Glencoe and Stirling
Yesterday morning was grey and misty, which made MrM happy. We had breakfast in the dining room, looking out over Loch Linnhe and watching the gulls circling in the thermals above the water.
After breakfast we set out to find the Glencoe visitor centre, and after a few diversions in the direction of Kinlochleven, we found it. I thought the exhibition was well-balanced: sections on the natural environment, including the geology, the history of climbers in that area of the highlands, as well as the massacre of 1692. Then we drove on through the great glacial valley towards Crianlarich, which made me understand the significance of Glencoe as you approach from the west, being the place where that huge inhospitable environment becomes more friendly to humans again. Travellers coming from Rannoch Moor or the Grampians must have looked forward to it eagerly. Approaching from the east, as we did, it's just another village by the loch, pretty, but unremarkable.
We stopped on Rannoch Moor to take a couple of photos, since the blasted heath of the highlands was one of the major reasons MrM wanted to come to Scotland. Photos really don't do that landscape justice though, at least not with my little camera: they just don't capture the scale of the distances involved, and the sense of how small and fragils humans are in contrast.
Then we said goodbye to the highlands and entered Argyll, heading back through the Trossachs on the east side this time. We stopped briefly in Callander to look at the wool shops, but I've been rather spoiled by wearing cashmere and merino close to my skin - lambswool feels very heavy and hard. So that was a less expensive stop than it might have been. MrM did find a shop selling lamingtons though, which we couldn't resist. Although on sinking our teeth into them we discovered they were filled with icing, not cream, which was a bit of a suprirse.
The air was becoming noticeably warmer as we drove south, and the countryside began to open up into farmland (although I'm not entirely sure what sort: there were a few sheep around, but there were also lots of empty green fields). We followed the signs to tirling, approaching the castle from the spectaular east side, where you can see it high on the hill above the 200+ foot drop down the cliff-face. The castle itself was fascinating - we spent nearly tthree hours there and only left when they closed the gates at 6pm. I particularly enjoyed seeing the weavers at work on one of the tapestries for the queen's apartments. They're being woven by hand using methods used in the 16th century and will look just incredible once they're complete. We walked all around the battlements, looking at the spectacular views over Stirling and the surrounding countryside, and ducked through low arches into the spaces where the guardsmen used to stand (Scots in those days were clearly built along more compact lines than they are today!
After Stirling we got back on the road (and a big road it was this time, none of this barely-room-to-pass stuff we were becoming used to), wiggled our way through Edinburgh past copious roadworks and found the York Garden apartments. They were a bit unpreposessing, with two skips piled high with garbage bags outside the entrance, but it turned out to be a lovely quiet apartment with a view over some private gardens. We went for a bit of a ramble and found ourselves at a restaurant bar called Magnum, where we had a very nice dinner (steak for MrM, vegetarian lasagne with truffle oil for me - yum!) Then home to the apartment and bed.
Today we're planning to take a wander through the Old Town to Edinburgh Castle and maybe visit Holyrood Park before continuing south towards the Lake Country.