Category: 2022_08/09 Scotland and Northern England

It’s been almost 8 weeks since we left home on July 23rd for our Epic European Adventure, and what an adventure it’s been!

In the 56 days we’ve been in the UK we visited 3 countries (England, Scotland and Wales)…

Played golf at the most famous Links Club in the world…

Walked in the steps of royalty…

We visited a non-royal palace…

Saw big bridges…

And little bridges…

There were royal jewels….

And Viking silver bracelets.

We saw 12 castles that were intact and/or still had families living in them…

And 11 castles that were in pretty bad shape (do the math….that’s 23 castles!)

There were 8 big Cathedrals…

Little churches…

And churches in ruins…

We ate a lot of pizza, lasagna, burgers, fish & chips, meat pies, gelato and ham/cheese sandwiches. We’re looking forward to switching from pies and fish/chips to gallates, quiche and crepes in France. I’m sure, though, that there are more pizzas, burgers, lasagnas and gelato in our future.

We had our last pub lunch at the Black Rose Tavern in Edinburgh.

We had a couple of misadventures, one that landed us in the ER for 10 hours…

And by the road for 5….

We stayed in 10 Airbnb flats, 5 hotels, 2 inns, 1 resort and a bed & breakfast, all absolutely lovely. We covered, I don’t even know how many miles, in our 2 cars as we made two giant loops around the UK. I managed to stay on the correct side of the road the entire time, at least until today, when I turned too soon and ended up looking at a big car. The good news is that it was stopped and I had room to very quickly scoot around it….oops. We spent a fortune on gas at about $7.00-$8.00/gallon and it wasn’t unusual to pay $70 for a half tank of gas.

We met some incredible people. Everyone we spoke with was as friendly as could be and we feel we found new friends in Mary & Simon in Canterbury.

But the best part of all, was experiencing all of this together.

We’re especially grateful that you joined us on our UK journey and hope you hang around with us for the next part of our adventure. We leave tomorrow (Saturday 9/17) for Paris. And we’ll spend about 5 weeks in France before heading to Belgium and the Netherlands for another two weeks. It should be fun. We’ll see you when we get to Paris.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning when we headed less than an hour north to Holy Island also known as Lindisfarne. Since it’s a tidal island, we had to check the time of the tides to know when it was safe to cross the causeway. The tide went out at about 10:10 so we got there around 10:45.

Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD and was the center of Celtic Christianity under Saints Aidan and Cuthbert. The Priory was founded around 634 by Irish monk Saint Aidan. Saint Cuthbert was later abbot of the monastery and was buried at the Priory.

Lindisfarne was where, in 793, the Vikings first invaded England. During the attack, many of the monks were killed or captured. In later Viking raids, the remaining monks took the bones of St. Cuthbert to Durham Cathedral. We saw that burial site yesterday.

Here are some photos of the Priory ruins.

We didn’t make it to the castle as it’s a 2-mile round trip walk from the car park. And then we’d have to climb who knows how many stairs to get to the castle.

Next to the Priory ruins is St. Mary’s Church and cemetery. I love to look at the stones in old cemeteries. I like to imagine what the person’s life was like. Who were they? What did they accomplish? Here are a couple of the older stones I found.

In the Priory museum there were remnants of a few very old crosses. This one was from the 9th century.

And this one was from the late 8th century.

Since all the picnic benches were taken, we ate our lunch in the car before heading back off the island. The Inn we’re staying in tonight wasn’t open yet (weird I know but the front desk is only open when the restaurant is open) so we headed to Etal Castle about 15 minutes away. Yes, I know I said in yesterday’s post we were done with castles but this one was a ruin so that’s different.

It was built around 1341 and was made up of a residential tower, a gatehouse and a corner tower all connect by what’s called a curtain wall.

The residential tower was 4 stories high and each story contained two rooms.

After visiting the ruins, we walked about a block into town to the Black Bull Inn, which is the only thatched-roofed pub in all of Northumberland.

