Scotland Day 2

Today, we focused on a piece of Scottish history near and dear to my heart: Stirling Castle and William Wallace (aka Braveheart). Those of you who know me well know that Braveheart is my favorite movie, so I was pretty giddy all morning. Before hoping on the bus, we filled up with a hearty, traditional Scottish breakfast at Weatherspoon’s Free House, where we got to try black pudding for the first time (very tasty).

When we arrived at Stirling, we walked through the town, then hiked up the steep hill to the castle.

Outside, we happened on the statue of Robert the Bruce.

The cashier offered us audio tours, which we reluctantly accepted. However, we quickly ditched them when we saw a real guide starting a free tour inside the castle. The castle has such amazing history. It has changed hands numerous times and was home to many of Scotland’s kings and queens such as James IV and Mary Queen of Scots.

The tour lasted about an hour, and by the end I was ready for the main event: The Wallace Monument.

The Wallace Monument was not as close to the castle as we had hoped (~2 miles) and we didn’t have much time left, so we took a quick cab ride over. To get to the top of the monument, you have to traverse 246 steps. There are galleries along the way, one of which housed Wallace’s actual battle sword.

I learned that the movie Braveheart is not very accurate to the actual history. For one, Mel Gibson is only 5' 9", but historians put William Wallace at around 6' 6", since it would've taken someone of that size to wield a sword that large.

Another gallery housed Scotland’s Heroes. In my ongoing quest to determine whether or not I am really a descendent of Robert Burns, I posed in front of my apparent ancestor. Spitting image, eh?

Once we reached the top, we got amazing views of Scotland. The picture below shows the green where the actual Battle of Stirling Bridge took place (those of you who have seen Braveheart may recognize it).

The Battle of Stirling Bridge didn't really happen the way it was portrayed in Braveheart. Wallace was indeed outnumbered and the Scots did win handily, but it wasn't an open-field battle with a cavalry charge. Instead, the English tried to cross the Stirling bridge 3 or 4 horse/men at a time. Once almost half of the English had made it across, Wallace gave the order (from the hill where the Wallace Monument stands) to attack the half that had crossed. They slaughtered the English, and all the other half could do was watch (this half finally fled).

After returning from Stirling, we made our way over to my Uncle Irwin’s old stomping grounds, The University of Glasgow. Uncle Irwin grew up in Scotland and got his medical degree here (he now lives in Boston).

After walking the grounds, we leisurely strolled around the surrounding area, walked through a few neighborhoods, and eventually made it back to the center of Glasgow. We ate a hearty dinner at The Counting House in George Square, then retired back to our hotel.

Scotland Day 1

The blog is back! Following up Brian and Kim’s Mediterranean Adventure is the second, much anticipated installment of our travel blog, Brian and Kim’s Wee Scotland Adventure.

We landed in Glasgow early Saturday morning, arriving from separate continents (Brian was in Poland for work). Once we reunited, we fueled up with coffee and quickly headed out on a walking tour of Old Glasgow, learning about the rise and fall of the Glasgow Tobacco Lords.

In the afternoon, we headed by bus to Glengoyne Distillery, a scotch malt whisky distillery about 45 mins northeast of Glasgow. We were greeted with a tasting of their 10-year-old malt and then took a 1 hour tour. We learned all about how malt whisky is made and what distinguishes malt from blended whisky (e.g. Johnny Walker).

We finished up in their tasting room to sample drams of their 12, 17, 21-year-old whisky (note, in Scotland whisky is spelled without the “e” as in Ireland or the U.S.). The 12-year-old was “cask-strength” meaning it was bottled straight out of the cask rather than being slightly diluted with water first. This meant it was 57% alcohol, and I had a hard time getting this one down.

Other whisky facts:
• There are only three ingredients in scotch malt whisky: water, barley, and yeast. Some people consider the oak from the barrels the fourth ingredient.
• Approximately 2% of the volume of a barrel of whisky evaporates every year. They call this the “Angel’s Share.”
• When they ferment the barley, it produces a frothy head called the “barm.” Apparently this is where the Scottish phrase “barmey” (i.e. crazy) comes from, because when you get a whiff of the barm, it is strong stuff that will mess with your head.

