31 August: Strong winds at the top of Lochnagar

Friday night we had dinner at home and then drove to Ballater Caravan Park. Lochnagar is only an hours drive from our house, but the boys love sleeping in a tent so we decided to spend the night at Ballater.

A fascinating thing about this caravan park is that it's located almost in the middle of Ballater - we could have walked from our tent to the shops in just five minutes.

Getting ready for the hike

After buying a map in Ballater, we headed off to Lochnagar, which is located in the Cairngorms National Park. 

The nature in this national park, or at least the part we were in, is a bit like Dovrefjell National Park in Norway. The mountains are fairly tall, but before you start climbing the summits you have gained quite a few metres during your hike on soft, gentle paths that are not very steep.

Interesting displays at the Lochnagar Visitor Centre

The Lochnagar Visitor Centre is in Glen Muick (a 'glen' is a valley), approx half an hour by car from Ballater, which is the nearest town. It turned out that the visitor centre had a very interesting display about the area and the animals that live in the area. After studying the displays for a while, we started our hike.

A walk in the park compared to Ben Nevis?

The start of our hike was a flat path across the wide and open glen, before the path took us through a tranquil wood and then gradually got steeper as we started the ascent of the Allt na Guibhsaich. The path was not very steep and easy to follow, so with the fresh memory of the hike up Ben Nevis, I expected this hike to be a walk in the park.

What I had forgotten to take into consideration was the motivation of our kids. There were far fewer people doing this hike and it did not take our boys long to start asking for snacks, drinks and other reasons to stop.

The mental challenge

It turned out that even though the physical challenge was much smaller this time, the parenting/motivational challenge was all the greater. I think the kids were less motivated simply by the fact that there were far fewer people to compete with. For the first half of the hike, both my husband and I had to work hard to motivate the boys and also try to avoid yelling at them in frustration over all the nagging and complaining.

One really good thing about our boys is that even though they may be hard to convince at the beginning of a hike (or a cross country skiing trip for that matter), they're really great once we've been through a few hiccups at the start. And that's what happened this time too, thank goodness.

The boys are such great walkers and in the end we hiked around 19 km in 8 hours, so it was a long day. But the boys were happy and singing by the time we were descending. But first back to our climb up the mountain.

It gets steeper, colder and wetter

The path got gradually steeper and after a sunny start to our hike, we started to get rain spells and gradually more wind. In between the rain spells, the sun was out and it was quite nice, though the wind was getting pretty fierce.

As we started to climb 'The Ladder', a steep boulder field that takes you to the plateau that you need to cross before climbing the summit, we experienced heavy rain and gusts of wind so strong it almost knocked us off our feet. Our youngest son actually fell once and I had to lean hard against the wind to avoid falling. There was no chance I was going to get my camera out in these conditions!

Cold and miserable

It seemed the strong winds were created by the shape of the mountain, because once we were at the top of 'The Ladder', the wind was less fierce and soon it also stopped raining.

By now the boys had become quite cold and were not very keen on taking off their waterproof clothing in order to put on more woolen underwear and fleece clothes. However, once this had been done, they were nice and warm again and their spirits were immediately lifted - it's no fun being cold.

It's true - it's tough at the top!

After we got past 'The Ladder', the next part of the hike was fairly easy, both physically and mentally. The final climb took us up to the windy summit of Lochnagar, the Cac Carn Beag.

At the summit it was almost impossible to stand upright, as you can tell from the picture I've included. We didn't stay long at the peak, but it was good fun leaning against the extremely strong wind. It really makes me humble when I experience the power of  nature like we did here.

A pleasant stroll back

For our hike down from Lochnagar, we chose a slightly different route from the one we took going up. The descent had no steep parts, just a smooth walk down to the lake of Loch Muick. On our way down we once again had to cross the narrow strip of forest, before reaching the lake.

The final part of our hike was along the shores of Loch Muick, where we followed the gravel road to the other end of the lake, where our car was parked.

On this pleasant stroll, where the kids were happily skipping and singing, we came across some fascinating caterpillars on the gravel. We spent some time studying them before proceeding on our idyllic walk back to the car. By now the atmosphere was so harmonic, you could almost hear Julie Andrews sing 'The hills are alive with the sound of music'.

25 August: Riding the 'Harry Potter train'

Crying children (not mine, thank goodness!) woke me up before 06:00 and I couldn't sleep after that. That's one of the charms of camping at a camp site.