There we enjoyed an adult beverage while waiting for 4pm so we could check into our inn, which oddly enough, is also called Black Bull Inn. Must be a popular name.

Tomorrow we head back to Edinburgh to drop off the car. But on the way, we’re going to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. No, Peter didn’t fall again. We’re picking up the CD with his head CT images so we can FedEx it to his neurologist in AZ. He tried to get it himself but couldn’t connect with anyone so I told him we’d give it a shot. I spoke with a very helpful woman in Medical Records this morning and she managed to get the records pulled for us. After getting those sent at the Mail Boxes Etc., we’ll have a nice lunch in Edinburgh before heading out to the airport. Hopefully, it goes as smoothly as that. I’ll let you know.

Well, I think this was our last Cathedral and Castle but since I don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday, I may be mistaken.

Our first stop was Durham Cathedral about 1 1/2 hours north of York. I didn’t know this, but the Cathedral is on the grounds of Durham University.

The remains of St. Cuthbert are interred in a small side chapel and thousands of pilgrims came to worship. As a result of the crowds, the Chapel of Nine Altars was built between 1242 and 1280. Today there are only 3 altars.

The town of Durham had a very nice town square.

After leaving Durham, we headed for Alnwick (pronounced “Alnick”) Castle, about an hour north. It was founded in the late 11th century and was the home of the Earls and, since 1750, the Dukes of Northumberland. The castle is the winter home of the 12th Duke and his family.

In addition to the first 2 HP movies, the movie Elizabeth with Kate Winslet was filmed here as well as the Downton Abbey Christmas specials of 2014/2015.

We were able to tour the State Apartments, but as with the other castles where the family still lives, we weren’t able to take photos. Here are a few I found online.

It was almost 3pm by the time we finished at the castle so we headed to our home for the night, the Amblin Inn in the town of Amblin. Tomorrow we head to Holy Island to see what we can find to do.

It was a glorious day with the sun shining for the first time in quite a while. We only had a few things we wanted to do so we took our time getting out of the flat. Our first stop was a 30-minute scenic cruise on the River Ouse (pronounced “Ooze”). We managed to get there just in time for the 1100 cruise and it was lovely. There not really that much to see along the river but we enjoyed it anyway.

After the cruise, we sat in the York Museum Garden and had our sandwiches for lunch. Today is the last day with a kitchen until we get to Paris on Saturday so we didn’t want to eat out yet again as we’ll have at least one restaurant meal per day until we get a kitchen in Paris.

Then it was a short stroll back to York Minster which, as I mentioned yesterday is closed for sightseeing but is open for services, prayer, reflection and to sign the condolence book. We caught the last few minutes of the midday service and afterward thought about signing the condolence book but there was quite a line so we decided lighting a candle and saying a prayer were enough.

Photography was not allowed so here are a couple more pictures I found online.

From the Minster, we headed to King’s Square for our daily dose of ice cream. Since it was such a beautiful day and it was about 1pm, the square was full of people. We even had a street entertainer. For some reason the video wouldn’t embed so here’s a link if you want to give it a look. It’s less than a minute long.

https://youtu.be/V60iF9mQ0xk

Our next stop was at the Jorvik Viking Center, a wonderful exhibit/museum filled with information and artifacts from the town of Jorvik. The Vikings settled all through England but Jorvik (Norse for York) had the densest population and was their capital city. Vikings ruled parts of England until about 954.

A Viking town was found under the modern city of York and during the excavation, they found ruins of homes and thousands of artifacts. The Jorvik Viking Center displays many of those artifacts. To give an idea of what life was like in the Viking town, we took a narrated cart ride though about a dozen dioramas. The figures were automated and were very lifelike. A few of them were actually modeled after skeletons found in the ruins.

I took a few videos but it took over 45 minutes to upload the one I took in King’s Square so I decided a few still photos of the dioramas will have to suffice.

And, here are some of the artifacts.

