Barra: Day Seventeen

Our last day in Barra began with a tour from Rob our taxi friend. He had only lived on Barra for the last ten years, when he and his wife took an early retirement and moved back to Barra where she had come from. He professed to not be the best at being a tour guide, saying he mostly did grocery store runs and airport runs, but he was really wonderful. We really had only seen, up to this point, Castlebay and part of the east side of the island, up to Brebhig where we were staying. 

Rob began the tour driving through Castlebay, on our way to Vatersay. Vatersay is a separate island, though in the 90s they built a causeway to connect the two islands. Currently, there are around 100 residents on Vatersay. The reason I wanted to go there was those tantalizing beaches we could see when looking across from Castlebay. And they were no less beautiful in person:

Unfortunately, the beaches are better viewed when on foot, so we did not get out and go down (though I'm sure we could have). Rob pointed out various things as we drove by, like the smallest post office in Scotland, which is in the back of the post mistress's house and you have to knock on her door if you want to mail something! 

The scenery was gorgeous. It was overcast but the rain held off during our drive and just added more to the atmosphere. The west side of the island had more of these rolling hills and white sand beaches, which is a contrast to the east side and the rocky inlets. 

We arrived to the airport right when a plane was about to take off, so we stopped and watched it, to see what our experience would be like the next day!

We still can't get over how it takes off when the sand still has a little layer of water! This beach completely disappears during high tide, so the plane can only land and take off during low tide and that means that the departure times are tide-dependent and weather-dependent. 

It was a great way to spend two hours, and Rob dropped us off in Castlebay at the post office. We weren't planning on mailing anything...we were going for afternoon tea!

The post office has a tea room inside, and this was more than enough for lunch. After one last wander around Castlebay, we said goodbye to the castle and began the walk back to the B&B. This time, we knew what to expect so it didn't seem so bad. Once we reached the crest of the hill, and only had 1.5 miles to go, mostly downhill, a local drove by and offered us a ride! I said yes, and so we had a pleasant conversation with an older man about the weather. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing, listening to the ocean and reading books. 

Barra was so lovely and just what we needed. It was a busy trip, seeing city after city, and it was much needed to get to a quiet place, where we didn't see other tourists, and we could just relax. I think one of my favorite things was sleeping, cozy under the warm duvet, with the windows open so I could fall asleep to the waves.

Barra: Day Sixteen

The day began sunny and bright, and after a bit of a lie in, we decided to hike up Heaval, the tallest point on the island and only about a mile away from us. 

It was said to just be 40 minutes to climb, and there was a statue of the Madonna and Child near to the top, so we said our goal was to reach the statue. This is Heaval:

We felt it was a little bit out of our league, but everything we read mentioned climbing it, and there was a trail, so we decided to tackle it. 

Once we got over a fence (which reminds me, we really feel you shouldn't have to climb over a fence to get to it!) we started up. It wasn't so bad at first. 

But eventually, it got much steeper, and we were thankful for footholds that we could step into from previous hikers. 

We got a little over halfway up and decided to stop there. The view was still lovely, and we figured it couldn't be much different than from the top. 

Phil wandered a bit, trying to see different views:

After a rest, we said we thought we could go for the top now, but the clouds were beginning to roll in and we made the decision that it would be best to get down. Just in time too, because it started sprinkling once we were off Heaval. 

As we were walking back, a car with the sign Barra Island Tours pulled over to offer us a ride, but at that point we were nearly at the turn off so we declined, though I took the opportunity to ask if he was available to do a tour the next day. He wasn't, but he suggested calling Rob, the taxi driver who gave us a ride the first day!

