Our Travels: August 2010

On this, Day 10 of the cruise, the 15 Cruise Critic friends met at approximately 7:30 a.m. at a location on the ship and proceeded together to the location where we could board the “tenders”. (For those readers who have not sailed, at ports where the ship is unable to dock—be it because the ocean channel is not deep enough to accommodate the size or depth of the ship, or simply because there are no docks—the ship anchors off the coast and uses “tenders” to transport the passengers to land. Sometimes these tenders are the ship’s own life boats; other times they are a port-based contracted transport that the ship company hires).

A note about this port: This port is called South Queensferry and is the port city for Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh is the city we had visited the previous Sat. & Sun. when we attended the performance of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Therefore, we decided to use the day, anchored at South Queensferry, to visit places in the Scottish countryside. Our first glimpse of the area was the railway bridge that connects South Queensferry, which lies on the Firth of Forth, to the center of Edinburgh (about 10 miles). (In the background seen between the piers of the bridge is the Crown Princess).

This Forth Road Bridge opened in 1964, spanning 8,242 ft. It carries 1.5 million people, 600.000 cars and 200,000 goods vehicles each year. The bridge forms a crucial part of the corridor between southeast and northeast Scotland.

Our first stop was at the very beautiful Rosslyn Chapel. Rosslyn Chapel, founded in 1446 by William Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, is situated just South of Edinburgh. It is a popular visitor site and a place of historical, religious and architectural interest. Historically, the chapel is the subject of much controversy. Some historians believe that the chapel had strong links in the past with the Knights Templar. Many theories have been proposed as to the supposed existence of religious relics--some believe this includes the Holy Grail--hidden within an underground vault beneath the floor of the chapel.

The most recent theory is the most astonishing--that the chapel has buried beneath it is the mummified head of Christ, which was worshiped by the Knights Templar hundreds of years ago. The trustees of the chapel are under constant pressure to carry out excavations to find out whether there is any truth in any of the many theories about it's mysterious past.

Architecturally, Rosslyn is interesting for several different reasons. The interior of the chapel is unusually ornate for a Scottish church and is unique among it's contemporaries. Scottish religious buildings of the time were characteristically very plain in design, and although Rosslyn is essentially a Gothic building, it's fanciful decoration and exotic - some would say eccentric - ornament make it stand apart from all the others. There is evidence to suggest that many foreign craftsmen were employed in it's construction, which would account in part for some of the decorative elements that are in evidence in the building.

External views of this chapel are used in the movie, “The DaVinci Code”.

Leaving Rosslyn we then traveled to the ruins of Linlithgow Palace.

Originally built in the 12th century, the town and the Palace of Linlithgow were partially destroyed in a great fire in 1424. After the fire that same year King James I (of Scotland) started the rebuilding of this palace as a grand residence for Scottish royalty.

Mary, Queen of Scots, was born at the Palace in December 1542 and occasionally stayed there during her reign. After the union of the Scottish and British crowns (King James I of the “King James Bible”) in 1603 the Royal Court became largely based in England and Linlithgow was used very little.

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This was certainly a grand palace in its day!

The grounds of Linlithgow look like a golf course and there are some very famous ones nearby—St. Andrews is just a few miles to the north…

South of the palace is St. Michael’s Chapel, a 15th century Gothic with later alterations. It is one of the largest and finest medieval churches of Scotland.

Pipes of organ inside chapel.

I would have enjoyed hearing this organ…or playing it!

Fountain in the center of square of small village of Linlithgow and pictures below of that square.

Our next stop was at the famous Falkirk Wheel.

The Falkirk Wheel, opened in 2002, is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth & Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The two canals were previously connected by a series of 11 locks, but by the 1930s these had fallen into disuse, were filled in and the land built upon. Building the wheel was a plan to regenerate the canals of central Scotland to reconnect Glasgow with Edinburgh.

The difference in the levels of the two canals at the wheel is 79 ft, roughly equivalent to the height of an eight-story building. The Union Canal, however, is 37 ft. higher than the aqueduct which meets the wheel, and boats must pass through a pair of locks to descend from this canal onto the aqueduct at the top of the wheel. The aqueduct could not have been positioned higher due to conflicts with the historically important Antonine Wall. For additional information link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel visitors’ center offers scheduled one-hour, round trip boat tours, called "The Falkirk Wheel Experience", that include passage on the wheel. The tours start below the wheel in the Forth & Clyde Canal, ascend via the wheel to the Union Canal, visit nearby areas on the Union Canal, and then return. Here, our group is seat on one such tour.