Our final stop today was a small section of the York City Walls. To walk the wall all round the city would take several hours but Peter wanted to walk a little of it. So, we found the spot closest to the Jorvik Viking Center and climbed the 20 steps to the top.

After a final look at the front of Clifford’s Tower, we headed to the bus for the short ride home. It was a wonderfully slow-paced day which is good because tomorrow it’s back in the car for our next stop, Alnwynk, where we might just run into another castle.

Today is another cloudy day but, luckily, we only got a couple of sprinkles. Rain is expected later but we had already walked over 12000 steps by early afternoon so we were tired and home by 2pm.

Our first stop was the only remaining part of the medieval York Castle, Clifford’s Tower. The first castle on this site was built by the Normans in 1069. The Tower was completed in the late 13th century.

There were quite a few stairs getting inside but Peter made it like a champ. There are several info boards on the inside telling the story of the castle.

I walked up a couple of flights of the spiral staircase to get to the top.

Then we headed to York Minister, the cathedral. It’s the largest Gothic Cathedral in Britain.

Unfortunately, it was closed for the 10-day period of mourning for the Queen so we weren’t able to get in to visit. It is open for individual prayers so we may go back tomorrow but we won’t be able to wonder around and take pictures. Here are a couple I found online.

After walking the perimeter of the Minster, we headed to the Shambles which is one of the best preserved medieval shopping streets in Europe. If it looks a bit familiar to Harry Potter fans, it’s because this street was used as the vision for Diagon Alley in the HP movie franchise.

Then it was off to St. Mary’s Abbey, a ruined Benedictine Abbey from the mid-11th century. On the way, we stopped in at St. Helen’s Church.

We’d walked quite a long way so we rested for awhile in the York Museum Gardens. Even though it was cloudy it was a beautiful day.

We could have taken a city bus home but we would have had to walk 8 minutes to get to the bus and it was only 15 minutes to walk home….so we walked home. Along the way, we passed part of the city walls. You can actually walk around the city center on the walls. We may do a part of it tomorrow.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day. We thought about driving east to the York Moors National Park, but I would love another drive-free day, so we are going to hang here. There are sightseeing river cruises so we may do that.

Another day, another castle. Castle Howard is one we hadn’t planned to visit, in fact we didn’t even know about it. But, we were looking for something to do close to York to kill time before we could check into our Airbnb flat at noon.

Construction of Castle Howard began in 1699 and ended in 1811. In 1940 a fire destroyed a large part of the castle, including the dome, the central hall and the dining room. While some of it has been restored including the dome, the entire east wing remains unfinished.

The castle has been used in many TV programs and films including Barry Lyndon, Brideshead and Brideshead revisited, Harry Potter, Victoria and most recently, the first season of Bridgerton on Netflix. It was the filming of Brideshead in 1980 that gave them the money they needed to continue with the restoration of the house.

Of course there was a chapel.

And a few gorgeous stained glass windows.

The grounds were massive and included a playground, lake and formal gardens.

After the castle we had a 40-minute drive to our new flat and were settled in no time at all. Tomorrow we’re visiting the sights in York, probably taking the hop on/hop off bus. It’s supposed to be a rainy day, but who knows what will actually happen when the sun comes up.

Our main objective today was to visit Hadrian’s Wall. On our way we stopped at the Garden of Remembrance in Lockerbie cemetery which is where the memorial is for the victims of Pan Am flight 103 is located. Flight 103 exploded over this small Scottish town on December 21, 1988 due to a terrorist bomb planted in a piece of luggage. In total, 270 people were killed included 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 people on the ground. The latter were killed when a wing section hit a house and exploded.

In addition to the main memorial, there were individual tributes.

There was a also a row of trees that had name plaques of additional victims of the disaster.

It really was a beautiful memorial and we’re so glad we went. It was only about 5 minutes off our intended route and well worth the time.

After the cemetery, we were on our way to Hadrian’s Wall. It runs 73 miles along the width of northern England, just south of the Scottish border and marked the northern most border of the Roman Empire. Building started in 122AD (exactly 1900 years ago) and took 6 years to build.