After arriving back in Glasgow, we stumbled upon Brian’s (unconfirmed) namesake, Robert Burns.
Other things to note:
• Even though Scots speak English, sometimes it can be very hard to understand them. Brian seems to have an especially hard time, and when people ask him a question, he just nods and smiles.
• People really wear kilts in Scotland (most often with big work boots and wool socks). They’re everywhere!

• Statues have uncommon accessories. This bird did some major damage.

Days 62 thru 67 - Barcelona, Spain

Kim: We had been very lucky with the weather so far on this trip - the only rain we had seen previously was a small drizzle in Vienna. Our luck had now changed. We were greeted in Barcelona with heavy rains, which made getting to our hotel a trying experience. The rain continued on and off for most of our stay, but this did not ruin our fun.

One of the first things we did was take a walk down La Rambla, a wide, tree-lined, pedestrian boulevard in the center of historic Barcelona. La Rambla is also home to hordes of street performers, which can make for some interesting sites.

Also along La Rambla is Mercat de Sant Josep, otherwise known as La Boqueria. This is one of my favorite markets in all of Europe (and I'm a big fan of markets). The market is so big that they give you a map upon entering. Fruit, vegetables, fresh meat, fish, charcuterie, you name it, they have it. There's even a stand that sells all different types of eggs. There are also a few tapas bars and restaurants scattered throughout the market. Brian and I snacked on some fresh fruit smoothies and croquetes de bacala (salt cod fritters) to hold us off until lunch.

Also nearby La Rambla is the Barri Gotic, or Gothic quarter. The quarter is where the Romans originally colonized Barcelona. Today it is home to many Gothic palaces and churches as well as government buildings and shops. We visited two historic churches, La Catedral and Esglesia de Santa Maria del Mar. Both were built during the 13th and 14th centuries.

One thing that we noticed about Barcelona is that is has a lot of public art. We thought to ourselves, "If only Atlanta had a huge metal fish sculpture, maybe people would come visit."

Brian: Just as the city of Rome is dominated with works by Bernini, Barcelona is dominated by Gaudi. Antoni Gaudi was commissioned to build houses, monuments, parks, etc throughout the city, so he definitely left his mark on Barcelona. His most famous project and life's work, La Sagrada Familia, is now a symbol of Barcelona and its number one tourist attraction.

Sagrada Familia is a massively large Roman Catholic church that is so architecturally complex that construction was started in 1882 and isn't scheduled for completion until 2026. Here's a diagram of what the church will look like when completed.

When you walk inside, you stand amongst all of the scaffolding, stone-cutting, and construction work going on. Two facades, one nave, and eight towers have been completed. You can travel to the top of two of the towers for a small fee, where there are excellent views of Barcelona and the top of the church. Here are some pictures from one of the towers.

We had taken an elevator to the top of the tower, but decided to go back down by way of Gaudi's famed spiral staircase, where you get more peeks outside on the way down. If you are claustraphobic or think you might get dizzy turning down the seemingly endless staircase, this is not for you (there is no handrail for the inside hand . . . just a huge hole all the way down).

We saw lots more Gaudi during our stay. We visited Park Guell, which was designed by Gaudi originally as a high-end residential community in the early 1900s, but turned into a park when they couldn't get enough people to move in. This lizard below is probably the most recognizable sculpture in the park (and maybe even Barcelona).

Later in the week, we saw several houses designed by Gaudi (now museums). They definitely stand out from the surrounding buildings with Gaudi's signature style. All I can say is . . . interesting.

Another famous Barcelona resident was Picasso. We made a trip to the Picasso museum on one of the rainy days. The museum itself was pretty good, however, I was a little let down that it only covered works from his time in Barcelona, so there was a huge gap from the early 1900s and when he moved back in the late 1950s (no cubism years).