The good thing about waking early was that we had no trouble making it to the 10:15 departure of  'The Jacobite Train', also known as 'The Harry Potter train'.

A ride through magnificent landscapes

At the train station in Fort William, a lot of people had turned up to wave us off, or so I liked to think. A more likely explanation was that they came to admire and take photos of the charming old steam train.

As the steam train left the station in Fort William, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and all colours in nature were strong and vibrant. We were ready to see Scotland from its best side.

We had four seats around a big, old-fashioned table. As soon as the train left the station I got out our bread, houmous, cheese, soft drinks, strawberries etc., preparing for a gourmet breakfast. I'm afraid the other passengers may not have liked all the clutter, but everyone was too polite to say anything so we were free to enjoy our food and the superb view.

Splendid views

The train ride started in Fort William, with a nice view of Ben Nevis and the other mountains in the area. We drove along the Firth of Lorn and past a beautiful old lock, before we once again were in a landscape with mountains and lochs that looked a bit like some parts of Western Norway.

The train ride included a stop at Glenfinnan station, a charming old station which was now the home to the West Highland Railway Museum. It was nice to have half an hour in the sun, it seemed a shame to spend such a warm, sunny day travelling. But on the other hand, nature would have been a little less vibrant and colourful on a grey and rainy day.

Visiting Mallaig

As we got closer to the coast, we started seeing beautiful white beaches and soon the landscape opened up to the great Atlantic Ocean and the islands of Rum, Eigg, Muck, Canna and Skye.

Our end station was Mallaig, where the train was 'refueled' with more coal. The passengers were allowed a couple of hours to take a look at the town and to get some food before returning to Fort William. We had dinner in a local pub, but this time the food was extremely bland - adding some spices would have helped a lot.

Back on the train again we once more enjoyed the scenery. With the soft huffing-puffing noises of the steam engine it was difficult to stay awake after dinner, but there was too much to see for me to allow myself to fall asleep.

Harry Potters viaduct

Despite all the splendid scenery, the highlight of the train ride was the magnificent 21-arched Glenfinnan viaduct. The viaduct was made famous by the Harry Potter movies, where we see the Hogwarts Express train cross the viaduct as Harry and his friends travel to start a new year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It doesn't take long to cross the bridge, but it is still the highlight as it is such a beautiful construction.

When we left the train in Fort William, we quickly got in our car and started the long drive home, This time we had a smooth ride and got home just in time for the boys' bedtime.

For more background information on the train ride and the viaduct, I have embedded a YouTube video from the BBC which was rather interesting and not too long.

24 August: Conquering Ben Nevis

We left home Friday afternoon and started our long drive to Fort William.

The long drive to Fort William

After driving for hours, the traffic suddenly stopped and for the next couple of hours there was very little movement. We later discovered that the main road had been closed and traffic was being diverted onto a smaller and rather busy road.

By the time we got past the traffic congestion, we decided to look for somewhere to spend the night, rather than driving for another hour or so to reach Fort William. Unfortunately this was a very busy weekend, so there was no vacancies and we had to keep going.

An unexpected stop

By now it was getting dark and I was following a curve on the road when the tyres on my left hand side briefly hit some gravel on the road shoulder, before returning to the solid road.

No big drama I thought, but a little later I started hearing a strange sound and soon it sounded like at least one flat tyre. As soon as possible I pulled over to inspect the damage, fearing two flat tyres and no spare tyre in our rental car. We were extremely relieved when we found out we had only one flat tyre AND a spare tyre in the back of the car.

It was getting late and the air was full of midges, so I let my husband be the hero who saved the day. While he changed tyres, I waited inside the car with the kids, listening to a great Norwegian audiobook about a boy called 'Muffe'. I did feel a bit bad about leaving him alone with the midges, so once he had changed the tyres I helped get our luggage back into the car again and then drove to the nearest hotel.

Unfortunately this hotel had no vacancies either, but they sent us to a nearby hostel and around 23:00 we went to bed in a dormitory with two fellow travellers.

When we woke the next morning we tried to be as quiet as possible, but it's a bit difficult with two young boys and a squeaky floor. However, when we left the two other people in our dormitory were still in bed, I guess that's a fairly good sign.