The first part we saw was the remains of a Watch Tower which were placed about every mile along the wall.

Then it was on to the next major stop, the Birdoswald Roman Fort, one of the best preserved forts along the wall.

Then it was on to the Roman Army Museum. It’s a small museum but had some nice exhibits and artifacts.

Here’s me trying my best to be an archer. I did okay with two hands but then someone would need to hold the bow so I could pull back the string.

After a lovely lunch where we had a long chat with a Scottish gentleman, we found a part of the wall that was only a 2-minute walk from the car park.

We’re spending the night in Sunderland and tomorrow we head south to York for 3 nights. We weren’t sure if we were going to make it down there as it was either York or the Lake District. But given the cloudy, rainy weather we decided to head for York instead. I’ve heard it’s a beautiful city and I can’t wait to see it.

Given the Queen’s death, we weren’t sure if anything would be open today but we were able to see the sites we had on our agenda. It was, though, a little sad to see flags at half staff and pictures of her in the Regimental Museum at Stirling Castle. Her amazing smile will certainly be missed.

We started at Stirling Castle. There has been a building on this site since the mid-7th century but the current buildings were built between 1490-1600.

It has been the home of King James IV, V, and VI as well as Mary Queen of Scots (mother of James VI).

Mary Queen of Scots was crowned in the Castle’s Chapel 479 years ago today (9 Sep 1543) when she was only 9 months old.

https://youtu.be/d0PweCk9oPY

The Castle is known for its Stirling Heads, 16th century oak medallions carved with images of kings, queens, nobles, Roman emperors and characters from the Bible and classical mythology. At one time they decorated many of the ceilings in the Castle. The ceiling in the King’s Presence Hall has been restored with copies of the medallions.

There was also a museum dedicated to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlander Regimental, which had been headquartered for many years at the Castle.

After the Castle, we drove just a few minutes to the Wallace Monument. It commemorates Scottish hero, William Wallace of the movie, Braveheart, fame. The tower is almost 220 feet and we could have access the roof and exhibition halls if we wanted to climb the 246 steps to get there. We didn’t.

After lunch, we headed to our last stop, the Battle of Bannockburn Visitor Center. This battle occurred in 1324 between Scotland and England. Leading the Scots was King Robert Bruce who bested English King Edward II. As a result, Scotland won its independence from England.

Tomorrow we head south back to England where Peter will finally get to see the remains of Hadrian’s Wall. Should be fun.

Right now the UK is in a bit of a panic as news reports are talking about the Queen’s family gathering in Balmoral. She looked so frail on Tuesday when she met with the new PM, Liz Truss. It will be a sad day; she is a remarkable woman and the world will miss her when she finally passes.

1835 (6:35pm) OMG….they just announced that the Queen has died. My heart is broken!

It’s so hard to continue with this blog, but…

We spent our day in Glasgow, dropping the car at a park and ride then taking the train the short 15 minutes to city center. The sun poked out a little but the sky was mostly cloudy and it rained a little in the afternoon.

The train station is adjacent to George Square, a one-block square square in the center if Glasgow. The square was laid out by King George III but, oddly, there’s no statue of him in the square. The hop on/hop off bus guide said that when he “lost” the colonies, Glasgow lost a major trading partner as the city used to trade with the tobacco growers in the colonies. Apparently, he has never been forgiven.

There is, though, the only statue in the world of Queen Victoria on a horse.

We started our sightseeing at the Glasgow Cathedral, which looks like it could use a good power wash.

But the inside was beautiful.

The Cathedral is built on what are believed to be the remains of St. Mungo (real name Kentigern) who died in 614. He was a missionary and is the founding member and patron saint of Glasgow.

After the Cathedral, we got on the hop on/hop off bus and made a few stops. First was at this beautiful fountain, the largest terra cotta fountain in the world.

