One of the best parts of our trip was taking the little ferry from Skye back to mainland Scotland through a real-life Mists of Avalon. Worth getting up at o’dark-thirty for:

The train ride along the west coast of Scotland is in all the travel books as one of the most beautiful journeys around. This time we just enjoyed the view and didn’t try to take photos, except for one or two of the bridge that’s in all the Harry Potter movies.

Got to our Edinburgh hotel by early evening and had enough time to walk the Royal Mile. Locals and tourists were spilling from every bar into the street, giddy with the 80-degree weather (another Seattle moment) and were still partying when we finally called it a day at ten.

We only had one full day to see Edinburgh and no car, so we stuck to the historic downtown area. I still have the photos from my high school trip and I can attest that after twenty-four years, all the old stuff is the same if you can find it under the heavy layer of marketing.

Edinburgh is full of history and a list of what we saw would be encyclopedic so here’s an illustrated list of highlights:

• Tour bus: not as fun as the Hop On, Hop Off in Dublin, but still a great way to meet a city.
• New Parliament building designed to “blend in” with the rest of the city: FAIL.
• Storming the castle: Beautiful, but it’s so refurbished and commercialized it feels like a replica at Disneyland. But I did learn more about it this time since we wore those headphones with the taped audio guide. (Kevin and I are now fairly proficient in Travel Geek Sign Language.)
• Changing of the guard:  Real women wear kilts and carry big guns.
• Heart of Midlothian: The brick mosaic on the Mile where executions used to take place.  Tradition says you’re supposed to spit on it for good luck, which I guess is why there’s very little marketing for this particular landmark.
• IRN-BRU: Somewhere along the Mile, Kevin bought a bottle of this local refreshment which contains about two grams of speed and tastes like liquid Jolly Rancher.
• Elephant House: Cafe that supposedly tolerated an impoverished JK Rowling while she wrote the first Harry Potter. Dubious claims aside, they serve Guinness and are nice to tourists so they are ok in my book.

Fell into bed exhausted and watched some made-for-tv movie starring Julie Walters about a matron who “cleaned up” English television in the 60′s.  It had amusing undertones of repressed sexuality, but seriously, I do not need to see Molly Weasley get her tits out.

On the way to the airport the next day, posted a blog via the free wireless on the bus. Sweet.

On the plane home, I tried to recline my seat and got pushed back up by the old Scottish lady behind me.  Her old Scottish husband poked Kevin in the back, too.  We asked them if there was a problem and they said yes, you’re reclining your seats. So we settled the argument by feeding theirs to them. (Alas, no photo available.)

And on that civilized note, thus endeth the BritBlog. It’s great to have had the best of both worlds: a wonderful trip and happy to be home.

IMG_3462, originally uploaded by uppityrib.

Been trying to publish the last BritBlog post but am getting an error. Oh Rib, why hast thou forsaken me, you old bat?

Thank you, dear reader, for your patience whilst I contact my Blog Father in hopes that he can help me figure out what I did this time.

Meanwhile I am attempting to post from my Flickr account. This is a photo I took our first night in Edinburgh. It happened to be the warmest day of the year and the partiers were out in force, spilling out of every bar on the Royal Mile. I don’t remember which famous Scott the statue is of, but by the end of the evening, he was wearing a traffic cone as a hat.

If the first day’s hike in Skye was lunar, the second day’s was lush. We headed north to the Trotternish peninsula to climb the Storr, a mountain on the coast topped with basalt rock formations. The most famous of these is known as The Old Man — who looks, frankly, like a piece of poo. Ok, there, I said it.

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Finally done uploading our vacation photos to Flickr. Took me a long time because they’re high res. I’ve arranged them by country for your viewing convenience.  Enjoy!

Photo: Self-portrait of Uppity and Kevin and the Old Man of the Storr, Isle of Skye, Scotland, by Uppity, May 2010

Been out slaying dragons, but don’t worry, I was victorious. Took a lot out of me, though, and recovery has been slow, many margaritas worth. Raul the pool boy has earned his salary. Where was I?

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A couple of Cumbrian cows to keep you company during a short station break.

Photo: Cows at Castlerigg, County Cumbria, England, by Uppity, May 2010

The morning we left the Lake District, we stopped in Keswick for a few hours where Kevin did our laundry and I went shopping. (That’s the way to travel, I tell you.) I ended up not so much shopping as wandering, since 99% of the shops in central Keswick are for outdoor gear and I don’t need any cramp-ons this trip. I did get a latte and when the barista asked me if I wanted it in a take-away cup, I told her, “No thanks, just black.” Did I mention it’s hard for me to understand accented English w/out my hearing aid?

