Popping Down to London

We planned a couple days in London during our time in Nottingham. Before we left home, we had pre-booked bus tickets, as well as seats for a play at Shakespeare’s Globe theater in London.

It was still dark on Monday morning when we left the house to catch a bus downtown so that we could make it to the station for our pre-booked bus to London. The journey got off to an inauspicious start when I clumsily tripped over a curb and did a face-plant onto the asphalt sidewalk. A little road-rash on the chin was the only visible injury. Unseen aches were relieved by Ibuprofen.

Our bus arrived at Victoria Coach Station almost 45 minutes late. The bulk of the extra time was spent standing dead still in London city traffic. But we still had time to get onto the Tube and get to Trafalgar Square in time for a lunch, and then to the National Gallery. 

After getting our fill of paintings, we walked down Whitehall toward Parliament and Big Ben, catching the Horse Guards on the way. 

We also passed Downing Street, where the Prime Minister was receiving guests, but we were not on the guest list.

By the time we got to Parliament Square, we realized that our stamina is not what it once was. Fifteen years ago we could breeze through two or three museums in a day. But by mid-afternoon, we were feeling tired. So we took the Tube back to Victoria and checked into our nearby hotel to rest a bit.

After our refresh, we got back onto the Tube for Westminster to take in Evensong at the Abbey. We got there a full half hour early, and were amazed to find a queue of more than 100 people already lined up ahead of us! Apparently the word has gotten out that, if one attends a service, one can avoid the £32 ($42.50) ticket. 

There were far too many people for the quire, but we were seated in the south transept, and a video screen allowed us to see the action. Most importantly, the acoustics were still good enough that we could hear the excellent choir.

Back on the Tube, we made our way to St. Paul's where we crossed the Millennium Bridge to reach the Globe. The play was Much Ado About Nothing and it was a fun production. Fortunately, the rain held off.

The hotel provided a very good breakfast, after which we checked out and made our way via Tube back to where we left off the previous evening, right next door to the Globe at the Tate Modern. We spent the morning experiencing modern art, then walked back across the bridge for mid-day Eucharist at St. Paul's Cathedral.

There was not as much of a crowd for that, as there was no choir or organ, but we got into the church and had time to look around after the service. Lunch special at a very nice Indian restaurant refreshed us enough to continue.

We rode the Tube back to St. James's Park and walked through, enjoying very pleasant weather. 

As it happened, we reached Buckingham Palace just in time for the Changing of the Guard. The band played Stars and Stripes Forever, which we found a bit strange.

The rest of the afternoon, until our scheduled bus back to Nottingham, was spent sitting at a table outside a pub, enjoying our ale (in my case) and cider. The trek back was uneventful.

Changes

It's been 15 years since we lived in Nottingham, a year that was an incredible, life-changing experience for us, as well as for our students. Now that we're back for a visit, we notice some changes:

The student flat has received some major upgrades, and it looks great!

There's new flooring and the kitchen has beautiful new appliances.

Not so much the house, where we lived 15 years ago and where we are living now. There is a lot of deferred maintenance here. Interior walls need paint. Some of the new furniture we bought was removed to the flat and replaced with a lot of shabby stuff that looks like it came from a thrift shop. Curtains are shabby, too. The floors have been carpeted, but with a kind of sick-looking, light green color that shows dirt easily. The carpet has lots of stains in it and generally looks pretty gross. The yard is poorly kept and looks awful. With the program cut to a half year, my guess is that directors aren't terribly motivated to fix things because they are here a very short time and most of it they are busy with students.

The neighborhood has changed, too. It appears that the majority of residents are now South Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims. There are a lot more cars, and most have ripped out their front yards to make room for parking in front of the house. Some houses are very well maintained, but others are not. There's more litter on the streets -- some of it right beside the litter bins! Some of the businesses around have closed and storefronts are boarded or "to let." The place getting the most business is a pub that closed while we were here in 2010, and now has been converted into a McDonald's.

Today we ventured downtown. The bus routes that serve our neighborhood have been "diverted" due to a major road construction project near the city center. We can still get downtown and back pretty easily, but the last stop before they turn around is now a couple blocks from the Market Square. Just a little more walking. It will be this way for months, apparently.

The city center looks much as we remembered it. One big department store is now boarded up, but most of the storefronts are occupied, many with the same businesses we remember being there before. There were tons of people on the streets today (a Saturday), and though the British economy is said to be struggling, it appears that a lot of money is changing hands here.

