UK Part II and Ireland

After our time in Edinburgh, we drove northbound to visit the Highlands of Scotland. We booked four nights at an Airbnb – an old schoolhouse - just outside of Inverness. Inverness is considered the capital of the Highlands and provides a good base for seeing many of the great sites in the Highlands.

Inverness

On our first full day in Inverness, we went to visit Fort George, approximately 20 km northeast of the city. When we arrived, we bought tickets and it just so happened that a free tour was just starting so we joined in. This ended up being a real bonus since our guide provided some great history on the fort as well as some good stories (never let the truth get in the way of a good story he would say in his thick Scottish accent). After the uprising in the mid 1700’s by the Jacobites (a group of rebels looking to restore the senior line of the House of Stuart to the British throne), the British Government built this large, intimidating fort to quell and further rebellions. It would turn out, after the battle of Culloden in 1746, where the Jacobites were demolished by the British, no further rebellions would follow. Today the fort is still active and there were soldiers present while we were there. The fort served an important role in WWI as a means of training, organizing, and sending soldiers to war in France.

After Fort George we wanted to check out the nearby Culloden Battlefield. We had only intended to check it out quickly, but when we got there, we saw that it was quite a bit more elaborate than we had expected. We decided to join a tour and then check out the interactive museum afterwards. Our guide explained the history of the battle and all about Bonnie Prince Charlie’s “god given” right to restore the Stuart lineage to the throne. We walked along the field where there were large rows of flags marking the battle lines of the English and the Jacobites. We passed old stones with Scottish clan names – MacGregror, Campbell, etc., - where it is believed that the mass graves were dug to hold the bodies of the dead. As we walked the ground, thundering storm clouds surrounded us threatening rain, but luckily it held off for us to finish the tour.

In the morning we got organized and drove to Glen Affric to do a hike. We drove along more very narrow roads (it is all single lane with little cut-outs every once in a while, for passing) until we reached the start of our walk around Loch Affric. The beginning of the walk was very pleasant and easygoing along generally flat terrain. As time went on, the heat started to get to us. One thinks of Scotland as a place that is cooler and rainy – this was not the case. At one point I felt we were in a bit of trouble because we were all feeling exhausted and overheated. Fortunately, there were plenty of freshwater streams along the way to stay hydrated (above and beyond the water that we brought with us), but the sun was pounding hard. At one point I looked up and several clouds had moved in, but the sun remained uncovered in a small section of blue sky, and we couldn’t get any reprieve from the heat (ironic I thought, this is usually quite the opposite at the cottage!). Within 15 minutes more clouds rolled in, and thundering skies surrounded us. It rained gently for an hour or so towards the end of the hike which was a relief. Besides the weather, the hike was incredible. Beautiful views of typical rocky and grass covered highland hills towering over the lake. The hike was 12 miles (19.2 km) – I was impressed that the boys were able to hang in there!

Paisley (Glasgow)

As part of our journey to Scotland, I wanted to check out the area where the Weir family came from many years ago. With my limited research, I determined that we came from the area surrounding present day Glasgow in Renfrewshire. In fact, there is a town called Bridge of Weir! So, we decided to find an Airbnb in the area that would be close by to visit some of the smaller towns (we didn’t have much interest in seeing Glasgow).

We visited Bridge of Weir in the morning to check it out, and of course to see the bridge. We parked the car, and we must have looked lost because a nice Scottish lady asked us if we needed help. We asked where the “Bridge” was and she didn’t seem to know which bridge to point us to (I had assumed that the bridge played some importance to the town, but apparently not). We found the bridge. It was a bridge – nothing remarkable. We continued walking around town for a little while, and then headed back home to grab some lunch. It was very muggy out and we were all feeling a little worn out, so we had a very lazy afternoon at home.

The following morning, we drove to Stirling – about 50 minutes away, located between Glasgow and Edinburgh – to check out the city and the castle. Since we had just seen the castle at Edinburgh, we had planned to see the castle from the outside and forego the entry tickets. However, when we arrived, there wasn’t much to see from the vantage point of being just outside the castle, so I inquired about tickets. The lady was very friendly and was able to give us a bit of a discount to make it worth our while. We hadn’t realized it at the time, but it was June 17th, and the celebration of King Charles’ birthday was on at noon. As we entered the castle, a marching band and all the royal pomp and circumstance were on display. The big show was the 21-gun salute where they shot off the canons (the same one used for the one o’clock gun timer in Edinburgh Castle the week before). The guns were so loud, but pretty awesome! Afterwards we spent a couple of hours touring around the castle. There were a lot of interactive activities and many of the rooms had a person dressed up in Scottish garb telling the story of that particular room (i.e., King’s Outer Room, etc.), which made it that much more interesting.

Afterwards we checked out the old stone bridge which replaced the wooden bridge that was involved in the famous Battle of Stirling Bridge. Wallace and de Moray lured the English across the bridge, splitting its army in two before launching an attack on those that had crossed the bridge. Those that crossed the bridge were surrounded by water on three sides and had nowhere to retreat (the bridge was too narrow to go back) and were slaughtered by the Scottish (Braveheart shows this battle somewhat differently, but some aspects were historically correct).

