Iceland and Scotland. July 4 - July 20, 2016.

Joe Jr suggested visiting Scotland this summer.  Initially Ellie was planning to join, but at the last minute she decided with an eight-month old Maisie it may be too much to be traipsing all over Scotland, so she dropped out.

Icelandair offers this “free” stopover in Reykjavik, an offer Anne and I decided to take up.  So the two of us will be spending three nights in Iceland before flying over to Glasgow.

July 4 Monday.  Eric, whom I picked up a couple of days ago, came by to pick us up at 5:45 pm for our 8:45 pm flight.  I didn’t know if we were going to get “pre-check,” so we decided to head out to the airport much earlier than usual.  Turns out pre-check isn’t offered at this gate area anyway.  Perhaps it is July 4, both vehicular traffic and airport traffic were quite light.  Regular security lines do appear to be slower, there were only a handful of people at the check point, it still took us 15 minutes to get through security – still no reason to complain.

FI622 will take about 5 hours.  Both Anne and I have empty seats next to us, she is watching TV, I am making this entry.  I wonder if either of us will get any sleep.  Our plan after landing (at 6 am) is to take Flybus to Luggage Lockers and then head off to (i) get on a puffin seeing cruise; (ii) attend a noontime concert at Harpa; and (iii) get on a whale-watching cruise.  At some point we will check in to the Airbnb apartment.  All these locations are supposed to be within walking distance of one another, the longest walk a little one 1 km.  I will report back how this scheme works.  We haven’t bought any tickets for today as we aren’t sure when we will get into town.

July 5 Tuesday.  Neither Anne nor I got much sleep on the flight, but we were quite ready to tackle the day.  First we grabbed a sandwich and a bottle of water as there was no food served on the plane.  I thought at ISK1600 (at about ISK125 to the dollar) was expensive.  My day’s experience proved that these were relatively bargains.

Taking the bus into town and transferring to a location close to luggage lockers didn’t present much of a problem: turns out all the drivers seem to know the town well.  It took us a while to find the self-service lockers, and we got the last one.  After that we ate again, at Café Paris, where an omelet costs about $20.

 Icelandair 757 that took us from Newark to Reykjavik.

This is it.  Luggage lockers on Tradarkotssund.  The website says they'll always have lockers available, but we got the last one.  We had trouble finding it, turns out it was quite close to town.

For the jet-lagged state we were in, I thought we did well.  First it was a puffin sighting cruise.  There were certainly more puffins here (Akurey Island off the city) than East Seal Rock in Maine.  We saw many flying, and some perched on the rocks on the island.  This was followed by a concert of 30-minutes duration, part of a series put out so “international travelers” (tourists, that is) can get to experience the music hall.  We enjoyed it.  The 2 pm Whale Watching Tour was fully booked, so we decided to eat lunch at the self-proclaimed oldest restaurant in town (I doubt that, given the sign saying when it was built) before we took the luggage out of the Lockers and checked into our Airbnb apartment.  After taking a 30-minute nap, we joined the 5 pm Whale tour, and managed to see one humpback whale (so said the guide) surface a few times.  Dinner was fish and chips and mixed fish at Reykjavik Fish.  Food is generally well prepared but expensive.  We bought some groceries to make breakfast with, and those items weren’t cheap either.

We saw hundreds of puffins around Akurey Island.  Our point and shoot cameras didn't do too well with moving things in a distance.  The guide's description of the puffin burrow can be heard clearly in this clip.

Still shots of puffins on the water.

 Two puffins outside their burrows.  Most likely they just fed the chicks with the fish they caught.

 There are other birds on and around the island.  This is a mother Eider duck with a group of ducklings.

 Harpa building viewed from a couple of vantage points.

 Viewed from pier where most of the cruises depart.

They hold 30-minute noon time concerts for the benefit of tourists.  This group did a Mozart program.  Only about 50 people were in the audience.

 Whale watching is a hit-or-miss activity.  Today's was mostly a miss.

 This boat saw the one whale during our three hour trip.  Their captain was courteous enough to call our captain.

 Anne saw and caught this fluke as the whale prepared to dive.

This is what I saw.

 Dinner at Reykjavik Fish.  We would end up having many meals of fish and chips, sometimes without the chips.

It is now 11:23 pm, and it is still very bright outside.  Sunset is at 11:30 pm.

This was taken from our apartment's window at 11:55 pm on a later night (July 6) with my iPhone.

The Living Room and Bed Room of the Airbnb apartment we rented.  It served our purpose well.

Accommodation: Airbnb Bergstadastraete 8 (3 nights.)