Back on the bus we traveled pass a beautiful field of roses on our way to the 16th century village of Culross.

A legend states that when the British princess (and future saint) Theneu or Enoch, daughter of the King of Lothian, fell pregnant before marriage, her family threw her from a cliff. She survived the fall unharmed, and was soon met by an unmanned boat. She knew she had no home to go to, so she got into the boat; it sailed her across the Firth of Forth to land at Culross where she was cared for by Saint Serf. He became foster-father of her son, Saint Kentigern or Mungo (d. 612).

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the town of Culross was a center of the coal mining industry. In 1575, Sir George Bruce of Carnock established, at Culross, the first coal mine in the world to extend under the sea. The mine worked with ingenious contrivances to drain the constant leakage from above. This mine was considered one of the marvels of the British Isles in the early 17th century, until it was destroyed in a storm, in 1625. By Victorian times, Culross had become something of a ghost town.

During the 20th century, it became recognized that Culross contained many unique historical buildings and the National Trust for Scotland has been working on their preservation and restoration since the 1930s.

One of the finer places in Culross Village.

At a stop on our return north toward the Edinburgh area I snapped this lovely picture of the countryside. The excursion ended about 5 p.m. with our boarding a tender to return to the ship. The ship sailed about 7 p.m. for a day “at sea”.

We began this day with a gathering on the ship near Vines Wine Bar at 7:15 a.m. and proceeded off the ship in a group of 19 Cruise Critic members. Our tour company was a group called “Clans & Castles”. They were actually giving 3 identical tours to our groups, each with a separate vehicle, guide, and 15-20 people in it. The booking agent and guide, Mr. Alastair Cunningham, is shown by one of the busses in his kilt.

This is one tour that Sylvia & I actually booked for our group of 19.

The day started out as a somewhat grey day in Scotland. Here it’s difficult to distinguish between the sea and the sky.

As we got away from the sea the sky got lighter and we saw the green fields of summertime in Scotland. Here is a farmhouse complete with thatched roof setting in a beautiful field.

Our first stop was at the Culloden Battlefield where there are various markers showing the burial places of those killed in the battle. The Battle of Culloden took place in April 1746 between forces of the British Government and Scottish Highland clansmen led by the Scottish King known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”.

Memorial for Battle of Culloden erected in 1881.

Very near this same area are the Clava Cairns dating back to around 2000BC. These burials are properly called the Prehistoric Burial Cairns or Balnuaran of Clava. The North East and South West Cairns are knows as passage graves. Here the inner chamber remains linked to the outside world by a passage. Both are no more than 3ft or so in height, but when originally constructed the cairns are likely to have been around 10ft in height.

lovely view of Scottish Highland area

Clydesdale horses in field (black dot is on the bus window)

Our next stop was Cawdor Castle which we toured. This castle belongs to the Clan Calder. It still serves as home to the Dowager Countess Cawdor, stepmother of Colin Robert Vaughan Campbell, 7th (and present) Earl Cawdor and 25th Thane of Cawdor. The castle is perhaps best known for its literary connection to William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, the title character of which was made Thane of Cawdor. However, the story is highly fictionalized, and the castle itself was built many years after the events of the play. Originally consisting only of the large tower (or keep), the castle was expanded numerous times in the succeeding centuries, with significant additions made in the 17th century and 19th century. If ever you plan a trip to this area and are seeking a place to stay visit www.caudorcastle.com

The lovely gardens of Cawdor Castle.

Leaving Cawdor Castle we traveled to the city of Inverness where we stopped for a couple of hours for lunch and a stroll.

Our stroll took us past this church and graveyard.

And, brought us back to this beautiful River Ness.

Back in the highlands, we found no black sheep but did see beautiful, green fields.

And more of the lovely highlands.

In this beautiful view note the tall building on the water, just to the right of the trees. It is the ruins of Urquhart Castle by Lock Ness.

This is a replica of an ancient Trebuchet used for throwing large rocks. It is found on the grounds of Urquhart Castle.

Urquhart Castle sits beside Loch Ness close to the village of Drumnadrochit. Though extensively ruined, it was in its day one of the largest strongholds of medieval Scotland, and remains an impressive structure, splendidly situated on a headland overlooking Loch Ness. It is also near this castle that the majority of Nessie ( Loch Ness Monster) sightings occur.

From Urquhart Castle we traveled to Beauly Priory.

'C'est un beau lieu', from the French, “what a beautiful place”, was Mary Queen of Scots reaction to the grandeur of the scene when she stayed in Beauly in the 16th century, and local tradition credits the naming of the village to her.