We also stopped by the “beheading stone” – an old stone with a cage around it atop a hill. The stone was - you guessed it – used to behead those who misbehaved. Living in the 1300’s was tough! We continued towards the William Wallace memorial (this was our “Braveheart” day). The memorial was a large tower on top of a hill. Fortunately, there was a free little shuttle bus that we took to the top (we just weren’t feeling the climb!). The tower comprised three floors and an upper viewing gallery. There was a total of 246 steps to the top via a very tight spiral stone staircase (similar to St. Stephen’s in Vienna and Sagrada de Familia in Barcelona). The views from the top were awesome – we could see Stirling Castle and the stone bridge where the English crossed the River Forth to their demise. Wallace and de Moray were standing in the very spot we were, watching as the English passed, awaiting the moment to give the attack order.

Each of the floors of the tower contained the history of the famous battle and they did a really good job of explaining how the events transpired. There was a display of weaponry, but the coolest of all was seeing Wallace’s actual sword from the battle. It was huge – approximately six feet long – which led historians to estimate his height to be somewhere around 6’7”. Wallace was a beast. Very satisfied with our day’s outings, we returned to our apartment for a nice home-cooked meal.

Liverpool

We booked two nights in Liverpool in Merseyside in a well-located Airbnb. Before going to our apartment, we first stopped by Penny Lane to take some photos. We were expecting it to be packed full of tourists, but it was much like any of the other streets in Liverpool. We stopped in at The Penny Lane pub for a drink and ended up chatting with one of the locals for a little while – he was an avid traveler and had even written a few books about his journeys. We went back to the apartment and then it started raining heavily – good timing! Since it was Father’s Day, we had planned on going for dinner. We found the closest restaurant which we could run to without getting too wet. It was a Brazilian rodizio restaurant – we sat and ate copious amount of meat until we were stuffed.

In the morning we got ready to do some Beatles touring. We stopped by the Cavern Club and then went to the Beatles museum. There were three floors, each covering a different period of their history. We followed along with the audio guide and found the whole experience fascinating. One thing that stood out were the St. Pepper’s costumes on display. On the left sleeve of Pauls’ jacket was an OPP badge. I had never noticed this before. Upon further research, I found out that there was a Canadian cop – Sgt. Randy Pepper – who was assigned to the Beatles for their 24-hour stint in 1966 at Maple Leaf Gardens. In the afternoon we went for a long walk along the waterfront and then went back to our place to have a quiet evening at home. We watched Braveheart with the kids for their first time - it was very cool to see all the references to place we had visited in Scotland.

Dublin

We drove to the port in Holyhead (Wales) to take the ferry over to Dublin. The car return was surprisingly easy since the rental kiosk was right at the entrance for the port. During our drive on the very narrow roads in England I had scraped a couple of branches which left a small mark on the side of the car, but fortunately they didn’t say anything about it (I really didn’t want to have to deal with the insurance in the case they were going to charge me).

Our Airbnb was on Bow St. in part of the former Jameson Distillery building. We were very well located, and it was easy to get around using the streetcars.

On the first full day we took the streetcar to the main part of town to O’Connell Bridge connecting North and South Dublin over the Liffey River. We followed along with the Rick Steeves’ audio guide learning all about Ireland’s struggles to free itself from British rule. It was a short and sweet tour up O’Connell Street with several statues of the key players in Ireland’s liberation. Near the top of the street was a 100-metre spire made of stainless steel.

We took the double decker bus towards the Guinness Storehouse at noon to begin a self-guided tour through the building. There were several floors explaining the entire brewing process and history behind Guinness. There was also a tasting room where we all tried very tiny pint glasses of Guinness! One of the more interesting floors was the marketing floor – hundreds of years of ads and iconic branding images. There was even a whistling oyster and a fish riding a bicycle. At the very top of the building was a large circular room (the Gravity Bar) providing 360° views of Dublin. We enjoyed a couple of pints and then went down a floor to one of the restaurants to enjoy a delicious bowl of seafood chowder.

Afterwards we continued with another Rick Steves’ tour of the South Bank, checking out several sites: an old church, plaque identifying an old Viking settlement, hotel with Handel played his inaugural version of the Messiah, and back down to the Liffey to explore the Temple Bar area. We of course had to check out the actual bar of the same name.

The following day we took the DART (intercity train) to Howth – a small village about 30 mins from Dublin on the coast to do a hike. The hike was incredible – it was approx. 12 kilometres and took us through all different types of landscapes with beautiful views of the Irish Sea. It was a beautiful sunny day and as we walked, we saw a wall of fog moving its way towards us. It was very cool to see it roll up the hill and overtop. We ended to hike back in the village and grabbed a well-deserved pint and a seafood snack – some calamari and freshly caught oysters. Yum!

As I publish this final post of our journey, we have just arrived back home after a long trip from Dublin. We are feeling a little jet lagged but glad to be back home to see family and friends after such a long time!

Stay tuned for one more post to sum up the trip.