This was a great weekend for me. I went on a roadies trip to Scotland. Booked a car, and moved on, to see the beautiful country. Scotland is a land of Glens (woods), Bens (peaks), Lochs (lakes) and castles. The landscape is primarily divided into highland, lowland and island. Lowlands are lush green meadows, with sheep, cattle, horses and deer farms (they eat deer; I also ate it, very tasty). Farmers are what we saw in our story books, caps and pipes, riding on a horse, 4 to 5 sheep dogs running around him, or standing with a staff, wearing kilt and smoking pipes……
The highlands are barren and mossy, but gets white with snow during winter. Here is where the world's best spirits are brewed. But that's not in proper highlands, that's where the glens come in the picture. Being woody, and owing to Scotland's climate, which is particularly foggy, damp and cold, added to the effect of the glens, it provides the ideal condition for fermentation. We saw an underground storage where whisky is kept to be matured in oak casks……….the place is cold, damp and dark, and you need to carry flame torches to be in there……….
Fortunately, it was a full moon night, and you should see loch ness in the full moon!! The fog descends, forming a thick cover over the loch, occasionally you would see old logs and dead trees looming over them, the full moon doesn't shine but hazily casts huge shadows, and the night animals cry on to complete the altogether spooky picture. No wonder, one might well have seen Nessy, the famous loch ness monster somewhere around there; it's highly probable!
Edinburgh is a lovely city, a mixture of the medieval and the modern. The town is built around the central castle, which stands tall on top of a steep cliff, surrounded by what was once a moat. It's virtually impossible to access the castle from any direction but one; the main entrance. And from the castle, one can view the whole of the city till the river that goes on to meet the North Sea. It's like if the king needed to know what's going on in the west of the city, all he'd need to do is peek from a window in the west!
The northern most part of Scotland is bordered by the North Sea, which was earlier used by Scotsmen to trade with the Norwegians. It is said the Scots are not Saxons, but Normans, and originally came in as Vikings through the North Sea and settled there. Several documents and subsequent research have verified the connection between the Celtics and the Vikings.
Like Gothic, the Scot tradition, art and architecture is called the Celtic form. Although they look much like Gothic, their constructions are sharper; the Gothic domes are replaced by the Celtic spears. They are pointed-conical shapes, which was later borrowed by the Brits in their Georgian Architecture. The British Castles, however, are markedly different in plans and construction, to the Celtic ones. While the former built castles virtually around entire cities, here the castle was like a palace, with the city built around it.
The weather makes the Scots a laid back lot. They are not lazy, though, but have a general sloth in whatever they do. They take their days easy, sit for a whisky whenever they feel like, and can just drop work at the middle of it and go off fishing!
A port was once built at Port Arbroath to trade with the Americans and Europeans. It was one of the biggest wet docks of the 17th century. And they traded well too, till 18th century, when some fishermen were settled there to add to the fishing industry. Slowly, the number of fishermen grew in Arbroath, even as the number of traders started to dwindle. After the Great War (the Europeans call World War I the Great War, and World War II the World War) trading was totally stopped and Arbroath became entirely a fishing port. The wet dock started housing fishing boats! Now the guys fish when they want to, and the fishing boats have been replaced by water scooters and motorboats, so they can go have fun when they want to.
Kilts look great on Scots! Kilts look great on me too, I bought one and wore it and I was looking fine indeed J
Kilts are extremely formal attire, and work with shirts shoes, bows or ties and jackets. But they are also worn with the traditional shawls in the highlands. Kilts primarily are made of 4 base colours, green, blue, black and red and each signify different clans and regions. Like blue base kilts are always from highland clans, while green based ones are their lowland counterparts. The royalty would wear the black kilts, while the ploughmen and shepherds wore the red one. I got myself the red one. They also have an intricate system of clans and families, where each has its own culture and history, name, coat of arms and flags. It is said that Scotland originally had 15 clans, which later multiplied till the last figures that show around 15000 of them! I got myself a cap pin for the McKenna clan, one of the first fifteen, and a very rare piece. It was from an old shop in the alleys, managed by an equally old couple, who sell cap pins and kilt pins and broaches. The old man had this bowl full of at least a thousand such articles, and while sifting across them he accidentally stumbled across this one and was astonished himself. Apparently he never knew himself that he had one of them! So from now on, I am also a McKenna, since I carry the clan's coat of arms J
But the best thing about the journey was the drive. More than 110 miles, north to south, east to west. The best thing about driving here, as I had mentioned before, is the fantastic documentation that they have, and the technology. GPRS systems have allowed road maps to be created for even the village roads all over Europe. And such maps are downloadable from the internet, or sold over the counters. All you need is an able navigator, whose job is to basically sit with the maps and trace the route. And the rest is pin-point precision. And the speed limit for the motorways here is a minimum of 70 mph, a max of 110 mph. you are fined both for going below and over speeding. And they are hefty amounts, too. So everyone follows rules and drives safe, as they know, at a 100 mph, even a kiss by another car would mean a kiss of death. And the car rentals work on standards in which they scrap any car that's run more than 6 months or 30000 miles, whichever is earlier. And by scrap they mean scrap……to the scrap yards to be broken down and recycled! That guarantees you have excellent car condition during these drives.
So long for now. Will tell you more about my next trip to Switzerland, due next week.