July 6 Wednesday.  Today is The Golden Circle Tour, which consisted of Geysir, Gulfoss, and Thingvellir National Park.  Before all that we visited Fridheimar Farm located in Reykholt.  By using green house and modern agriculture techniques, the farm produces tomatoes year-round at the rate of one ton a week (if I remember correctly.)  The displays at the farm indicate Iceland grows a lot of the vegetables it needs (perhaps 80% of tomatoes.)  The real money maker is the sale of bread and tomato soup for ISK 1000.  (I found out later soup is generally very expensive, with a large lamb soup topping ISK2000 in an ordinary restaurant.

 Rows of tomatoes grown at the Fridheimar Farm.

The tomato soup was okay.  But ISK 1000 (about US$8) seemed a bit expensive.

Geysir was at one point an active hot springs area, but by now most of it has gone dormant.  A bubbling pot here or there, a periodic geyser that spouts a 30-foot column of steam, and some steam vents; and that’s about it.  It still attracted a lot of people today.  We had lunch at the cafeteria there.  Gulfoss lives up to its reputation as Europe’s largest waterfall.  It is quite spectacular, and more so than Huang Guo Shu we saw recently.  Thingvellir is interesting in two regards.  First is that this was where the first ever parliament met in 930.  Our guide told us this was where women condemned to death were drowned (there were records of 30 some who died this way; men were beheaded.)  This area is also where two tectonic plates (Europe and Asia) drift away at rate of about 2 cm per year.  One can see the cliffs on the American side, and a valley on the European side.  I had heard about this golden circle for quite a while, and must say while the sites were pleasant to visit, overall they didn’t quite live up to their reputation.

Most of the geysers in Geysir have gone dormant, and the few remaining ones don't quite live up to their reputation.  This was a typical eruption we saw of Strokkur, the main attraction.  One could hear the disappointment in my voice.

Tourists still flock to this site.  The unfinished building is to be a hotel. I wonder if it would see completion.

Gulfoss is an impressive waterfall.

 The gentleman who took this photo of us thought more of us than he should.

 The first parliament-like meeting was held here in 930 AD.

The American and European plates drift apart along this valley.  The pool was used to drowned women condemned by the court in the early days of Iceland.

For dinner we ate at the apartment.

July 7 Thursday.  We booked a city and Blue Lagoon combination tour through Viator.  Soon after we got in we got a message from Gray Line that he Blue Lagoon confirmation wasn’t valid, and they gave me a 7 pm time slot.  I initially accepted that, but then realized 7 pm is departure from their bus depot, the Blue Lagoon appointment is for 8 pm.  The return buses leave at 9 and 11 pm, which would mean either a short stay, or a very long stay.  So I asked Gray Line to cancel, and wrote Viator asking for a refund, even though I was told there is a 48-hour policy.  Then I got a message from Icelandair saying the departure to Glasgow would be delayed by 2 ½ hours, meaning we could leave at 7 am instead of 5 am the next day.  I talked to Gray Line again, and found out my reservations had not been cancelled, and things were back on.  More on the Blue Lagoon later.

The morning bus tour was about 2 ½ hours long.  We drove by the Prime Minister’s residence in town, Harpa, the banking district, Hofdi House where Reagan and Gorbachov had a meeting, the President house where we walked the grounds of the church in front of it, a Viking village, Perlan – a restaurant built on top of multiple hot water storage tanks, and Hallgrimskirkja, the tallest building in town.  We got off at the church as we wanted to attend the organ concert at noon.

 The city is dotted with sculptures.  This bicycle may just mark a "no auto" zone.

 These are found at Perlan, a group of hot water towers around which restaurants and shops are built.

 View of Reykjavik from Perlan.  The church Hallgrimskirkja dominates the skyline.

 The Hofdi House is where Reagan and Gorbachev held their first meeting to resolve the cold war.

You can get this close to the president's house.  Iceland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

Lunch was at Loki, a restaurant serving traditional Icelandic food.  We order a meat soup, which was quite good, and “Icelandic Plate No. 2” which included dried fish (too tough) and fermented shark.  The process of making fermented shark neutralizes the poison of the fresh Greeland Shark.  The food has its Wikipedia entry; it is described by various famous chefs as horrific, single worst, and terrible.  It is supposed to have a fishy taste (which I didn’t detect) and a strong ammonia-smell (which I got.)  Anne and I each had one piece, but neither would take the third piece on offer.

 The Loki Restaurant has a great view of Hallgrimskirkja.

We had a lamb soup and an Icelandic Plate II, which consisted of "Two rye bread slices, one with mashed fish & the other with smoked trout.  Flatbread wit smoked lamb.  Dried fish with butter and bit of a fermented shark."

