Caerlaverock Castle

In my rush to head south to Hadrian's Wall for the Illumination event, I had to skip over Caerlaverock Castle. Lonely Planet described it as one of the best castles in Britain, so I knew I had to head back into Scotland to remedy this situation. I was not disappointed. 

The triangular, pink stoned fortress is surrounded by a moat and looks unassailable, though history says otherwise. Being on the volatile Scotland-England border, it was taken several times. It is testament to its strength, however, that a mere sixty men were able to hold off the entire English army for a lengthy siege. 

I enjoyed the no longer functional stairs in the towers. 

After gawking at the castle for a while, I headed around back towards the wetlands and to see the old castle. Mind you, the 'new' castle I had been looking at was built in the 1270s. The old castle was only fifty years older, and now consists of a few stones outlining the foundation of the square keep. 

The wetlands were pleasant and quiet. I think I was the only person in the area. 

I saw two toads during my brief walk between the castles, and nearly stepped on one before it spoiled its camouflage by moving. 

In front of the castle were reconstructed siege engines. The video in the visitor's center showed the demonstrations of their power. The catapult was interesting

...but I love trebuchets, the ultimate castle breakers before gunpowder. 

Once I was finally satisfied with gazing upon the castle, I jaunted onward, back into England. 

Glasgow

After checking into the local backpacker's hostel it was already dark, but I decided to go on Lonely Planet's suggested walking tour anyway. The undisputed highlight was the Gallery of Modern Art. 

Outside the gallery, the statue of the Duke of Wellington is often hatted with an orange traffic cone, a thirty year long tradition that amuses the locals, if not the local authorities. 

Much later on the walking tour I saw another statue with a similar hat. This one looked like a wizard in the dim light and with the pointed hat that augmented his long beard. 

In the morning over breakfast I talked again with a young German couple I had met in Inverness (not be be confused with the middle-aged German couple who gave me a ride and who I also ran into twice in Scotland). Since there was now daylight, I checked out some of the buildings I had liked at night, such as this grand hall of the University of Glasgow, which was right by the hostel. 

Inside the University grounds are kept the Hunterian Museum and art gallery, the oldest public museum in Scotland. The museum holds formerly private history and art collections, a well curated history of Mary Queen of Scots as told in coins, and my favorite part: a curiosities collection from a doctor/midwife/anatomist who amassed things like conjoined animals and deformed human bones. 

Visible across a park is the magnificent Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. 

Constructed for the 1888 International Exhibition, the grand building holds an assortement of treasures. My favorites were paintings by Dali, sculptures by Rodin, and a remarkable Egyptian tomb. 

I walked back to the Modern Art Museum. Now that I was able to see the interior, I was most struck by the weird films being shown. Rhubarb Boy featured pterodactyls and creepy toys. Another film focused on a child while airplane radio traffic chatter played in the background. Modern art is always hit or miss for me, and the rest was mostly miss. 

Further across the city was the Glasgow Cathedral and its Necropolis. 

I noticed a memorial to Korean War Veterans. I also had seen some Korean restaurants. I bet I wouldn't have noticed at all except that I was so primed to see the Korean flag after spending a year there. 

Right by the Cathedral was the "World Religion Museum." At this point, after walking nearly the entire length of Glasgow, I was too tired to care about the exhibits, or possibly they would have too eclectic for my taste even under better circumstances. In any case, I did get to see Scotland's only Zen garden. 

I had the hardest time trying to figure out why I wrote 'Alice in Wonderland' in my blog notes before realizing that I had seen the film in 3D. I think my inability to remember this fact tells you all you need to know about the movie. 

Isle of Iona: Holy Burial Ground of Scottish Kings

No trip to Scotland would be complete without a visit to one of the stony islands. I chose the Isle of Iona because guess what was on it? Yep, big stone buildings. And ruins. And Macbeth's grave. Okay, that last one wasn't as obvious. 

I took a ferry to the Isle of Mull, where the hostel was closed but I found a quaint bed and breakfast. I had considered biking to the other side of the island, but then logistics, sense, and the hours of the bike rental place determined that I should take the bus. From there I took a smaller ferry to Iona. 

Our brief tour's first stop was the ruined Nunnery. 

Then we were off to the recently restored Iona Abbey. It is unknown where exactly forty eight early Scottish kings were interred, so I couldn't pay my respects to Macbeth, but they were somewhere in this graveyard. 

The abbey is famed for its Celtic patterned crosses.

This may be the best picture I took the whole trip:

St. John's Cross is the first known cross to feature the circular support to the junction. 

Other grave relics were kept here as well. 

Griffin!

Soon it was time to return on our small passenger ferry. 

I didn't really want to wait several hours for the bus back to the far end of the Isle of Mull, so I hitched a ride with others who had been on the Iona trip. We stopped by an area that was supposed to have standing stones, but after trekking through mud (an activity for which I had the footwear, but everyone else did not) we only found some cairns. But the view was wonderful in any case. 

One woman took me the rest of the way to the ferry, and even onward. She was a very nice and generous person but a bit... odd. She is a former Mormon and has six children. We discussed her current beliefs. I am now completely convinced that the belief system involving UFO tampering being responsible for humanity is a religion. It absolutely fits the model of total faith in the absence of evidence. Anyway, she was kind enough to drop me off near Glasgow. 

Ben Nevis: Highest Point in Britain

When I planned this trip I hadn't intended to climb the tallest mountain in Great Britain, it just sort of happened. By which I mean, the hostel where I was planning on staying was several kilometers out of town and right at the mountain's base. Also, Ben Nevis is only 1343 meters. That's only two thirds the elevation of my parents' house, which is at the bottom of a mountain. How hard could it be?

There were cute fuzzy cows on the way to the backpacker's lodge. 

I awoke well before dawn, along with several other hikers who were intending to climb the north face (for non-mountaineers: the hard side of pretty much any mountain in the northern hemisphere).  I decided to take the easiest route possible since I was hiking by myself (PSA: don't ever do that) and didn't have real gear. Well, I had better gear then when Dan and I climbed the Mettelhorn, but that's not saying a whole lot. Hell, I was feeling downright compared to the Mettelhorn trek: I had boots, goretex pants and coat and fleece lining, the warmest socks ever devised... Not too bad. My boots hit the trail at 0630. 

Once the sun rose, I was able to see the mountains around me in all their glory. 

Then the path got steeper. The crusted over snow was slick and rather tricky to navigate. Pictured below is the path. Yes, really.

I only had a few moments of having to stop and hyperventilate after thinking I would slide off the mountain to my death before it flattened out. Huge cairns pointed the way to the summit, which is good because visibility was pretty minimal with all the blowing snow along the high ridge. 

Which didn't stop this little bird from being there. I can't imagine what it thought it was going to eat in the perpetually snowy area. 

I, on the other hand, was going to eat gummy bears because I reached the summit three hours after I began hiking. Thanks, Aunt Sonja and Uncle Albert for the gummy bears that I took with my across Korea, Iceland, and now had earned as my traditional mountain peak treat in Scotland. 

On the way down I had been thinking that I was insane to hike by myself on a steep snow and ice covered mountain, where I nearly tumbled on some of the nastier patches of ice. Then I ran into a guy with skis strapped to the back of his pack. He planned to hit the summit by noon and then find a path down at high velocity. I felt totally sane in comparison.