So we flew into Glasgow on Tuesday and took the train to Inverness same day. We've been poking around the Scottish highlands now for a couple of days and we love it even though the weather is rainy. There are sheep farms and castle relics everywhere...churches too..loads of churches..for instance Inverness must have 15 or so churches..and I don't mean little tiny churches in some random corner of town..I mean large impressive gothic cathedral style churches..sometimes several in a row on the same street.
We also saw the battlefields of Culloden. This is the place where the last battle was fought on British soil.. some say it was fought between the Scots and English, or that it was a civil war between the highlanders and the lowlanders... others say it was a religious war between the roman catholics and episcopalians vs the protestants... I think. Regardless, it was neat to see. There are stones placed on the fields to remember the various clans who died there. There were flowers placed there as well... as the anniversary of the battle was on 4/16..
Today we'll be heading to Loch Ness to try to spot the monster (fingers crossed)..after that we're heading into Edinburgh to meet up with Ginger and Steve for some more fun.
Some observations so far:
Ireland-
- clean and safe
- people are cordial but not as friendly as advertised; they are also very conservative
- seems to desperately be trying to recreate itself culturally as the Gaelic country of Europe and remove itself from the shadow of the UK
- buses are clean and on time
- stay away from Tralee (waste of time!)
Scotland so far-
- friendly people
- already experienced some conflicts between the highlanders vs the lowlanders, or to put it another way, between the pro UK unionists and the nationalists/separatists... they were men in the same bar... snaring at each other because they were each more loyal and patriotic than the other
- gorgeous countryside... some of the prettiest flowers we've seen so far.. it's amazing how such a gray and overcast climate can produce some of the boldest and most brilliantly colored flowers
More to follow...
3 comments:
What about that guy you guys kept running into?
any pis of the flowers?
Carmine went on to Galway and Belfast to look for work. We decided to skip those areas (sadly) and fly into Glasgow instead. He will be on the road for a while, so hopefully we'll run into him again.
Ryan actually has tons of pics.. including flowers. The downside.. it takes super long to upload and post. We will soon enough. :)
flowers spaten!? really..we're travelling the world and you want flowers.. i'll see what i can do ;p
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