Then we said good bye to the Lakes and headed north for bonnie Scotland.

On the way we checked out Housestead, the best Roman fort in the UK. Now I can say I’ve stood in an actual Roman latrine. The ruins sprawl across a vast expanse of green hillside; my photos could never show how big it is. We spent so much time there we both got sunburned (not something one normally worries about when visiting the UK…).

Drove into Stirling that evening. Stirling is pretty close to Edinburgh and used to be the capital of Scotland. It has a well-known, well-preserved and well-renovated castle. Stirling also has what one of the guests at our b & b called the “Mel Gibson Monument,” a Victorian-era tower erected in honor of William Wallace of Braveheart legend. We walked to it after dinner; it’s basically a five-story phallic symbol.

The next morning was reserved for preparation for our train ride to the Isle of Skye so we had a transportation adventure: drove to Edinburgh, dropped off our bigger suitcase at our hotel for safekeeping, returned our rental car to Hertz, and then caught a train back to Stirling, then walked the three miles from the station to our b & b. It doesn’t sound like a big deal and indeed it isn’t if you know your way around — but we’re in Scotland. But we made it without any melt-downs even though both of us are Nervous Nellys when it comes to what Kevin calls “logistics.”

Did some sight-seeing in Stirling, including the castle which was pretty cool. (You can tell I’m beginning to get castled-out when my descriptions of them are reduced to that.) On the walk back to the b & b, we went through a park with cherry trees in bloom. Kevin tried to shake the blossoms down on us romantically but all we got was wet. He got an A for effort, though. Had fish ‘n chips and delicious ice cream in a mom ‘n pop place devoid of tourists.

Next day we hopped a train through the Highlands, destination the Isle of Skye. Have to save that for next post since I’m blogging from the free wireless on the bus and the Edinburgh Airport is coming up soon. Technology these days!

For what we’ve been billing as our vacation to the British Isles, we haven’t actually spent a lot of time in England itself. We’d originally planned to go from Wales south to the Cotswolds and Shakespeare country and then stop in a bunch of places on our way north into Scotland. But when we mapped out our itinerary we realized if we were going to do four countries in three weeks, one of them was going have to be a drive-by, and England drew the short straw.

After leaving Wales, we made a pit stop in Chester, a medieval town with a ginormous, ornately carved cathedral. The cobbled town center is mercifully pedestrian-only, and the buildings are well-preserved, but it’s basically still all about shopping. I’m not inspired by the use of cultural artifacts to sell me Ray-bans, and having to pay to see the inside of a historic church brings to mind Jesus and the money-lenders. We did get some really awesome donuts in town, though.

A few hours later we drove into the Lake District. The unseasonably warm, sunny weather showed off the pastoral perfection of the area to an almost ridiculous degree. I’m talking leaping lambs (literally), bright white clouds, and fluffy trees in shades of green. It was like walking into one of those romantic Victorian watercolor paintings.

After settling in to our Keswick b & b (also lovely, with an amazing view from our room of the valley), we went for dinner at a restaurant in a nearby town English-ly named Buttermere.

A quick aside: if you’re traveling by car in the UK and something seems “close” on the map, check with a local. It’s very possible that that 15-mile stretch of road is actually what Kevin and I have begun referring to since Ireland as a “goat trail”: one narrow lane and as curly as a pig’s tail. It will take you at least twice as long to get there as you think.

Anyway, with all the loveliness about, we couldn’t resist getting a walk in that first night. After dinner we went around the lake and watched the sun set behind the mountains.

Started the next day at nearby Castlerigg, an amazing stone circle dramatically situated on a hill top surrounded by mountains. Fun to imagine it full of prehistoric pagan peoples. Now it’s only the dedicated pro photographers and cows who see the sunrise from there.

Speaking of cows, folks in the UK are serious about their dairy. Cows and ice cream are everywhere. I’ve taken pictures of the cows when we’re up close; I think it’s funny how when you approach them, they just stop and stare at you, which according to my interpreter always means: “Do you have something for me to eat, or are you going to try to eat me?” Kevin grew up with cows so I guess I’ll take his word for it.

