usually could not afford a horse. Meredith’s summary of the exhibit was, “We are soft.” That is about right. Oh, and Mer’s Scottish roots showed up in an older picture of a woman weaving a basket: the woman looked exactly like Mer’s mom did when she was young. It was eerie.

Up behind the museum was a cemetery, and we like touring cemeteries in beautiful places, and this one had a famous monument in it – to Flora MacDonald, who helped Bonnie Price Charlie escape from the government after his defeat at Culloden. Her grave is marked by a huge Celtic cross, which was interesting, but there were lots of other graves too, of course. One interesting feature was that many of the gravestones mentioned first-person perspective – “my mother” or “our parents” – and the stone usually mentioned who put it up in addition to whom it memorialized.

Next stop was the Fairy Glen near Sheadar, which was wonderfully bizarre. Mer had wondered if we would know when we got to the Glen. It was pretty obvious. One minute we were in beautiful Skye countryside, and the next we were in a world where you could see the possibility of fairies living here. There were dozens of conical mounds, traversed by sheep paths, which gave each “hill” a terraced effect. We got out and hiked over several of the fairy towers; we had never seen anything quite like them before. We passed on attempting to climb the largest one, the top of which looked to be very difficult to reach. We had a good time, but did not see any fairies.

That ended the scenic loop, but on the recommendation of our hostess, we drove over to Dunvegan, to Dunvegan Castle, which has been continuously lived in for over eight hundred years. We got a very late (3:00) lunch at the cafe, and then we wandered the gardens. I was car-weary, and a little tired of touring buildings, so a quiet walk in pretty gardens was perfect. We spent about an hour in the various sections of the grounds. The castle is well situated on the sea with hills and mountains about.

I decided we had time to drive to the southern part of the island, to the beginning of the Cuillin Hills, which are pretty much mountains. They are difficult to hike and can be dangerous, since they are steep and remote, but there is one hike that is easy and fairly safe, and stayed with our earlier theme – we hiked the thirty-minute Fairy Pool Trail. That walks you right up to the Cuillin Hills, and does so on mostly flat ground. You also get to walk next to a small river that has several waterfalls and pools. We hiked up to near the top of the pools, and we just sat there for about half an hour. I dipped my foot in the water, and it was not so cold as I’d expected – by no means bath water, but it did not make my foot hurt. The sound of the water was soothing, and the looming hills were very impressive. This is probably my favorite spot in Scotland to date.

We walked back to the car and drove the thirty minutes to Portree, where we got supper. We also got take-out dessert to eat on a bench back at the B and B, looking out to sea with the mountains to our left and the Outer Hebrides on the horizon. This is the kind of day that can spoil you.

Meredith and I grabbed breakfast back at the SoCoCo cafe again; it was cheaper than eating at the pub, and it was a good and scenic walk. Plus, I knew the day was going to be car-heavy, so I did not mind the extra walking. After breakfast, we walked back to the pub and checked out and headed westward, with our destination being the large Hebridean island of the Isle of Skye.

We got to drive along about twenty miles or so of Loch Ness. The loch is very pretty, but we did not see any monsters, and we must have avoided the most touristy towns, because we only saw one advertisement for a museum about the creature. The roads were fairly busy, though, so I can only assume the tourist trade is well.

During the drive westward, the landscape got more and more dramatic. There were more and more mountains, but these were different from the ones we saw in the center of Scotland. The western mountains were either green or rocky – there did not seem to be the patchwork pattern of heather we had seen earlier.

Close to Skye is a very pretty castle called Eilean Donan on a loch that is surrounded by hills. It is one of the most photographed castles in Scotland because of the landscape. The current castle itself only dates from the early twentieth century. It still seemed worth a stop. It seems we were not the only ones to think so, since approximately ninety-seven percent of Scotland’s tourists were there. There were four tour buses, and the three parking lots for cars were almost full – I felt lucky to find a spot, and this was at noon on a Monday. Yikes.

It was very pretty, and we wandered around the shore near the castle for about twenty minutes, with the strains of a bagpipe playing in the background (a bagpiper in full traditional kilt, but with a nose ring, which made us smile). It was a beautiful day, and it was good to get out of the car, but I decided against paying for access to the castle because of the crowds, and so we could get to Skye more quickly.

From the castle, it was a short drive over a very cool bridge out to Skye. Once on the island, my goal was to get lunch in Portree, the island’s biggest town (with about 2,500 people), which was still about forty-five minutes away – it is a big island. It seems as if the three percent of the tourist population not at the castle was chilling out in Portree. Again, parking was an issue, but we found a spot in a large lot right by the harbor. We had lunch in a nice cafe, and then we walked to the end of town, and up the town’s largest hill, where there is a park at the top. The views were spectacular, so we sat on a bench and ate the dessert we had brought with us. There seemed to be several small sailboats out near the harbor, so we watched them for about half an hour. We think it was a group learning to sail, as there was a small motorboat patrolling among the sailboats, and they all put in at roughly the same time at the same building in the harbor. Near to the park is a small tower that is open, and we climbed it, which gave us excellent views of the harbor, but I think the bench view in the park was the better place to see things.

Our B and B was in Staffin, a small village north of Portree. Mer’s guidebook recommended a drive along the route we had to take, so we were happy to make several stops along the short drive. The landscape north of Portree is beautiful. You can usually see the sea, and there are mountains and lochs, and not many buildings – it feels very remote.
Our first stop was at the Old Man of Storr, a rock formation that is very dramatic. There is a huge column of rock that fell off a larger cliff and embedded itself in the ground. You can walk up to it, but the path is very steep, so going is slow and we had to be at our B and B about 5:00. My compromise was to go about halfway, to a ridge where we could clearly see the cliffs. The bonus was we also could see around us toward the sea, with rolling hills, a loch, and mainland mountains all visible. It was hard to know where to look.

The next stop was at the Lealt Gorge, which is a gorge carved out where a river empties into the sea. Since I am afraid of heights, I did not spend too much time on the path near the gorge, but we walked along the path to the end, and it was a pleasant place to stroll. The path ended above the sea, looking down on a small factory that had processed clay for industrial use until 1960. The only way to ship the product was by, um, ship, since there was not road. People hauled the chalky clay three miles overland to the factory to dry it. Again, I am grateful my heaviest lifting is typically my lunch.

We checked in to our B and B in Staffin, and we love it. Meredith described our hostess as “our Scottish aunt,” and the view from our two windows is toward the sea and toward the nearby mountains. It is probably the most scenically placed B and B in which we have ever stayed. We grabbed supper in the village’s community center (one of only two places to eat in Staffin), and the food was excellent.

Based on both our guidebook and our hostess’ recommendation, we drove up the narrow road to the nearby Quiraing mountain pass. We had to negotiate several sheep in the roads, and we met two cars which required pulling off, but it was a pretty drive, and the views from the top were amazing. It was another place where it was hard to know where to look. We could have walked up more, but the path was on a cliff side, so I was leery of that. Plus, the winds were very strong and cold – I was in short sleeves in the village, but was up to three layers up on the mountain, and was still worried I would get cold. The wind comes a’ sweepin’ ‘cross the mountains.

That ended the evening. We drove back to the B and B, where our hostess made me a hot chocolate and gave us muffins while we sat in the sitting room. We have another full day tomorrow to explore the island, and the weather looks to be good again.