Anne and I each had one piece of fermented shark.  Neither of us would claim this third piece.

We then attended an organ concert of works by women composers, performed by Sigrun Magna Thorsteinsdottir, organist at the Akureyi Church.  After enjoying free coffee afterwards, we rode up the church tower which afforded a great view of the city.

 

 The design of Hallgrimskirkja is inspired by the basalt columns common in the area.

Sigrun Magna Thorsteinsdottir, organist, taking a bow at the end of the concert in Hallgrimskirkja.

A panoramic view from the church tower, with the domestic airport in the background.

Hotdog at "bbp" which is Icelandic acronym for "best hotdog in town."

With a few hours left before Blue Lagoon, we bought tickets to “Reykjavik by Boat,” a 1 ½ hour tour in an old fishing boat.  We also managed to see more puffins.  Reykjavik is basically a shoreline city, so we didn’t cover much new ground.  One fact was the tallest glass building lay vacant for a while after the financial crisis of 2007, and sunlight would go right through the unoccupied building.  However, a ride on the water, on a good day, is always a great experience.

The Lundi (which means Lundi), which took us on a tour of Reykjavik.  And more puffins.

Due to yet another mix up, we waited a while at the Gray Line bus stop before we were picked up to the bus depot for the 7 pm bus to the Blue Lagoon.  At the location is a geothermal plant where very hot water is used to produce steam to generate electricity, the left over water is then fed to a lava-rimmed, concrete-lined pool.  For that a customer is charged 50 Euro for the basic package of a “hot spring bath.”  We are not spa people, yet we felt the Iceland visit would not be complete without a trip to the Blue Lagoon – such is the power of effective marketing.  We ended up soaking in the hot water for less than a half hour, and managed to catch the 9 pm return to town (the next one would have been 11 pm.)

 Panoramic shot of Blue Lagoon.

We bought a salad and a soup at the Lobster Shack by the Gray Line station to eat back at the apartment.  All this done in broad daylight, as sunset is around 11:30 pm this time of year.

Our last meal in Reykjavik was bought at this road side stand.

July 8 Friday.  Today was time to say goodbye to Iceland.  While things were a bit over-hyped, the overall experience was great.  We had three activity-filled days that lasted from close to the moment we touched down at KEF to late Friday night.  We did have two glitches: one was the mix-up at Viator which made it necessary for us to make last minute changes; the other was the delay of flight FI430 which made our first day in Scotland a bit hurried.

Perhaps some overall remarks about Iceland are in order.  It is amazing how an island the size of Long Island, with only 320,000 people, felt like a “real” country.  People here need to adapt to the lack of arable land and a short growing season, and manage to do so.  Iceland has the second lowest murder rate (behind Lichtenstein and ahead of Singapore,) and we did not see one single police officer.

Back to the trip.  For a while now I had been monitoring the performance of FI430 between KEF and GLA.  This flight seems to be routinely delayed by over two hours.  Sure enough, the day before our flight I was sent a text saying the flight will be delayed 2:25 hours due to technical reasons.  To this day I still don’t know whether that means check in will be open according to the revised departure time, or it would stay the same.  We made the decision to check in later, and it was okay – but I did worry a bit.  Automatic luggage drop-off also presented a problem, with one piece going through and the other was checked in manually at a check in counter, which meant waiting in one additional line.  I am happy that both pieces showed up in Glasgow; and the flight was pleasant enough.  Immigration was quite slow at GLA, taking about 45 minutes. 

 Screen Grab from flightaware.com.  Evidently FI430 continues to be delayed routinely.  Not the arrival times, scheduled to be 10:30 am.  (One some days the flight is on a later schedule.)

One reason we were delayed was because Princess Anne was in town for a visit.  It is good to travel in style, even better to travel as a royal; I am sure the little people don't mind being inconvenienced.

The flight was pleasant enough, and we checked out a rental car (Ford C-Max) from Avis, booked via Costco Travel.  The stick shift was easy enough to adapt to, and we were soon on our way to the Isle of Mull.  We had to first drive to Oban, got takeout from the George Street Fish and Chips, and ate while waiting in line for the ferry.  Oban is the self-proclaimed seafood capital of Scotland, but we had to miss trying the interesting- and tasty-looking fare.

 We had Fish and Chips from this outfit.  That was before we realized that ...

 Oban clais to be the Seafood Capital of Scotland.