Climbing Ben Nevis

We arrived in Fort William just before 09:00 in the morning, where we bought a map of Ben Nevis and a compass, just in case. We then drove to the Ben Nevis Visitor Centre, where we packed our bags and set off to conquer the mountain.

Ben Nevis is 1344 metres high and the highest mountain in Great Britain. The hike is estimated to 7 hours excluding stops along the way. By the time we left the visitor centre it was almost 11:00, which meant we didn't have much time for stops along the way and with two boys we would probably also have a slower pace than indicated at the visitor centre and online. We have done quite a bit of hiking with the boys already, but this was the toughest climb we had ever done so I was not sure we would be able to make it all the way to the top.

As we started climbing Ben Nevis, the boys set off at a brisk pace, overtaking many of our fellow hikers. There was a steady flow of hikers aiming for the top - this hike reminded me a little of hiking Besseggen in Norway, one of Norway's most popular hikes, where you can experience queues across the narrowest part of the ridge if the weather is really nice.

The paths we followed gradually got steeper and steeper, allowing us to quickly gain altitude on our climb up Ben Nevis. The combination of warm and sunny weather and a rather steep climb, made us all warm and sweaty, so we had many small stops to drink water.

When we were half way up the mountain we enjoyed lunch and fantastic views of Fort William and the surrounding area. By now we had climbed quite a few metres from sea level and had to put on some more clothes.

As we continued climbing, we soon climbed into misty weather and limited visibility. This persisted all the way to the top, so we didn't get a very good view from the top of Ben Nevis. However, there were quite a few people at the top, enjoying their food just like we did, so we spent an hour up there talking to people we'd met along the way and cheering for newcomers.

A great hike for everyone

On our hike we wore good hiking boots, waterproof clothes in case of rain and warm clothes in case it got cold. We also had two backpacks with more clothes and lots of food and drink. Many of the other hikers had similar equipment, but we also saw people wearing jeans and high-healed boots, and people carrying their equipment in carrier bags. Some even walked without bags, so I don't know if they brought any food and drinks at all.

What impressed me during our hike, was the diversity of our fellow hikers. Some of the people we met were extremely obese and I was worried about the strain they put on their bodies as they steadily huffed and puffed their way up and down the mountain. One large man we met on his way down gave out a small groan for every step he took, it sounded like his muscles were causing him great pain. At the same time I thought it was wonderful that he did this hike, getting both exercise and fresh air, and hopefully also enjoying the magnificent views.

We overtook a couple of very charming big guys about half an hour before we reached the top. It was clear that the hike was very tough for them and I was really happy on their behalf when they reached the top almost an hour after us. You just have to admire such determination.
 

The Big Ben Nevis Triathlon

And speaking of determination: While we were climbing the mountain, we noticed people running past us with numbers on their backs. We later found out that this was The Big Ben Nevis Triathlon.

The triathlon starts with a 1,9 km sea swim, followed by a 90 km bike race and ends with a 21 km run up and down Ben Nevis. After having climbed Ben Nevis I was extremely impressed with these competitors, I felt no need to run - and I hadn't even been swimming and biking before my hike. 

A quick descent

Walking down Ben Nevis I realised just how steep and stony the track was. Our oldest son was the only one in our family who actually ran down the mountain - the rest of us preferred to reduce the strain on our legs and walk down.

Due to the great speed held by the boys, we made it to the top and back down again in only 7,5 hours, including a total of 2 hours in stops. This was much faster than expected and also probably the reason why we all had sore muscles on Monday.

Camping in our large, new tent

After our climb we drove to a camp site we had seen while we were climbing Ben Nevis.  The camp site was welcoming and well organised, and offered great views of the mountains.

We spent the night in our brand new tent, bought on holidays in Australia. The tent sleeps up to 10 people, so we had plenty of space and you can stand upright inside the tent - luxury!

16 - 18 August: Edinburgh Military Tattoo

This summer we spent five fantastic weeks in Norway. I can't remember a warmer, sunnier summer in all the 40 summers I've spent outside Fredrikstad (though of course the summers of my childhood were always warm and sunny, or so it seems).

The sun and the heat sure did us a lot of good, after having gone through the coldest spring I've ever experienced. Before we left for Norway in the beginning of July, I had worn my shorts for approx 4 hours, most of the time I even had to wear a denim- or leather jacket.