If I wasn't so nervous about driving on the single track roads (which, while signed at 30mph, the locals were taking at about 50mph) I should have rented a car. If we go back again, I will have to get a car, because it would have made our lives so much easier. The day before we booked for dinner at Cafe Kisimul at 8pm because they were having traditional music, so at about 5pm I started calling taxis to get a ride to dinner. There were only three taxis on the island, and one, Dan, said he could pick us up at 6:45 so we grabbed him and just hung out at a bar before dinner, reading books. He promised us that he would get us home and luckily he was right outside when he said. The whole taxi thing just added another layer of stress, even though the two drivers we used were just the nicest people. 

Glasgow-Barra: Day Fifteen

I think out of every place we were going on this trip, I was the most excited about visiting Barra. Five years ago I visited the Isles of Harris and Lewis and just loved the stark beauty of the Outer Hebrides. Barra is part of the chain of islands that makes up the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Describing it to Phil, he said it sounded like a good stop...though he somehow forgot that I said the plane landed on the beach until we had booked it all. Oops.

At Glasgow Airport we kept questioning if we were heading in the right direction, because there was no one else going to this gate, and it seemed in the middle of nowhere, down random hallways and at times it didn't look like we were supposed to be in that section of the airport - it was that deserted! In the end, it was right, and of course there weren't many people because the plane only seats about 20. They were weighing larger carryons, like Phil's backpack, and Phil realized it was so they knew how much fuel to put in the plane! We step outside onto the tarmac to see our plane:

It is so small and adorable! The copilot was also the one who gave the safety instructions, before climbing into the front seat. Unlike other planes, they kept the door open and we could watch them the entire flight. 

Ready for take off

The flight was only 50 minutes long, and the sky was mostly clear so there were beautiful views as we flew over the Highlands and Islands. I will admit that it was a little scary when we first took off - the propellers were making this "wub wub wub" noise that you could feel inside you, and you feel more movement than in a larger plane. The noise went away once we reached altitude, and I got used to the feeling of movement and then just got to enjoy the view. Soon enough, it was time to land:

Barra Airport is the only airport in the world with regularly scheduled flights that only land on a beach. We didn't realize the sand would still be wet as we landed, and water splashed up! It's not really true sand, it's a cockle-shell beach, so it is sturdier than regular sand. Just a few more plane pictures:

The runway:

And I have to post the baggage reclaim area:

This is the second one; we learned the first one blew away in a storm, so this one is anchored in concrete. 

So I assumed (wrongly) that the bus service on Barra would be similar to that on Harris - basically a loop of the island about once an hour. Well...it does one half of the island at a time, so not conducive to actually using it. We took the bus into Castlebay, the main town on the island, and then the bus driver flagged down a taxi for us who drove us to the B&B in Brevig, two and half miles away and waited for us to drop our things before driving us back to Castlebay. 

It is obvious why it is called Castlebay, because Kisimul Castle in right in the bay!

There's a little boat that will take you out to the castle and back, so of course we had to do that!

It has been restored, but was first built in the 1400s and belonged to the MacNeil clan, who have now leased it to Historic Scotland for 1000 years. 

After visiting the castle and getting lunch, we wandered around Castlebay for a little bit, visiting the community shop and the grocery store, before decided to walk back to the B&B. We've been averaging 6 miles walking a day, so we figured 2.5 miles would be nothing. Well. The first mile is uphill the entire way. But the views...

That last house at the end of the bay is our bed & breakfast. 

Mairi, the owner of the B&B, was nice enough to book us a table for dinner at the Castlebay Hotel, and also a taxi to bring us there and back. We learned her niece works there, so it must be good to have connections because got the best table in the place:

It was a great first day on the island!

Glasgow: Day Fourteen

For our only full day in Glasgow, our main goal was visiting a dinosaur museum. Unfortunately, we looked and there were no T. Rex's to be found in Glasgow, so our streak of seeing a T. Rex in every city came to an end. This meant going to the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University and taking a bus to get over there. 

Walking to the museum, we stumbled upon the Cloisters, which I absolutely loved and took far too many pictures of. It is said that JK Rowling was inspired by these when writing about Hogwarts. 