We took the 6:20 pm ferry to Craignure on the Isle of Mull (the later ferry confirmed via email with the operator Calmac – Caledonia MacBryne), and checked into the Isle of Mull Hotel and Spa.  It was still bright enough that Anne and I decided to drive to the small and picturesque village of Tobermory, where we had takeout fried fish on the pier.  This is also my first encounter with these Scottish one-lane two-way roads that had passing spaces so oncoming traffic can get past each other.

Ferry that would take us from Oban to Craignure.

View of Oban from ferry as it made it way to Craignure.

 Tobermory is a neat small town on the Isle of Mull.

Isle of Mull has a lot of scenic spots.  We passed by this way on the way to Tobermory.

Accommodation: Isle of Mull Hotel & Spa (1 night.)

July 9 Saturday.  After a quick (full English) breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and drove the 35 miles to Fionnphort on the west end of the island, with more than 30 on this one-lane deal.  Traffic wasn’t heavy, and one got the hang of this, especially on sections that are pretty straight.  The Staffa Tours showed up on time at 9:45 am, but didn’t get going until 30 minutes later as several large groups were delayed.   There were about 30 customers total.

 Scottish cattle has a distinct hairy look to them.  This one was just roaming the parking lot in Fionnphort.

 Staffa Boat Tours runs two tours out to Staffa during the summer.  We took the early one.

It was a 6-mile, 35-minute ride out to Staffa Island. In relatively calm (3-foot) seas.  The island is famous for several things: the basalt rocks and the hexagonal structures resulting from lava being cooled down, Fingal’s Cave where Mendelssohn got his inspiration for the Hebrides Overture, and nesting puffins.  This is our fourth time we saw puffins during this trip.   There were enough of them to make it interesting, and we could stand right on top the burrows and sea puffins landing with beards (fish) in their mouth.  Unfortunately, they didn’t stand around long enough for pictures.

Staffa Island seen during our approach.  The dark part is Fingal's Cave.

 Some basalt columns break off and these "steps" are left behind.

 One can walk from the pier along these steps to Fingal's Cave.  Some sections of the path had handholds and railings for safety.

 Inside Fingal's Cave.  With the huge contrast between the outside light and dark interior, it was tough to get a good picture.

Inside the cave even an iPhone could do reasonably good job.

 We were able to stand right on top of these puffin burrows. We could see birds landing with fish in their beaks, but they didn't hang around long enough to have pictures taken.  This one was at a distance.

Farewell shot as we left Staffa Island.

The tour boat docked at Iona, but we didn't get off.  Christianity was first introduced to Scotland on this island.  Iona Abbey is built on the first church on Iona.

We bought a “seafood platter for two” at the Creel Seafood Shack by the waterfront.  It was a cold dish, to our disappointment.  The drive to Fishnish took about 1:15 hours, and we waiting about 30 minutes to drive onto the Fishnish-Lochaline Ferry to get to the mainland.  We made a routing decision that resulted in our taking yet another ferry to cross over to Corran.  As Anne and I were wondering about this being a free ride, a ticket agent knocked on our car door and charged us 8.2 pounds for the trip.

This Seafood Platter was a bit of a disappointment.

 Getting on the Corran Ferry to go to the Scottish mainland.

We drove by Eilean Donan Castle.  We would come back for a visit later.

After stopping at Fort William to have coffee at Costa in Fort William, we got on the road again, arriving at the cottage Joe Jr was renting at around 8:30 pm.  Part of the drive was also on one-lane roads, only here there were more curves and the road conditions were not as good as Mull’s.  When we got in, DN had just started his sleeping process, Emmie stayed up to greet us.  Anne and I had some of the chicken Jess baked earlier that day.

The cottage for our Isle of Skye stay.

The simply laid out house did the job.

Accommodations: Arnaval, Isle of Skye Holiday Cottages, Carbost (3 nights.)

July 10, Sunday.  It rains a lot in Scotland, evidently.  We were hoping to see the Fairy Pools, which gets written up in multiple publications, and did get to the parking lot of Glen Brittle in time to find parking spaces.  DN was asleep, and I volunteered to stay with him while the others set off to find the waterfall.  They ended up getting some hiking done (Joe Jr had to carry Emmie for the return, uphill trip) but couldn’t find the pools, either because they were lost, or the rain has turned everything into rivulets.

They started the walk to the Fairy Pools in good spirit.

We had lunch at the bar of Hotel Sligachen.  Joe and Jess had a Talisker Whiskey Tour at 2 pm, so Anne went back with them to babysit.  I went off to get groceries at the Portree Co-op.

Anne and I looked for the lighthouse in the area to no avail, but did hike a couple of kms in the process.  Dinner was baked salmon.