When we returned to Scotland in the middle of August, it turned out Scotland had had one of its best summers too and it was still nice and warm when we arrived.

A family weekend in Edinburgh

The boys and I caught the train to Edinburgh Friday morning, where we met up with my husband who had spent the past week in the United States and flew in that same day. We had pre-booked a family room at the apartment hotel My Edinburgh Life and it turned out to be a very nice room.

The hotel was situated only a couple of minutes walk from Haymarket train station and within walking distance of the main Edinburgh tourist attractions. I was a little worried there would be a lot of noise being located so close to the train station, but we did not hear a thing when we were in our room. This is definitely a hotel we would like to stay in next time we visit Edinburgh.

The worst haircut ever?

We arrived an hour before my husband, so we spent some time exploring the Haymarket area. The boys were both in desperate need of a haircut, so when we walked past a salon I decided they might as well do it while we were waiting anyway. I also ended up with a haircut and refreshed highlights.

Unfortunately it was not until later that evening that I realised how bad the haircuts were. My youngest son and my own haircuts were bad, but they were nothing compared to the disaster that had struck my oldest son.

I've given a few haircuts in the past 15 years and even without training none of my victims have received such an uneven haircut. We didn't bother going back to complain, but when we got back home I got out my kitchen scissors and evened it out as best as I could. Not the best scissors, but the result was still an improvement.

Great paintings at The National Scottish Gallery

Saturday morning we strolled from our hotel and over to the National Scottish Gallery. In the Scottish part of the collection, my favourites were the beautiful landscape paintings. The combination of a varied and dramatic landscape and often rough weather, offers great motifs for landscape painters.

Having read a lot of Scottish history, I really enjoyed the historical paintings, including 'The Return of Mary Queen of Scots to Edinburgh' by James Drummond. There were many other great paintings too, so even though we tried to be quick, it still took a while. I was very grateful for the patience our boys showed while their parents enjoyed fascinating paintings and magnificent statues.

'A bit of everything Scottish' at The National Museum of Scotland

Our next stop was The National Museum of Scotland, which was a mixture of 'everything Scottish'.

The museum covers a very wide range of topics, for example 'The Natural World', 'World Cultures',  'Discoveries' and 'Science and Technology'. The result was that a lot of topics were covered very briefly and the visit didn't give me much, though our boys really enjoyed the 'Science and Technology' part of the museum.

We browsed through most of the museum, but soon decided to spend our time on other attractions instead.

A guided tour of Edinburgh Castle

Saturday had offered some rain, but by the time we left The National Museum of Scotland, the sun had come out and we had a nice stroll over to Edinburgh Castle.

We got our tickets and then relaxed in the sun for almost half an hour, before joining a guided tour of the castle. The guide gave us an interesting tour which covered all the major sights of the castle, seen from the outside. After taking a closer look at the Crown Jewels, The Scottish National War Memorial, The Great Hall and St Margaret's Chapel, we decided to have dinner and then head back to the hotel to relax a bit before the Military Tattoo. And now I discovered that my phone was missing...

Losing my smartphone was really stressful so I had to concentrate really hard to find out when I last had my phone. Eventually I realised I probably left my phone in the Boots shop I entered that morning around 10:00. When we eventually got to the shop it was 18:30 and the shop was closed. There was nothing I could do but come back next morning at 10:30, when the store opened again.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Before buying the tickets for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, I had been advised by the organisers that the best show was the last show on Saturday night.

The show started at 22:30 with marching pipers, setting the atmosphere for a great show. The opening number was followed by an entertaining performance by The Imps Motorcycle Display Team. The video I linked to gives you an impression of the precision driving and acrobatics performed on motorcycle by this team of young motorcyclists.

Great precision from New Zealand

The rest of the tattoo included performances by teams from Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand, Mexico and Scotland.

As you can imagine, the performances were very different and I enjoyed all of them, but the team from New Zealand left the strongest impression. The team had extremely sharp timing and they also had some rather funny bits - I have added a link to a YouTube-video from the show so you can get an impression.

The Wild Mountain Thyme

However, what I enjoyed the most was the combined piping and singing of 'The Wild Mountain Thyme' - it was so beautiful it almost made me cry (and it still does when I listen to it).

I know a lot of you don't care much for piping but to me there is nothing more Scottish and beautiful than piping bands performing in Scotland. If you're curious about the song but don't want to listen to the piping, you can listen to a version performed by the Scottish folk duo The Corries, though this version doesn't bring out the same strong emotions in me.