Another change is tipping. One almost never tipped in restaurants, and certainly not in bars. But now that everyone is paying with plastic cards instead of cash, the card machines are all just like in the U.S., where the boxes pop up asking if you want to tip 20%, 25%, or more. When the waitress is standing there, holding the machine, and watching your every move, one is intimidated not to bypass the tip. It's extortion.

Robin Hood is still here, just outside the walls of the Castle. But they now charge ₤18 (about $24) per person to enter the Castle grounds! We hope they've substantially upgraded what there is to see in there, because in the past, it wasn't much.

One thing that hasn't changed much is the weather. It's been cool and windy with off-and-on rain showers. Meanwhile, we see that it's been in the 80s back home -- absolutely crazy for mid-October! So we are missing out on the warm fall.

Nevertheless, it's been really fun to be back here, to remember the past and to see the changes that are taking place. We saw a play today at the Royal Theater (which, like the house in which we're living, needs some serious refurbishing), and we'll attend a concert next week in a much newer concert hall. We've met some of the new neighbors, and have plans to connect with at least a few people from our past. Next week will pop down to London for a couple of days and see a play at the Globe. All-in-all, it's a good time.

Home Sweet Home

 After a very long day on the bus, we are "home" again safely in Nottingham.

Dean Village

This morning we left Glasgow behind and took the easy and cheap CityLink bus to Edinburgh. Our hotels at each end were chosen to be near the bus stations, so getting to our Edinburgh hotel was handy. We arrived much too early to check in, but we checked our bags and headed out to re-explore a city we've visited several times in the past.

First stop was the National Gallery, just a few blocks from our hotel. It's free to visit, and we weren't the only ones taking advantage of the opportunity. 

Every exhibit room was crowded. But we still managed to see every painting noted in the "highlights" booklet.

The Royal Mile, Edinburgh's center, is largely unchanged from our previous visits. If anything, there are more tourists and the street is more touristy. One wonders how so many bagpipe buskers can support themselves in so small a space. We were going to pay our respects at St. Giles Cathedral, but they now charge admission to enter and there was a queue. There was little else we needed to see.

We set out for Dean Village, an area on the West End of Edinburgh that seems to have been recently discovered by tourists. Unfortunately, my poor sense of direction and atrophied map-reading skills set us walking in the wrong direction, adding steps we didn't need. But we did get to see the University campus, including a 1970s-style student protest against budget cuts at the school.

We resorted to using a city bus to cut out some of our walking. It was easy and convenient. There are at least four (maybe more) bus companies operating in this city, and probably more buses than cars on the streets. People in Britain used to rely on trains, but everyone says the trains are now unreliable. Bus service is ubiquitous.

At first, Dean Village, which is not a separate village but just a neighborhood of Edinburgh, looks a lot like every other quaint little Scottish town or hamlet that we have visited in the past week -- just a lot of old, stone buildings refurbished and still in use. 

However, there is a stream running through this area called, "The Water of Lieth." It was a mill stream in previous centuries, making Dean Village the place where Edinburgh's bakers (or baxters, in Scottish Gaelic) sourced their flour.

The mills are long gone, but the stream remains an oasis of nature in the midst of the city. Walking the path along the Water of Lieth, one could imagine being in a nature preserve miles away. It's a beautiful spot, so far unspoiled by coffee shops and souvenir stands.

After so much walking, a little refreshment was in order. Glasgow has its bars and clubs, but Edinburgh has many, many more traditional pubs. We found one and sat to enjoy people-watching as the busy city went by (mostly by bus).

We didn't realize it at the time we booked, but our hotel is not only close to the station and to most of the main tourist areas in Edinburgh, but it also happens to be on a pedestrian street we didn't know about (and may not have been here last time we were in town). Rose Street is lined with shops, restaurants, and pubs. It's a happening place!

Our hotel here was the most expensive of the trip, due to the excellent location. But the room was one of the tiniest we've ever experienced. We even had bigger hotel rooms than this in Japan! One person might be comfortable in it, but two of us can barely move in the room. And the bathroom is even more cramped. Fortunately, we're here for only one night.

Indian food got the nod once again for dinner -- not because we crave Indian cuisine, but because British food now basically comes in three flavors: Indian, American burgers, or fish & chips. We could have gone for the haggis, but we've been there and done that and don't need to do it again.

Relaxed Glasgow

The cold and damp of Scotland are catching up with us. Our noses run constantly and we are weary. It's possible that we are getting older, but we'll blame the weather, instead. So we throttled back a bit today, rather than pressing into a full day of sites in the city.