 Our attempt at finding the lighthouse in the area ended in failure.  These signs were just not clear enough for us to follow.  We ended up with a nice walk, seeing lots of sheep during that time.

Overall impression so far: The Scottish landscape is spectacular, too bad I had to pay a lot of attention to the road while driving, and the constant rain has been ruining it.

July 11 Monday.  The plan for today was to drive around one of the “arms” of the isle, in a clockwise direction.  Our first stop is the Isle of Skye Baking Company, a little north of Portree.  Jess bought quite a bit of pastries, and we had scone and coffee there.  Next on the list is Skye Museum of Island Life, which contains a collection of stone buildings from the 18^th century depicting island life at that time.  A three room house had 14 people living in it, parents and their 12 children.  The walls were solidly built, measuring more than 2 feet in places.  Next we went to Quiraing to see its supposed spectacular landscape.  Emmie didn’t want to walk, so Anne and I stayed with her.

 Array of breads for sale at the Isle of Skye Baking Company.

At the Syke Museum of Island Life.

We then had a problem.  While sitting in the back seat of our car, I noticed that the child locks were on, so we had to get someone else to open the door for us.  Not wanting to repeat that, I tried to disengage the child lock (since we hadn’t had any child in the backseat of our car.)  Instead I moved something that made it impossible for the rear right door to close.  After trying to fix this for a long time, we ended up tying the door down with two seat belts, and I was quite resigned to drive this way all the way to Inverness.  The contraption worked quite well for the 30 some minute trip to Portree.  While filling up the gas tank, the attendant told us about an auto repair shop in town, and the manager there fixed the problem in less than 5 seconds, with his bare hands, and refused to take any money.  Kindness of strangers.

In any case, that didn’t completely ruin our day.  Since we were in Portree already, we decided to walk around a bit.  The place that sells fresh fish was closed, but we did get fried fish from The Harbour Fish and Chip Shop, which was doing great business.

 View from Quiraing is great.  But we had an issue with our car door.

After we had the car door fixed, we managed to walk around town a bit, and had fish and chips.

After dinner, Joe and Jess went out again to see the Fairy Pools.  They were back before the kids went to bed.

July 12 Tuesday.  Check out was 10 am, we missed it by about 20 minutes.  Emmie asked to ride with us, so we put the car seat in our car and started on our way to Inverness.  We stopped by Eilean Donan Castle to have lunch, then we decided to visit.  Admissions was only GBP 6 (we got a GBP 1 discount for being over 60.)  While the castle was nothing more than the stronghold of a warlord/family, it was nonetheless quite interesting.  A security guard took interest in Emmie and tried to explain to her what the place was all about, that took about 20 minutes, and Emmie stood through all of it.  He then showed us the lookout holes and the gate opening mechanism, which Emmie found quite interesting.

 Eilean Donan Castle from another angle.

Walkway to the Castle.

Lovely granddaughter.

I found out this is a statement of friendship.  As long as there are MacRae's inside, any Fraser will be invited into the Castle.

While it was 2-lane traffic most of the way to Inverness, there were still sections that were quite winding and narrow.  We made it a little before 4 pm so Anne could start her conference call on time while Emmie had a lot of fun exploring the apartment.  Joe, Jess and Harrison showed up at around 5:30 pm.  Dinner was at the Italian chain restaurant Zizzi on the ground floor.

We chanced upon this group of bagpipers and other musicians in this band, perhaps preparing for the Highland Games?

We can see River Ness from our apartment.

The lights make for a pretty sight at night.

Accommodation: Highland Apartments (203), Bank Road, Inverness.  (5 nights.)

July 13 Wednesday.  Our first activity was a cruise on Loch Ness with Jacobite Cruises.  This is a 90-minute cruise that took us from River Ness to the Loch, with a narrator highlighting some of the sights seen enroute.  Loch Ness is the largest lake in the UK, reaching a depth of 230 or so meters, and can “swallow” up the entire human population several times over (whatever that means.)  For a large lake, it is surprisingly narrow (maximum width at 2.7 km per Wikipedia.)  Frankly other than the famed but yet-to-be-proven-to-exist Loch Ness Monster there isn’t a whole lot to see: a castle here and there, and a couple of locations where noteworthy events happened.  It was a mostly pleasant morning, so we did enjoy relaxing on a calm surface.

 Cruise on Loch Ness.  The excitement is on par with the one on Damariscotta River in Maine.

Three generations of Cheung men.

 One could see several castle ruins during this cruise.  This is the Urquhart Castle.

 A restored catapault on the bank of the lake.