The Hunterian Museum was started by a rich old guy back when rich men with nothing to do liked to collect antiquities. So it is full of really interesting, yet random, things. Including, some dinosaurs!

This is a plesiosaur, a dinosaur who lived in the water. 

After exploring what we wanted to see in the museum, and taking part in a really interesting free tour of the physics and engineering section, devoted to Lord Kelvin, who taught at Glasgow University and who named absolute zero and developed the Kelvin temperature system, we decided to go visit the cathedral on the other side of the city. 

It is still soot-stained, from when Glasgow was an industrial city. I'm actually glad they haven't cleaned it, because there's something about it that makes it more cemented in time, and you can imagine what the city was like when there were factories everywhere. 

Behind the cathedral is the cemetery, which was constructed to be similar to Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. 

That was followed by a visit to the oldest house in Glasgow, dating from the 1460s

Although our time in Glasgow was short, I really enjoyed it, especially because it was not overrun with tourists. Phil read somewhere that it's the 4th most visited city in the UK, which is interesting because we did not see bus loads of tourists or really very many wandering around. We feel that perhaps if you are staying in Edinburgh, you will pop over to Glasgow just for half a day. 

I'll end with two pictures of Wellington. The first is from our first day in Glasgow, and the second from our second day:

I thought it was just a one time prank, but Phil explained that every time they take the cone off his head, another just gets put back on, and at one time there were seven cones stacked up! I guess it was the horse's turn to wear the cone on the second day!

Munich-Glasgow: Day Thirteen

Travel days are never terribly exciting. We woke up early and took the S-bahn to the Munich, had a quick breakfast in the airport, and then boarded our plane to Glasgow!

The flight was relatively short, just 2.5 hours, and with the time change we landed in Glasgow at 10:30am. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel we were staying in, Grasshoppers Hotel. We had thought that at this point in the trip, we would be ready for a real hotel, after doing three airbnbs, and we were right. Plus...I maybe picked this hotel based on the cupcakes and ice cream people spoke about in reviews! 

I had brought along a slim guidebook on Scotland from Rick Steves, which had a walking tour of Glasgow in it, so we decided that would be a good way to orient ourselves to Glasgow. What we discovered, after reading the tour, is that Rick doesn't (or didn't, because this book was 6 years old) think too highly of Glasgow and says you only need a few hours there. One stop on the tour was The Lighthouse, where you could take an elevator to the top for a bird's eye view of the city. 

In the picture above, you can see our room where we stayed! 

Glasgow is very much a city of the industrial revolution - that is when it reached its heyday. It doesn't have the charm of Edinbrugh, but it does have some gorgeous architecture, once you look up above the ground floor shops. 

After doing most of the walking tour (we couldn't see the Glasgow School of Art because it had a terrible fire a month ago and much of it was destroyed), I was ready for a nap so we checked into the hotel where I caught up on some sleep and Phil went out to find a local pub. 

We had dinner at a Greek/Mediterranean tapas place, and I ended the evening with a cupcake and homemade ice cream from the hotel!

Munich: Day Twelve

The raining was coming down hard as we woke up and walked over to train station where we were meeting our bus. I was really looking forward to this tour today, and was so disappointed in the rain, but we said we'd just make the best of it. This was a bus tour to see Lindhof Palace, Oberammergau, and Neuschawnstein Castle. And it was a big bus tour - a double decker bus! Filled 78 people, which actually wasn't so bad. Luckily, the further away we got from Munich, the rain lightened up, stopping completely by the time we reached Oberammergau. 

Lindhof Palace was the first stop. This was formerly a hunting lodge, that King Ludwig II turned into a retreat. I learned that Ludwig is the German version of Louis. Anyway, poor Ludwig II did not want to be a king, so he built palaces as a way to escape from the royal duties. This was his first palace. 

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside. Inside, it was over the top and ostentatious, with everything covered in gold leaf, bright colors, lots of scrollwork. I'm sure pictures are posted online somewhere. It was very reminiscent of Versailles, and that was done on purpose because Ludwig II admired Louis XIV of France, including having portraits of him plus his mistresses! 