And speaking of Kevin, he kept saying he was really looking forward to relaxing in the Lake District. You’d think that after 13 years, I would have figured out that r & r means slightly different things to the City Mouse and the Country Mouse. To the former, it means a lounge chair on the deck with a margarita and a good book. To the latter… well, let’s just say that margarita was a carrot at the end of the death stick.

OK, it wasn’t that bad. It was a gorgeous day, sunny but not hot, good for walking. We took a little ferry across Derwentwater, then hiked up a little hill…and then the next hill…and eventually we weren’t climbing but scrambling over a rock outcropping like a goat, I kid you not. (Ha.) But the view from the top of the ridge was outstanding, I didn’t have a heart attack, and now I have bragging rights.

Went into Keswick where we had supper with Guinness at The Dog & Gun, then watched the sun set from Crow Park, an ugly name for a lovely little public green where the ferries dock. Full of sheep and their lambs, too, but just avoid the poo and it’s a lovely way to end the day.

There’s nothing like having your underpants handled by complete strangers to make you feel like a true traveler. When you aren’t staying in swanky hotels, you occasionally have to plan your day around things like when and how to wash your clothes. Caernarfon, Wales, had the important distinction in our itinerary of providing a conveniently located laundromat.

We arrived in our home base of Conwy late in the day, after finding our b & b via coordinates in the GPS because the house doesn’t have a number (!). The next morning we drove to Caernarfon where we dropped off our laundry at a literal hole-in-the-wall. It smelled much better when we picked it up after the castle tour.

I grew up on fairy tales with princesses, so tromping around actual castles is weirdly nostalgic for me. The one in Caernarfon is a sprawling ruin with dizzyingly high towers, spooky spiral staircases, and huge gaping fireplace holes. Conwy’s castle is similar, just smaller. For a few hours, I was a begowned Sleeping Beauty, traipsing across the flagstones and up spiral staircases, though I didn’t fall for the old prick-your-finger-on-the-spinning-wheel trick.

Both castles were built on the shore and now look like they grew right out of the bedrock. Great walls extend from them, wrapping wrapping townships in their stoney embrace. We were able to walk along the top of Conwy’s wall, much of which is still intact.

Somewhat ironically, visiting majestic medieval castles drives home just how small their inhabitants were. Posted by most doorways is a picture of a stick-figure grimacing and clutching his forehead, the international sign for “Shit! I bonked my damned head on the top of the damned doorway!” My feet are twice as long as most of the spiral staircase steps at their deepest point. Stairwells, doors and corridors are usually only wider than 3 feet if they were for horses as well as people.

Kevin was very patient as I took my 87 billion (give or take a few) castle photos. I ended up deleting 90% of them — smiling smugly all the while, I must add, remembering the pre-digital Bad Old Days when you had to pay money to develop and print all 87 billion, only to discover they all look the same. I’ll upload the best images to Flickr when I get home; if I tried to do it using the internet connections in my b & bs, I’d need an extra two days.

While in Conwy, we also went up the hill to the ruins of the Segontium Roman fort. Time has ground it down to the foundations, of course, but it’s still fun to stand where soldiers stood fifteen hundred years ago. We ended the day with a walk along “the Quayside” (harbor), where we saw Britain’s Smallest House which was inhabited until 1900 even though it has space enough for only a stove, bed and sink, no kitchen (not to mention a bathroom).

The chatty proprietor of our b & b recommended we get dinner in the peninsula town of Llandudno, which he said is a popular vacation spot for the English. Indeed. The town is built on a bay and the mile-long shore is a solid ring of turn-of-the-century hotels, a wall of vintage shabby chic. Between the hotels and the sea is a wide promenade, built when strolling was exercise.

Behind the hotels are the shops and restaurants. The first night, we had a great meal at a Mediterranean place. The next night we ventured two doors up where the food was so terrible, it has become a reference point for the remainder of our meals here — as in, “Well, that meal wasn’t great but at least it wasn’t as bad as the one at the Buttercup.”

Our last day in Wales we spent in the beautiful Snowdonia National Park in the county of Gwynedd. We started with the village of Betws Y Coed and made a loop over passes and into canyons. Stopped at the Slate Museum, which is interesting in a Steampunk sort of way for its cool Victorian machinery, and were treated to a slate-whacking demo in which the demonstrator cut a perfectly shaped heart from a raw slab of stone using knife so dull it was more like a tapered stick.

We spent our last evening in Snowdonia in Llandudno where we took one of our infamous chinny self-portraits amongst the ghosts of well-dressed Edwardians on the promenade. Next morning we said farewell to Wales and hello to the Lake District of England.