After the cruise we decided to take lunch at the Oakwood, which is perhaps 100 yards away.  The food there was good, and we tried “haggis, neeps, and tattis” which actually was quite tasty – as long as you don’t scrutinize the list of ingredients.  We were seated in two tables, they offered to deduct GBP 10 from our bill because they thought they were too slow in getting the dishes ready.

Haggis, neeps, and tattis (turnips and potatoes) actually tasted quite good.

Not having had enough of Nessie, we drove down to the Loch Ness Center to get a look at their exhibition.  Turns out this 5-star attraction consists mostly a series of around five 3-minute clips.  I thought what the narrator did was to argue against the existence of Nessie; quite interesting.

Emmie was riding with us the whole day, and finally fell asleep on the way back.  After we parked, Jess stayed with her in the car; M slept for close to 1:30 hours.

Dinner was takeout at Rajah’s.

July 14 Thursday.  Today was spent in Highlands Wildlife Park, about an hour’s drive from our apartments.  Again Emmie rode with us.  This is a relatively small park, and there is a short drive through safari drive through.  We took both grandchildren with us on the way back so Jess and Joe could do one of these whiskey tours.  Taking care of two small children takes quite a bit of concentration, even though they are our grandchildren.  After we got off, Anne and I went to the Scottish pub on the ground floor and had dinner; she had the salmon, I had the ribeye steak (we do share our dishes.)  Jess and Emmie joined us for an evening walk while Joe tried to get DN to sleep.

 Joe Jr's family watching feeding of Japanese snow monkeys.

The Red Panda.

 Anne and I had more fun with these barn swallows,

 this colorful sparrow/chickadee,

 this group of ducks,

or the oystercatcher.  We also saw a couple of baby oystercatchers but didn't get photos of them.

July 15 Friday.  Weather forecast for the area was bad – 100% chance of rain, but the day turned out to be okay.  Today was a day Joe Jr decided to take slowly, he also had to return his rental car and get a new one, as he changed his plans about taking the train to Edinburgh.  We left around 10:30 am for Whin Park, basically a children’s park with more playthings and few kids, which worked out great for Emmie.  Rain started after she finished her train ride, a perfect time for us to get back.  Lunch was at Mustard Seed, a rather fancy place (candles and tablecloth, although latter with another layer of white plastic on top of it.)  Prices were reasonable, basic two-course dinner is about GBP 9.  Emmie had a nice piece of sea trout for GBP 5 (it includes an ice cream, which she skipped.)  After resting a bit, Anne and I got restless and decided to drive to Chanronry Point, considered the best place in the area to see bottleneck dolphins.  We stood there for over 20 minutes without seeing anything.

 Lunch at Mustard Seed was good.  Emmie tried her hand at taking pictures.

Dolphins are sometimes sighted off Chanronry Point.  We didn't see any; Jess went the next day and saw quite a few.

Dinner for home-cooked; Joe and Jess brought back some steak and salmon from a Sainsbury store they happy to drive by yesterday.  Both were very good, with the steak tasting better than the ones we have had this trip.

We bought tickets to the one-day Orkney trip for tomorrow.  It will be a long day, leaving at 7 am, getting back at 9 pm.

July 16 Saturday.  Anne and I spent today touring the Orkney Islands, an archipelago north of Scotland mainland.  To do this we had to leave the apartment a bit before 7 am, and didn’t get back until 9 pm.  The bus ride to John O’Groats, the town at the northern end of Scotland mainland, is around 2 ½ hours each way.  The ferry ride from JoG to Burwick takes about 40 minutes.  That leaves about 6 hours for touring the islands.

I was under the impression that Orkney was a collection of barren rocks, beaten up by the North Sea, and sparsely populated.  Turns out most of the impression is wrong.  Apparently winter temperature averages 4C, and summer 12C. We saw a lot of green pasture for hay, and animal (mostly sheep and cattle) grazing.  The weather for our visit was certainly unpredictable; well, the predication a couple of days called for a rather miserable day, and all we got were high winds and occasional showers.  The seas were rough though: it was windy on our way to Burwick, so we saw a lot of white caps; coming back the wind was calmer, but the swells were quite a bit bigger.  The boat seems to be sturdily built, so while we got tossed quite a bit, I never felt we were in danger.

 Icon signpost in John O'Groats.

 The small town of John O'Groats is dominated by this hotel and sculpture.  The sculpture depicts the huge power of the waves tossing around huge boulders.

 At the harbor waiting for the ferry to come in.

Boarding the ferry.