We did manage the 20 minute walk to Glasgow Cathedral and its environs. This cathedral survived the Protestant Reformation more or less intact, unlike the one at St. Andrews. It continues today as a working congregation of the Church of Scotland, the American counterpart of which is The Presbyterian Church USA.

The Cathedral was first constructed in the 12th century and is the oldest building in Glasgow, though it has had many additions and renovations. It is dedicated to "Saint Mungo," about whom there are many legends but few facts. He was a missionary who brought Christianity to the tribes of this area in the late 6th century and who may (or may not) have been instrumental in founding the city of Glasgow. He supposedly built a church on the spot where the Cathedral stands, and was buried there, in what is now the Cathedral crypt.

If it's unclear whether Mungo is actually buried here, it is certain that a lot of other people are. The crypt and the church proper are filled with memorial stones. The churchyard is densely packed with graves, and on a nearby hill overlooking the Cathedral is the Glasgow Necropolis. The Necropolis is a Victorian-era cemetery with more than 50,000 recorded burials since 1832. Though not formally associated with the Cathedral, it adds to the ambiance.

Next door to the Cathedral is the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. It's free and has free restrooms, so of course we visited. It's a small and eclectic collection of items related to the religious life of all faiths. Religion appears to be far out of mind for most Scots these days, and the museum seems to be trying to explain to visitors why it has been so important throughout history.

Across the street from the museum is Provand's Lordship (an odd name that wasn't clearly explained), billed as the oldest house in Glasgow. It is also a free museum, and quite interesting. It was probably built as a manse (or parsonage) for the bishop or some other official of the Cathedral. But it's had all sorts of owners and uses over the last 600 or so years. Part of the ground floor was used as a shop selling various goods. At one point the back yard was an herb garden, the produce of which was sold in the shop for medicinal purposes. There is some evidence that Mary, Queen of Scots, lived here, at least briefly -- as did a string of other nobles and notables. The furnishings are not original to the building, but many date back to the 16th or 17th centuries.

Having shot the morning chasing Mungo and company, we returned to the same Indian restaurant where we had enjoyed a very good meal last week on our first day in Scotland, and had a very good lunch. Then we chilled until evening, when we located a traditional pub for a libation and people-watching.

St. Andrew and Fife

Our 3-day overview of the Highlands concluded, we booked a much smaller, one-day tour of the area around Glasgow for today. The tour began just around the corner from our hotel, and took us to the first stop, which was the Kelpies -- those huge horse head sculptures which had been the first stop on our previous trek. Having been there just a few days before, we used the time to check out the longboats in the canal nearby.

Next stop was the village of Culross, another quaint, well-preserved collection of old buildings and a place where scenes from Outlander had been filmed. The "market cross" that marks the center of town features a unicorn, rather than the traditional cross.

Wind and rain dampened our visit, and made the cobblestones on the streets slippery underfoot. But one shop we ducked into to stay dry still had the old, open-rafter ceilings with original painted designs. A coffee shop still looked like the pub it had been a few centuries ago.

The main attraction of the day was the town of St. Andrews. It's another well-preserved place full of historical buildings. But one has never seen so many golf shops! St. Andrews is where golf was born, and the "Old Course" literally begins right at the end of one of the main streets.

Usually, the Old Course is closed to golfers on Sundays, and visitors are welcome to stroll over it. Unfortunately, a big golf tournament was underway. So (expensive) tickets were required to get onto the course, and movement was restricted by golfers, caddies, and TV crews. We got as close as we could.

Also famous here is the University of Saint Andrew, the UK's third most prestigious after Oxford and Cambridge. Prince William and Princess Kate are famous alumni. Buildings are off-limits without a student or faculty ID, but we did get as far as the lobby (and restrooms) of the main library. And visitors are free to roam the quads and green spaces. The university and the town are intermingled.

At the opposite end of town from the Old Course are two ruins perched on cliffs above the North Sea. One is the Saint Andrews Castle. Begun in the early 13th century, the castle's main task was to protect the town and the cathedral -- Catholic Scotland's ecclesiastical center. But both the castle and the cathedral were the focus of Protestant anger during the Reformation led by John Knox in the 16th century. By the 17th century it had fallen into such disrepair that the city council began using it as a quarry so that stones could be used to repair other structures.