Across from the fountain is Glasgow Green, a 15th century park that is the largest park in Glasgow. A law still on the books is that any citizen of Glasgow can graze their cows and/or sheep in the Green. I looked but didn’t see any grazing. This was also the place Bonnie Prince Charlie gathered his army before the Battle of Culloden, which if you remember, didn’t turn out so well for them.

Then it was back on the bus and heading to an area near George Square for lunch. Of course it was Italian as, if you haven’t already figured out, Peter is not terribly adventuresome when it comes to trying new food.

Since it was starting to rain, we decided to to to the Royal Theater for a matinee performance of Bugsy Malone. The main characters were played by children and, while a little corny, we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here’s a video of the curtain call. The kids had a ton of energy.

I can’t write anymore. I’ve got BBC on and am watching the coverage. God Save the King.

The day started beautifully with the sun shining and a delicious breakfast at our B&B. Joan prepared a full Scottish breakfast, minus the baked beans (seriously, who does baked beans at 7:30 in the morning??).

We’re used to eating a few scrambled eggs in the morning so this is way more food than we eat for breakfast. But everything was delicious.

We left Joan’s to head for the Glencoe National Reserve on our way to Stirling Castle, about a 4-hour drive. It was a beautiful drive along Loch Lochy. Here’s a short video Peter took. You can just barely see the lake to the left of the screen but the mountains were beautiful with a low level of fog.

Shortly after this video was taken, about 90 minutes into our journey, we had our 2nd misadventure in less than 2 weeks. I think the picture says it all.

OK, so going about 50-55MPH (speed limit 60), I hit a ginormous hole that I didn’t see until it was too late to do anything. This is the result. The road was two lane and full of curves so it was at least 1/3 mile before I could find a safe spot to stop. I could actually smell something burning and was afraid the tire was going to ignite when I saw a gravel road that was luckily on my side of the street.

We unloaded the trunk to try and change the tire except, wait for it, no spare. Apparently they don’t put them in the rental cars anymore We had an emergency number for Europcar so we quickly got someone working on getting us out of there.

Unfortunately, what wasn’t quick was actually getting out of there. After about 45 minutes roadside assistance called and said she couldn’t find anyone to come out to change the tire so she would sent a tow truck and would let me know when it was available.

I waited almost 90 minutes with no call from roadside assistance, so I called back and was transferred to someone else who said she would find a tow truck and I would get a text with an estimated time. A few minutes later I got a text that said someone would be with us in no more than 240 minutes. For you math wizards who quickly did the calculation, that’s 4 hours.

By this time, though, the expected clouds were rolling in so we settled into the car to wait. Luckily about 30 minutes later a tow truck came rolling up and within 15 minutes we were on our way to Fort William and the tire store. The driver had just gotten the call about 20 minutes before he picked us up so I think whoever I spoke with on the 2nd call dropped the ball and never reached out to a tow truck.

We were very fortunate that the repair shop had the correct tire in stock and that I didn’t damage the wheel when I drove on it before I could stop. So within another 30 minutes, we were on our way. Except by this time it was after 2pm so instead of stopping at Stirling Castle we came straight to the Doubletree Resort about 15 miles outside of Glasgow. As it was we didn’t get here until almost 5pm.

While inconvenient, it could have been so much worse. I could have lost control of the car when the tire exploded. Or we could have been slammed into from behind when our speed dropped to almost nothing for the time it took to find a place to pull over. So, as they say, all’s well…yada yada yada.

It turns out that our route didn’t change at all so we still saw Glencoe Natural Reserve and the eastern edge of the Trossachs National Park. It was a bit rainy and we were tired so we didn’t stop for pictures, but I found these online. Even with the clouds it was a beautiful drive.

We didn’t get to see Loch Lomand as it’s on the western edge of the Park and we drove down the eastern edge. But there were plenty of other pretty lakes so we don’t feel like we missed too much.

We couldn’t face getting back into the car to go to dinner, so we ate at the hotel. Tomorrow we head to Glasgow, hopefully without any more misadventures. One can always hope.