Our tour guide said this was her favorite stop of the trip...but I think I have to disagree, as you will see shortly. We were driving into the German Alps, and were actually very close to the border with Austria. I attempted some window pictures...some where more successful than others:

Next stop was Oberammergau. Now, the whole reason I chose this tour over others that also visited the two palaces, was because of Oberammergau. I remember reading one of the Betsy-Tacy books, Betsy and the Big World (or something like that) where she goes off on a Grand Tour of Europe, and I remember she stopped at Oberammergau! I don't remember anything else about the stop, just that she went there and they did wood carvings and the passion play....but I figured it was as good a reason as any for picking one tour over another! 

Oberammergau is a more traditional Bavarian village, and we even saw an older man walking around in lederhosen and his cap! Every ten years, since 1634, the entire village has put on a passion play. What happened in 1634 is a man brought the plague to the village, and people started dying. The town prayed to God and promised to perform a passion play if he would spare them - and everyone who was sick got well, and no one else died from the plague. Since they, the entire village comes together to put on this play every ten years, in years ending in 0, so the next one is in 2020. Many of the houses are also decorated with scenes from either the Bible or folk tales. Here is Little Red Riding Hood:

Our final stop of the day was what I had been waiting for - Neuschwanstein Castle. Which really isn't a castle...it's a palace. So the difference between palace and castle is that a castle was meant to be fortified, whereas a palace does not have any fortification. Neuschwanstein was also built by Ludwig II, but it was never finished. At this one, he wanted it to look like a medieval castle, and again use it as a place to escape. His story is so sad - he never wanted to be king, but became one at age 20 when his father died. When he was 40, his uncle had him declared mentally unfit (by 5 psychiatrists who had never even spoken to the king), and four days later he died. It was said at the time he drowned in a lake to commit suicide, though it's more likely he was murdered. He only spent 172 days at Neushwanstein and it was only 30% complete at the time he died. Though it's a sad story, he created a beautiful castle. 

Our first glimpse of the castle from the bus: 

I'm a fan of castles - I love visiting them; I love walking through even the ruined ones. This was such a fairy tale castle and I absolutely adored it. I can only imagine what it would be like if he had completed it! Again, there were no pictures allowed...which was so disappointing. My absolutely favorite room was the grotto - he had a cave built into part of the castle, with special colored lighting installed! It was so magical. I can see why he wanted to escape from life and hide out in this palace. Though there weren't any pictures allowed inside, the outside pictures almost make up for it. 

There was another castle nearby, whose name I will totally misspell since I'm not online at the moment and can't look it up - Hof-something. It was older but unfortunately we didn't have time to go inside.

 

We had two and a half hours before our timed entry into the castle, which sounds like a lot of time but it went by so quickly. The castle is up the side of a mountain, and there are three ways to reach it: minibus, horse and carriage, or walking. There were so many people here - so so so many. And the bus runs every 20 minutes, so we made the decision to walk up and maximize our time. Plus it gave us so many photo opportunities! Though it was at a constant incline, it wasn't ever ridiculously steep...however our legs certainly got a workout! 

There is a bridge which was said to have the best view of the castle, so of course we made our way over there. What we didn't realize until we were there was that this is what the bridge looked like:

Neither of us are a fan of heights, and Phil decided not to go on it. What you can't really see in this picture is that it is completely packed with tourists. And that there are kinda wobbly wooden boards. I was determined to see the best view, and it was worth it:

I won't mention how terrified I was of dropping my phone! After a few pictures I scooted right off and we made our way to the tour of the castle. 

I absolutely loved it. And I think Phil liked it too...he's just not as obsessed with castles as I am!

Definitely my favorite day in Munich and maybe my favorite of the whole trip so far. As I write this, we are on the plane enroute to Glasgow, and it's also the halfway point of the trip.