Light shows and fireworks

During the tattoo, the wall of the castle was used as a background for beautiful light shows that accompanied the different performances. I have added a few examples throughout this blog post to give you an impression of the diversity of the light shows.

The big finale was the fireworks at midnight, followed by the lone piper playing from the wall of the castle. The tattoo was rounded up by everyone singing 'God save the Queen' and 'Auld Lang Syne', before the performers all marched out.


By the time we were back at our hotel and everyone was in bed, it was 01:30 in the morning. The boys were extremely tired by then, but also very pleased with the show.

Lost and found

I didn't sleep very well that night, not knowing where my mobile phone was and whether I'd be able to get it back.

We let the boys sleep as long as possible and then headed off to the Boots shop where I believed I had left my phone. We got there just after opening time and my relief was immense when the lady behind the counter confirmed that they had my phone in their safe.

I had to come back half an hour later to pick it up because there was not enough staff for her to leave the counter at the moment. I didn't mind much, as long as I knew I would get my phone back I was happy as could be.

After I had picked up my phone we took a stroll down Princess street, the main shopping street in Edinburgh, before getting on the train back to Aberdeen.

5 - 7 July: Isle of Skye and Inverness

Friday 5 July was the last day of term for the boys. As soon as they were out of school, we set off for Isle of Skye.

Isle of Skye

The drive to Isle of Skye was estimated to 4,5 hours without breaks, so we knew we would have to stop for dinner on the way and therefore arrive rather late. To avoid having to spend a lot of time looking for a hotel room when we arrived, I had pre-booked two rooms at Kings Arms Hotel in Kyleakin, the first village after we crossed the bridge to Isle of Skye.

Booking a hotel room was something I did only a few days in advance of our stay and Kings Arms was the only hotel I could find available online. The reviews were not great, so I was not expecting much.

When we arrived at the hotel, there was a strange smell in the reception area and the hotel was very run-down, but this was what we had to settle for that first night.

Our rooms turned out to be even more run-down than expected. In our room the paint had started to crack and in the boys' room, the plaster had started falling off the wall. Quite fascinating - you don't see hotels in such desperate need for repairs very often (and thank goodness for that!).

To be fair: The beds were comfortable and we all slept well.

Heavy rains and no view

Less than half an hour after we left our hotel Saturday morning, it started to rain. I expected the rain to pass fairly quickly, like we're used to in Scotland, but it rained rather heavily all day, hiding all nature attractions in the thick fog. We'd been told the landscape was quite spectacular, so it was rather disappointing not being able to see it, but what can you do?

Talisker Distillery

After six months in Scotland we had not yet been to a distillery, so our first stop for the day was the Talisker Distillery at Carbost.

Our original plan was to join a guided tour of the distillery, but with all the rain a lot of other tourists had decided they wanted to do the same. This meant we would have to wait for more than an hour in the small showroom/shop, and that wasn't really an option, at least not for the boys and me.

We settled for reading about the distillery and the process, followed by a quick browse in the distillery shop. The boys and I then went outside, giving my husband some extra time in the shop. He came out with whisky glasses and 9 different types of Tallisker whisky.

Dunvegan Castle

From Talisker Distillery we continued north to Dunvegan Castle, catching glimpses of stunning scenery through the heavy rain and fog. After a quick lunch we ran through the pouring rain to get inside the warm and dry castle.

An old castle with connections to Norway

Dunvegan Castle was built for defense purposes around 1266 and stands on a high basalt rock overlooking the loch (Scottish for 'lake'). The castle had a stone curtain wall around the top of the rock on which it stood. The rock was originally surrounded by the sea at high tide and up until 1748, the only entrance to the castle was through a sea gate, which still stands.

Dunvegan is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the ancestral home of the Chiefs of Clan MacLeod for 800 years. As a Norwegian I was fascinated by the Norwegian names (Norman and Tormod) in the family tree on display in one of the smaller castle rooms. I later learned that the MacLeod clan's ancestry can be traced back to the Norwegian king Harald Hardråde, or Harald Hardrada as he was called in English, hence the Norwegian names.

