Gracy Bee

Scotland

Posted on March 4th, 2007 by GracyBee.
Categories: Places.

Today is Good Friday and I’m off from work. In my line of job, it is rare to get off days from public holidays. So this 3 day weekend, I must really make full use of it! One of them: update my blog!

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My housemates & I planned a trip to Scotland in August 2006. Since we did not want to join tours, we planned the trip ourselves. Our finalised route for 5D4N after much debate and changes: Glasgow - Fort William - Skye - Inverness - Edinburgh. (quite a hectic schedule I must say!)

We took Virgin train from Birmingham and the journey would be around 5 hrs.

that carriage of the train we took

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Our 1st stop: Glasgow

We were a bit disappointed with Glasgow as it is no different from Birmingham, so much that once we see the skyline our 1st thought: Are we still in Birmingham? As you might guess it: disorganised, dirty etc. Lucky we did not plan to be there for long! We planned to have lunch there.

The Square (forgot its exact name)

We bought take away and had lunch in the square. There have had lots of birds: specifically sea gulls look-alike and pigeon. Can really see who is the king amongst the birds as they fight for food available for them.

The little boy being the centre of attraction

As there are a lot of pigeons, the locals loved to share food with them. TT took this sence and the little boy was really cute!

While having lunch, I can’t help but notice this.

white ‘hair’ on statues’ head!

Every statues in every corner of the square have birds on their head. Poor thing as the birds decorated their head white! The statues are really suffering in silence. tsk tsk

After lunch, we took a short visit to the city centre and after that we headed off to our next destination.

The 3 of us

A touching scene in the bus station

 

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Our 2nd Stop: Fort William

We reached Fort William in the late evening. Wow…what a vast difference as we stepped into the world of Nature. Mountains, trees and lake all in one. A nice welcome after being in cities for so long.

Ok…I kind off spoil the whole scenery right?

TT, being the shutter crazy one, took this pix

 

After we explore the town, we then realised the intensity of the WWII that happened here.

Didn’t expect to find this here!

We spent overnight here.

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Our 3rd Stop: Skye (prounouce: sky)
The next morning we went to Skye, a island offcoast north western of Scotland. This is a much recommended place to go in Scotland, and so we went. Once we get there, it is ideally a place to relax, but very ulu place. Due to my mistake of reading the map, we landed in an ultra ulu place there called Uig, where there is not much transport services and the Youth hostel is way up the hill. *sweat*

Up the hill

Since there is no where we can go without transportation, we decided to roam around the nearby hills.

Animals we met on the way up.
They don’t hesitate to warn you if you are in their way. *eyeroll*

XC and TT were disappointed and complained to see the hills as it was not as magnificant as told by the people in the youth hostel and as compared to the ones in China. Ok…I’m neutral with that and not going to argue with them.

We ate instant noodles for dinner at the hostel and played card games to amuse ourselves. One thing we noticed in the hostel: 80% of the people are females.

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Our next stop: Inverness

We have to leave early to catch our coach as we can’t afford to miss it! There we make our way to Inverness, the land of Loch Ness.

the first thing u see when u come out of the station

After loading our stuffs in the hostel, we took a quick walk around the city area, and came by this castle. The statue is Flora MacDonald (not that McD). Apparently this family’s history is rather famous in Scottish history but I have forgotten what it is.

Flora MacDonald

After that, we went to visit the Loch Ness. Bus again.

The castle at Loch Ness

The most beautiful lake by far - Loch Ness. oh, FYI, No nessie in there

 

How real this is….I’m not sure. the mythical Nessie

By the time we came back, it is dinner time and after that, we took a walk in the city. We tried to take night shots…but all in vain. stupid cameras.

This time we have 10 people zzz in the room with us. Quite noisy but what can we ask for when we are on budget?

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Our last stop: Edinburgh

Now we are taking a long trip back from Inverness to Edinburgh. Seriously speaking at this point of time, we get rather sick of nature and wanted city life back. We yearn for modern buildings and restaurants, cars and buses, the bustling of city life.

Edinburgh didn’t disappoint us. It is a nice blend of nature and city, all in one. It happened to be a beautiful day and we took the tour bus to explore Edinburgh. Nice. It is also conincide with the International Arts Festival, and so the city is full of people and performers. We loved Edinburgh so much that we decided to ditch our plans for the last day and come back to the city instead. There are much to be seen here and so I only list out few important ones.

Part of Edinburgh

We also visited the kilt’s factory and see how they are made. Yes, that is where scottish men wear skirts. But they look so cool in it!

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Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle was built on volcanic rocks and that makes it unique stand oh mighty on the top of Edinburgh.

View from the top

Some of the few things that we saw up there.

And this we saw it when we get down the castle.

Notice the Royal Mile?

The Royal Mile is actually a exact mile long road that link the Edinburgh’s castle to the city centre. This is used in the past by the royals when they wanted to go up the castle.

How I wish I’m this thin and tall

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We took a visit to the Royal residence of the Queen. Due to the incident about the liquid bombs, there was last changes to the security checks that no water bottles to be allowed. Aiyah~

The Entrance

What attracted me to this: the Unicorn

 

 

The Palace
I try to merge 3 in1..not too bad huh?

No photography is allowed in there. Brief description inside: full of treasures of the dead kings and queens; the photographs of the current Royal family members. There is also a damaged chapel nearby.

The damaged Chapel.

 

 

There will have such statues all over the palaces and UK

That basically end our Royal journey.

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I have long heard about the loyal dog that stayed faithfully at his dead master’s grave for 13 years. I never knew that such story is actually in Edinburgh! We went head searching for the dog’s statue. This dog’s devotion has touched the life of many people and they decided to erect this in his memory. His devotion also touched mine and he reminded me of my long deceased dog.

That is him!

That end our trip to Scotland. Well, not too bad a trip as it is meant for relaxation, but because Scotland is still in the UK, the layout of the cities are similar to England ones, so we get a bit bored because of that. Nonetheless, the nature did revitalised all of us.

Good day, Scotland!

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