Lake District, Highlands and Islands

Today we did some walking. First to the top of Calton Hill.  The view from the top of Calton Hill was recommended to us when we had Sunday Roast at the local pub.  It was not so far from where we are staying in Broughton. The summit had a 360-degree view of Edinburgh, including  Arthur's Seat - our next objective.   Calton was a bit crowded with monuments including: - The National Monument, a replica of the Parthenon in Athens built to commemorate Scottish soldiers who died in the Napoleonic Wars. Construction stopped in 1829 due to a lack of funds, leaving it unfinished. - The Nelson Monument, a tower built to recognize Vice Admiral Lord Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.  Built between 1807 and 1815, it once signaled the time to ships in the Firth of Forth. There was also a rock cairn.  The cairn was built by the keepers of the "Vigil for a Scottish Parliament" on the hill.  The Vigil began on April ...

We are staying in the Broughton area in New Town, Edinburgh and enjoy walking around the neighborhood.  A former church nearby that is now an auction house was also used to film a scene from the movie Chariots of Fire.  An art gallery features works by Banksy - or inspired by him.  There is a great coffee shop that roasts their own beans and many places to eat.   On Wednesday we visited Gladstone's Land.  Gladstone's Land is a restored 16th-century tenement building owned and operated by the National Trust for Scotland.  Three floors of the building are set-up to display the lives and professions of residents at the property in the  1600s, 1700s and early 1900s.  Volunteers on the floors help you understand what daily life was like in that time period. Some interesting items included overshoes to avoid mud on the streets and a foot warmer under a desk. The desk had a few hidden spaces the volunteer demonstr...

Today we took a morning express train to Glasgow.  We visited the Burrell Collection and arrived in time for a guided tour. The Burrell Collection is approximately 9,000 objects donated to Glasgow city in 1944. The collection was amassed by shipping magnate Sir William Burrell and his wife over a 75-year period. It is housed in a purpose-built museum that includes Chinese, Medieval and French Impressionist Art.  There are also antiquities and decorative arts from around the world. We especially liked the tapestries, including one featuring Vasco Da Gama and some camels, and a Chinese ceramic version of a rhinoceros.  The tapestry with Vasco Da Gama is known as the Camel Caravan tapestry.  It is one tapestry from a set of early 16th-century tapestries depicting scenes from Vasco da Gama's voyages to India in the late 1490s and early 1500s.  The tapestries were commissioned by King Manuel I o...

These were our first days in Edinburgh.  On Sunday afternoon we visited the National Museum of Scotland.  The museum holds in its collection many objects from areas we visited.  This included the Lewis Chessmen, the begging badge from the ruins of a church we visited on Harris Island, and a jet necklace from Kilmartin. There was also some interesting Pict rock art.  The more modern section of the museum has "Dolley" the first cloned sheep on display. We also found time for Sunday Roast at a local pub. On Monday afternoon we visited the Georgian House.  It is located next to Bute House (Bute House is in the center of the picture below and Georgian House is to the left) the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland.  The Georgian House is an 18th-century townhouse museum owned and operated by the National Trust...

Our quest for the day was to find the remnants of the Antonine Wall and a Roman Fort.  We started at the Falkirk Wheel (more on this below) where there was supposed to be a path to the Wall.  Not so.  At least we didn't find it and turned our attention to the Falkirk Wheel.  Afterwards, by chance as we were driving away, we found a road sign that led us to a single-lane track that led us to a footpath that led us to the ruins of the wall and the fort. The Antonine Wall was the Roman Empire's northernmost frontier in Europe, built in the mid-2nd century across what is now central Scotland. Unlike the stone-built Hadrian's Wall to the south, the Antonine Wall was primarily made of turf and timber on a stone foundation. A deep ditch was built in front of the wall.  There were 16 forts built along the wall and we looked at the ruins of one of them. ...