Life for the privileged, and for the less privileged

Dunvegan Castle was first opened to the public for charitable purposes two days a week in 1933. Despite a great increase in the number of visitors, the castle still maintains its atmosphere of a family home.
The family memorabilia (including the famous Fairy Flag), the family tree, Jacobite relics and other items on display gave us an insight into the life of the Clan MacLeod. However, what I found the most interesting in the castle were the photographs outside the Old Kitchen and the Pit Dungeon.

The photographs date from 1880 and show ordinary people going about their business, which is something I haven't seen in any of the other castles we've visited.

Among the photographs was one of a local parliament (if I remember correctly), showing the most prominent men in the community. What struck me was that all the men had very worn clothes and even though it obviously was cold (they all had a lot of clothes on), almost half the men were barefoot. I can't imagine how painful that must have been, going through winter without shoes. I've previously read about this in stories about life in the old days in Norway too, but it still makes an even stronger impression when you see it in a photo.

Homely castle, or maybe not?

Just a small story about the Pit Dungeon before we leave the castle: The Pit Dungeon was 13ft deep and embedded in the rock. Prisoners were cast into this space and left to die.

According to one of the guides I talked to, it is claimed that one of the MacLeod chiefs (chief number 20 something I think), threw his first wife into the pit and left her there to die. He later married another woman. How scary that must have been for her - she must have heard the rumors at some point I assume?

Diverse and beautiful gardens

Despite the rain we still wanted to see the gardens before we left the castle. I'm glad we took the time to go for that walk, the gardens turned out to be a hidden oasis. 

The first garden we entered was the water garden with its ornate bridges, shimmering pools fed by small waterfalls, streams flowing down to the sea, and a rich and colourful plant variety. The garden seemed to be bursting with life and despite the rain we could appreciate the beauty of this lush and rather unique garden.

The other gardens were more like other gardens we've seen, though very beautiful in their own right too. We strolled through the elegant surroundings of the formal round garden, followed by the walled garden, formerly the castle's vegetable garden.

The walled garden now features a diverse range of plants and flowers, though it was the water lily pond that really caught my attention. The pink water lillies were extremely beautiful and added an extra element of serenity to the garden.

Picturesque Portree

After our visit to Dunvegan Castle, we headed south to Portree, the main town on Skye. We browsed quickly through the small and charming shops, before looking for a place to have dinner.

By now we were rather hungry and low blood sugar levels did not allow us to spend a lot of time looking for a place to eat. We ended up with a very unmemorable meal, which often happens when you just rush into one of the first restaurants you find.

Before leaving Portree we had to take a look at the colourful harbour, and that's when we found the good seafood restaurants...

A memorable night - for the wrong reasons

From Portree we drove to Dunollie Hotel in Broadford, which I had pre-booked before our journey. This hotel was not as run-down as the Kings Arms Hotel and the breakfast was better too, which was a relief as the reviews for this hotel were worse than for the former.

When we checked in, the hotel staff insisted that there should be one adult per double room, i.e. that the boys should not be left alone in one room. We solved this by installing the boys in one room and then, when we went to bed our oldest soon and I swapped beds, leaving one adult and one child per room at night.

I was very glad we had made this arrangement when, in the middle of the night, we were woken by one of the most dreadful sounds I've ever heard. It almost made my heart stop. At this stage (around 3 am) I was close to coma and I could not understand what the noise was. After a little while I popped my head out in the hall and after seeing other guests in their pyjamas I realised that the noise was the fire alarm and we had to get out.

Our youngest son was still asleep and only woke when I told him we had to get out because of a fire alarm. We both stumbled out of our hotel room in a daze, wearing only our pyjamas and no jacket or shoes. When we got to the room my husband and oldest son were sharing, I was starting to recover from the shock and realised we needed to put on some more clothes before going outside.

As I started to head back towards our room for some more clothes, people started coming back into the hotel again - it had been a false alarm. The next morning we received a letter of apologies from the hotel management for the false alarm. I was glad it was only a false alarm, I sure wasn't impressed with the way I had handled the situation.

Fantastic nature and great views

Sunday morning it had stopped raining and the sun was shining. Even though we'd driven around the whole island on Saturday, we decided to drive around the island again to enjoy its magnificent nature. This time we drove up the east coast, all the way to the top.

On our way up the coast we stopped several times to take photos of dramatic nature attractions, including the Old Man of Storr, a 50m-high pinnacle of crumbling basalt. This seemingly unclimbable pinnacle was first scaled in 1955 by English mountaineer Don Whillans, a feat that has been repeated only a handful of times since.