We visited the following sites:

-        Scapa Flow and Churchill Barriers.  The Orkney islands form a natural harbor (Scapa Flow).  During the second world war German submarines would try to enter the harbor using the channels between the islands.  Churchill had those blocked, and indeed we saw several sunken ships around the barriers.  These are now causeways that connect many of the islands.  We also saw a buoy marking a boat sunk by the Germans.

-        Ring of Brodger.  These predate even the Stonehenge.  No one knows for sure what the site was for, other than the usual guesses of worship and sacrifice.

-        Kirkwall.  Kirk means “church.”  Certainly there is a large church in town.  This also happens to be the largest town in the Orkneys with about 9000 inhabitants.

-        Skara Brae.  This is a “village” that dates back about 5000 years.  Archaeologists think the settlement was started around 3000 BC and abandoned some 500 years later.  Again no confirmation of what the people were or where they resetlled.

-        Standing Stones of Stenness.  We did see a few more structures, but I probably slept through these.

-        Italian Chapel.  We didn’t go in due to time constraints.

 Wreck next to a Churchhill barrier.  Not sure when this boat ran around.

 A panoramic view of Ring of Brodgar.

 St. Magnus Cathedral of Kirkwall, Orkney.  Construction of the original church was started in 1137.

 Skara Brae.  It was occupied between 3100 BC and 2500 BC.  No one knows for sure where these people came from, or why they left.

We didn't go into this Italian Chapel, built by Italian prisoners of war during WWII.

Today was simply a splendid day.

Since we got back so late, and didn’t want to wait too long for our food, we opted for McDonald’s today.

July 17 Sunday.  Today is another travel day, from Inverness to Edinburgh, which takes three hours.  Joe Jr et al wanted to stop by another Cairngorms National Park site to visit, Anne and I just decided to have lunch at Aviemore, a ski town.  We ended up eating at Happy Haggis, although we didn’t have haggis.  This place was started by a Hungarian family a generation back, and serves good food at reasonable prices.  I had to make another rest stop and we ended buying two pieces of pastry at the Perthshire Shopping Center: a Scottish black bun and a Clootie dumpling, both are variations on a fruitcake theme.  After dropping Anne off at the Airbnb location – there was no place to park the car – I headed out to return the rental car.  I thought I was bumped from behind at an intersection, but there were no signs of any scratch (whew!)  And it could have been my jerky stick-shifting technique anyway.  I was quite relieved to finish driving on the left, in a stick-shift car no less.  Airlink 100 privided a simple way to return to town.

We walked to Golden Dragon a couple of blocks away to have a simple Cantonese dinner.  I thought I over-ordered, but we finished all the dishes, and (embarrassingly) asked the left-over white rice to be wrapped.  This was our first Chinese meal, so everyone was up for it, evidently.

There was some problem with the heating system, and it was going to be in the 50s tonight.  The host managed to get a repairman to show up at around 11 pm.

 Princes Stree Gardens.  The statue is the Royal Scots Greys Monument, per Wikipedia.  The thistle is the national flower of Scotland, and these plants are huge.

 This is our first glimpse of the Edinburgh Castle.  We would visit later.

The 3 1/2 floors of stairs we needed to navigate to get to our apartment.

Accommodations.  Airbnb apartment at 63 Frederick St, Edinburgh.  (3 nights.)

July 18 Monday.  We are staying in the “New Town” section of Edinburgh, a couple of blocks from Princes Street.  Turns out “new” is relative: they started building here in 1767.  Our apartment is on the third floor, and ground floor is about half a flight up.  So we left in the morning and didn’t come back until dinner time.

First it was the Scottish National Museum.  Although the outside looks very old, the inside is bright and spacious.  It contains many different departments: natural history, technology and science, Scottish history, and others.  Anne and I are both interested in what makes Scotland Scotland, so me opted to see those exhibits.  There is naturally quite a large collection of artifacts, dating all the way back to 5000 BC and earlier.  If the measure of a good museum is one walks out with a better understanding of the subject, then this was a disappointment.  We couldn’t make a lot of headway with the Picts, the Britons, or what ancestries make up today’s Scots.  The best we can gleam from all this was “modern” Scotland (i.e., from 700 AD on) was populated via the Irish and the Scandinavian route, while the English came from Germany and France (the Southern route.)  And we are not sure that’s true.

 The inside of parts of the National Museum of Scotland had a very modern feel to it.  Unfortunately we cursory visit didn't add much to my understanding of the history of Scotland.

One unexpected find was this bust of Chalmers, whose work had a lot to do with poverty alleviation.

After lunch at the Museum’s Brasserie, which serves food that is inexpensive and quite okay, we headed to the Edinburgh Castle.

 Lunch at the Brasserie.

While we were trying to determine which direction to go, Anne had fun capturing our moments of confusion.