The remainder of the week was spent leisurely enjoying Barcelona. One afternoon we visited the beach and harbor districts of Port Vell and Port Olimpico. The weather was too windy and cold to go in the ocean, so unfortunately, we had to enjoy it from a distance.

We were hoping to catch an FC Barcelona Futbol (soccer) game while in the city, but FCB was playing away in Milan this week. We were able to find a good tapas bar to catch the game, which was almost as fun/intense. Everyone in the bar was mesmerized by the game. We instantly became FCB fans (mainly because we wanted to leave the bar alive). The game ended in a tie, which was almost as bad as a loss as far as these fans were concerned (no one was very happy). Nonetheless, we had a good time.

We thought it would be a good idea to stay up late our last night to prepare ourselves for Atlanta time, so we decided to hit up a Barcelona club. Clubs in Barcelona don't actually open until 12am and don't close until the sun rises. We showed up to one of the clubs, Razzmatazz, around 12:30am, which we thought would be well after opening time, but to our dismay the club didn't open until 1am. We felt super cool being one of the first people waiting outside in line (yeah, we were those people). The club itself was enormous (it was actually 5 clubs in one). Kim and I found our home in the "Pop Bar," which had a slightly older crowd and wasn't quite as smokey. The main dance floor didn't actually get packed until 3am or so. It looked like it would've been fun, but our night officially ended when a drunk guy fell off a stage onto Kim. She was ok, but we felt like that was our cue to leave.

The next morning, we caught our flight to Atlanta via Heathrow at 11am, and just like that, our adventure was over.

Additional notes/thoughts:

- Spanish Food: After we had been in Italy for a while and were getting tired of Italian food, Brian remarked,"I can't wait until we get to Spain so we can eat Mexican food." Doh. Brian was shocked and chagrined when I informed him that in Spain they eat Spanish food, which is quite dissimilar from the Mexican food he knows and loves. "No tacos?" he asked. Nope. "No cheese dip??" Nope. He was demoralized. Here's a pic of him begrudgingly enjoying some tapas and sangria.

- Mexican Food: One night we were trying to decided between two recommended tapas bars for dinner. While we were examining the menu at one, I noticed that right next door, there was (can you believe it) a Mexican restaurant. One mention to Brian and we were inside and seated with an order of nachos on the way. The food wasn't quite what we're used to in Mexican-American restaurants, but Brian was contented.

- Stupid American Tourist: On the metro one day, a young American couple boarded our train. Mid-transit, the woman got a call on her cell phone and proceeded to have a ten-minute-long conversation that the whole train could hear. She was telling her friend what a fabulous time they were having in Barcelona. "We saw this awesome church today. What was it called?" she asked her husband. "Sagrada Familia," he responded (you would think you'd know the name of the number one tourist site in all of Barcelona). She went on to say, "The only bad thing was that it just so happened to be under construction while we were there. Yeah, the whole inside was gutted, but they left the original architecture, so it was still cool." Are you kidding me lady? Just so happened to be under construction? It's been under construction since 1882! It's never not been under construction! Okay, okay, so I'd forgive you if you just walked by, but you said the whole inside was gutted, so that means you actually paid the 10 euros to go inside where they have tons of signs telling the history of the construction and the fact that they're not renovating an old church, they just haven't finished building a new church!!!! Aarghhh. An older Spanish woman was apparently as ticked off as we were, because after the Americans got off the train, she started yelling at everyone on the train in angry Catalan. No wonder Americans sometimes get a bad rap (we were hoping she wouldn't yell at us). She was still going strong when we got off.

-Wine Snobs: Upon leaving Burgundy, Brian asked me, "Do you think we're wine snobs now?" I ventured to say yes, but Brian disagreed. Then, on our first night in Barcelona, we bought a reasonably priced bottle of Spanish wine to drink before going to dinner. Upon tasting it, Brian almost spit it out, exclaiming, "This tastes like bad grape juice!" Yeah, we're wine snobs now. We highly caution you - do not buy this bottle of wine.