Another fascinating sight was the Kilt Rock, a sea cliff  on the east coast which resembles a kilt. The rock has vertical basalt columns to form the pleats and intruded sills of dolerite forming the pattern. It was very picturesque and to us foreigners it seemed so right now that we were touring Scotland.
 
Going back down we drove on narrow and picturesque roads through Uig and then past Portree before heading for the mainland. With a long drive ahead we didn't take the time to go past Dunvegan and Carbost once more, but we still felt we managed to get the best of Skye.

29 - 30 June: Spectacular Jousting at Linlithgow Palace, shopping in Perth

Knights fighting outside the magnificent Linlithgow Palace ruins, foot combat and living history displays - the scene was set for a great Saturday for both children and adults.

Spectacular Jousting at Linlithgow Palace

After breakfast Saturday morning we were ready to go to Linlithgow Palace for a glimpse of life in medieval times. The drive was around 2,5 hours and we arrived not long after the first events started at half past twelve.


After a quick inspection of the exterior of the castle, we quickly headed for the arena, put our picnic blanket on the grass and had a long overdue lunch, which also included fresh strawberries. According to the calender it was now summer, but before we were done for the day I wished I'd brought my gloves, not just the scarf. The boys were fine though, our oldest son even refused to put his jacket on top of his hooded jumper. As I'm writing this it strikes me that I'm starting to sound like an old lady - and I'm not even 40!

Entertaining jousting

While we were waiting for the knights, our boys managed to get a balloon-sword each and small flags to cheer for the blue team as soon as the tournament started. Throughout the tournament there was a speaker making funny comments about what was going on, adding to the entertainment of the tournament.

There were two teams of two knights each, who all performed a number of precision tasks on horseback, including hitting a wooden figure and picking up or catching rings with their lances. They also fought on foot with swords and other weapons. The best part was the jousting, a single combat of two knights riding at each other with lances. There was a great element of show and rehearsed fights, but one of the knights actually fell of his horse during the combat. I assume it was planned, but it was still impressive falling off a galloping horse.

Linlithgow Palace - the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots

After the jousting we headed off to explore the palace.

Linlithgow Palace was begun by King James I in 1424, following a fire that devastated its predecessor. The palace was one of the principal residences of the monarchs of Scotland in the 15th and 16th centuries. Most of the Stewart kings lived at Linlithgow Palace, and James V (1512) and Mary Queen of Scots (1542) were both born here.

After the Union of the Crowns in 1603 the Royal Court became largely based in England and Linlithgow was used very little. Sadly, most of the palace buildings were destroyed by burning (done by Duke of Cumberland's army) in January 1746.

Even though Linlithgow Palace is in ruins, its size still makes it a very impressive building. The palace is 5 floors high and was built around an open courtyard, with towers in each corner. In each of the towers are spiraling staircases, taking you from one floor to another. With a great number of rooms and hallways all around the central courtyard, it is easy to get lost. I imagine the servants must have walked very far every day they worked in the palace.

The palace has been actively conserved since the early 19th century and is today managed and maintained by Historic Scotland.

Life in medieval times

After we had seen most of the castle, we decided to return to the arena to watch another round of jousting. On our way out we came across a demonstration of how ladies who lived in the castle were dressed, from undergarments to completely dressed. This was quite fascinating, so I stayed behind to watch more of the demonstration while the boys and their father went to see more fighting.


After the final show, we took a look at the camps, where we could try helmets, swords and chain mails, or weave our own decorative armbands. We tried calligraphy with pens made from bamboo and other pens made from swan feathers. I've done a bit of calligraphy over the years and enjoyed trying these new tools. One of the ladies gave me one of their swan feather pens to take home, I really appreciated the gift.

The 'Holiday Bible'

After a fantastic day at Linlithgow castle, we drove to Pitfirrane Arms, just outside Dunfermline. When the boys entered their room, our youngest son spotted the 'Holiday Bible' on a desk, or the 'Holy Bible' as it turned out to be when he read the letters more carefully.

Perth

Sunday morning we drove to see Perth. Even though it looked like a very nice city, we did not get to see much, as we ended up doing some serious shopping instead. We managed to get a lot of the things we had put off buying because we prioritise sight seeing instead. Now we should be sorted for quite some time.