The cathedral was a huge Romanesque structure almost 400 feet long and with the peak of the roof 100 feet above the floor. The adjacent Augustinian abbey supported the church's activities. Started in 1158, it was not completed until 1318. But in 1561, an angry mob inspired by Knox's preaching ransacked the building. What remained was abandoned and repeatedly vandalized. Nothing was done to preserve the ruins until 1826.

The churchyard remained the town cemetery well into the 20th century, with burials expanding into areas that were once interior. Many of the older gravestones have become unstable.

Before leaving St. Andrews we needed to find another restroom. Our first thought was to buy something in a coffee shop so that we could use their facilities. However, we determined that a half pint of beer in a local pub is cheaper than a cup of coffee here. So the pub got the nod.

We drove on to the village of Falkland, which is yet another quaint village filled with old buildings. This stop was brief, as the main attraction here -- a palace -- was already closed for the day, as were nearly all of the town's businesses.

A final stop was the three bridges over the Firth of Forth at Edinburgh. We had just been here yesterday at the close of the other tour. But the explanation was somewhat better from this guide. The first bridge, to the right, was built in the Victorian era as a railway bridge, considered an engineering marvel in the 19th century. The second bridge, in the middle, was built for cars and trucks in the mid-20th century. However, the traffic exceeded its capacity, so the newer bridge, to the left, with the three towers, was completed recently, in the 21st century.

After that final stop we were driven back to Glasgow, got ourselves some fish and chips, and then turned in for the night.

Lochness & Culloden

The tour bus took the group from Inverness to a boat landing on Loch Ness where most of the group paid 22 Pounds each for a cruise on the Loch. No monster sightings were reported.

The lake is the largest in Scotland (and the UK) by volume, but not by area. It's 23 miles long but only a bit less than 2 miles wide. Yet it is as deep as Lake Superior -- almost 800 feet. So it holds a lot of water.

We opted out of the cruise, and instead took a hike on a very nice trail along the lake. Obviously, beside a lake so narrow and yet so deep, the hills around it are very steep. So we got our exercise. But the lake views were probably better than what the folks on the boat got.

There were a couple of brief stops along the way, but the main event of the morning was the battlefield at Culloden. In April, 1746 the Jacobite rebels supporting Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") were decisively defeated by a British government force commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, Prince William Augustus.

The battlefield is sacred to Scots, but also to fans of the TV show, Outlander. Although Jamie Fraser is a fictional character (who is depicted as dying tragically in this battle), the mass grave marked as containing the remains of the warriors of Clan Fraser has to be chained off. There are frequently flowers on it.

Charles was attempting to restore to the throne his father, James Stuart, son of James II of England. James II, a Catholic, had been deposed in "The Glorious Revolution" of 1688 which brought Protestants, William and Mary. Charles had taken control of Scotland, but Culloden was a military blunder that cost the lives of a couple thousand Scots and forced Charles to flee to France.

But it was the aftermath of the battle that makes it a sore spot with Scots to this day. Following the defeat, the Duke of Cumberland arrested, and often put to death, the surviving leaders of all the Scottish clans, confiscated their lands, and banned the wearing of clan tartans. This earned him the title, "The Butcher of Cumberland," and Scots seem irritated about it when they speak of it, even now.

A referendum for Scottish independence was narrowly defeated in 2014, and at least one political party here is pressing for another. We have yet to see a UK "Union Jack" flag here, but the blue and white "Cross of St. Andrew" Scottish flag is everywhere. and many signs are in the Scots Gaelic (even though a tiny minority of Scots are actually fluent in speaking the language).

After a lunch stop in the town of Aviemore, a touristy place that is one of Scotland's biggest ski resorts in winter, we drove on to the Highland Folk Museum near Newtonmore. This is an outdoor museum where many old buildings have been relocated, restored, and furnished according to their time periods. This "living history" exhibition was quite well done, and it would have been nice to have a little more time here.

Live animals, including sheep and "hairy coos" (cows) added to the realistic ambiance of the place. Buildings ranged from the "black houses" (windowless stone dwellings where people and animals lived under the same roof) to homes of the 1930s and '40s.

The final stop was the town of Pitlochry, another very touristy locale, where the quaint old stone buildings are still very much in use. We enjoyed a good bowl of soup and a sweet at a local bakery here as dinner.

This tour ended in Edinburgh. But since we had booked with the other company on a tour that was to begin and end in Glasgow, we were given railway tickets back to that city. The train was packed, but the ride was only about 50 minutes. If we hadn't gotten so turned around in the rail station we would have gotten to our hotel sooner for the night.