The Castle is an imposing building.  After making one’s way up the steep hill, I don’t know how one would still have any energy to stage an attack.  In any case, there were some banners that talk about the significant events during the castle’s history which was quite illuminating.  St. Margaret’s Chapel which dates from the 12^th century is considered the oldest building in Scotland (per Wikipedia.)

Panoramic view of buildings around castle courtyard.

 St. Margaret's Chapel, considered the oldest building in Scotland.

 This is where the crown jewels of Scotland are kept.  Frankly they are not quite as spectacular as those in the Tower of London.

Emmie is happy enough.  I do wonder how much of history a three year old gets.

Panoramic view of City of Edinburgh from Castle.  In the background is the Firth of Forth.

A Scottish friend of ours said we have to see the Royal Mile.  To me it looked like any other pedestrian zone with street performers and shoppers.

An alley in Old Town.

On the way back we stopped by Mark and Spencer and bought prepared food to bring back to the apartment.  That was our dinner.

July 19 Tuesday.  We left the apartment at around 10 am for our trip to North Berwick.  It is a seaside town about 30 minutes away by train.  We bought the tickets at a ticket machine for GBP 11.4 roundtrip, it turns out since we were traveling during off-peak hours, a round trip ticket would have cost only 6.4 or so.  The town has a real beach that filled up with people as the day went on: when we got there at around 11:30 am, there were a few people, when we left at around 3 pm, the swimming area was quite crowded.

We were there to watch seabirds.  Sula II is a 50-year old wooden boat that carries more than 50 passengers.  With a single engine, it took quite a bit of skill to back the boat out of the harbor through a narrow entranceway.  The skipper managed to do so without touching the walls at all; no doubt today’s calm weather helped.

 Looking for seabirds from North Berwick.

 Another place where a customer can just get the fish and not the chips.  Here they took 50% off!

 Bass Rock as seen from North Berwick.  The white stuff turned out to be gannets, not guano as I thought.

 North Berwick Harbour.  Sula II is the wooden boat against the sea wall.  (Zoom in to see.)

The boat took more than 50 passengers.  Here the captain backing it out of the harbor.

We first went to Craigleith where we saw a lot of puffins, then we sailed the mile or so to Bass Rock which teemed with gannets.  The claim is this is the largest collection of Northern Gannets in the world, and I don’t doubt that.  We were not allowed to land on the island, but the boat got pretty close.  It was impressive, even though our experience at Bonaventure Island in Quebec a few years back allowed us to get up close and personal.  We also saw other seabirds such as razorbills, guillemots, cormorants, and the occasional puffin.

 Puffins on Craigleith.  We have seen them on many different boat trips in the past two plus weeks.

 Gannets on the side of Bass Rock.

Indeed the white on the top of the rock is gannets.

Gannets flying around Bass Rock.  Taken from Sula II.

Close up of birds.

It was a little after 4 pm when we got back to Edinburgh.  We decided to have tea at eteaket, a small café near the apartment.  The teas were interesting, the scone and other pastries were just so-so.

Tea at eteaket on our street.  Anne is also busy taking pictures of the food.

Edinburgh Castle is lit up at night.

Since Joe and Jess also had tea earlier in the day, no one felt particularly hungry.  We got takeout from Yes Sushi, a nearby Japanese restaurant.

It was now time to pack for our return trip tomorrow.

July 20 Wednesday.  It started to rain this morning as we made our last-minute preparations to move.  Calling a taxi was quite straightforward, and the fare was quite reasonable – GBP 24 for all six of us, and a load of luggage.  Check in and security for us was very straightforward, to my surprise there was no immigration.  They took a bit more time with Joe Jr and family as the milk and medicine had to be hand-examined.  The load is quite light in this 757 (UA109).  Six of us (5 plus lap) has nine seats in economy plus.

Enjoying her lunch on Flight UA109.

A last selfie at Newark before Joe Jr and family fly up to Boston.

A few remarks about the trip.  The joke (but true) is I have less problem understanding the Icelanders than Scots, the latter group does speak with a rather strong accent.  The Scotland we have seen is nice: I could live in Edinburgh (this without knowing what winters are like.)  Things are expensive in Iceland, and much more reasonable in Scotland.

Enough of that, plane landed on time, and we reluctantly said goodbye to Joe Jr and family before they went off to catch their flight to Boston.

Finding an Uber car was easy enough, except the driver took Turnpike North instead of South, so we ended up spending about 15 more minutes on the trip, and – surprisingly – an extra $15 or so on the fare.  That didn’t spoil our trip, not the least bit.