Friday 26 August 2011

Pub Challenge 75 - 87

Crazy times in Edinburgh. 14 pubs in 3 days.

The Hebrides, Edinburgh


The Doric, Edinburgh
Deacon Brodie´s Tavern, Edinburgh
Lebowskis, Edinburgh
Black Bull, Edinburgh

White hart, Edinburgh
Black Rose, Edinburgh

Jinglin´ Geordie, Edinburgh





 



Tolbooth, Edinburgh
Malt Shovel, Edinburgh
Halfway House, Edinburgh
1780, Edinburgh
Taverna Kreta, Eckernförde.
Finally back in Germany!

Thursday 25 August 2011

Edinburgh. Wild, crazy Edinburgh.

Well, that was something. Three days in Edinburgh during the fringe festival. I don´t really know Edinburgh very well, and so seeing it in its festival state is like hearing the ultra-hypo techno dance remix of a song before you hear the original acoustic version. I wouldn´t mind visiting again when there´s not a festival on, just to see what it´s like normally. But this was madness. The streets were packed with people and performers (because performers aren´t people). When people in a show weren´t performing they were pushing leaflets of their show into your hands. There were jugglers, musicians, singers, those annoying people who pretend to be statues, stilt walkers, you name it. And that was just on the streets. It seemed like every second pub had a free comedy show, and then there are venues on every street of the city that hosted half a dozen different shows in every room it could cram a couple of performers in. The university particularly was a rabbit-warren of performance spaces.
I spent a lot of time in Edinburgh just going into pubs, walking around, going into pubs, watching some live street performance, going into pubs, having lunch (in a pub), and just generally consuming more Guinness than is strictly healthy for a person.
Of course I saw a handful of paid shows in fixed venues. Again, this isn´t a theatrical review blog so I´ll keep it brief. The first three shows I saw were comedy - Dave Callan, Jimeoin and Ed Byrne, in that order. I swear it was purely coincidental that they were all Irish (Dave Callan and Jimeoin have spent so much time in Australia they may as well be Australian though). The shows got progressively better. Dave Callan was... mediocre, Jimeoin was funny - but you´re never in for a surprise with him anyway. You always know what to expect. And Ed Byrne was side-splittingly funny. Makes my paltry attempts of humour in this blog seem feeble. But hey, he´s a professional comedian, and this is a travel blog. I would say the travel journalism in Ed Byrne´s comedy show was lacklustre at best.
Then I saw two pieces of theatre. As many of you may know I graduated from uni 5 years ago with a major in Drama, and apart from a little bit 4 years ago I haven´t seen or been involved in any theatre since then. So I was feeling a bit guilty about this and decided to see a show called "tales from Edgar Allen Poe" and a production of "Death of a Salesman".
The first one started at quarter to eleven at night, probably to suit the material. Now, I like E. A. Poe. This show could have been better though. Firstly there was little in the way of seating - the audience was required to sit or stand around in the space. I´m not sure why they made this decision, because I became very uncomfortable very quickly, and this fact may have been the biggest contributor to my not being overly impressed with the actual performance. However, with such a huge body of work to choose from, they could have chosen some pieces that were better suited to being adapted to the stage. The three they chose - the Raven, the Fall of the House of Usher and the Telltale Heart, are really little more than dry monologues. Great to read, but turgid on stage.
But anyway, moving on, I enjoyed Death of a Salesman a lot more. First off there was traditional theatre-style seating -  a godsend. And secondly it´s a famous play written for the stage. I had no idea what to expect when I went in - I had heard of the play and that it was supposed to be really good, but that´s about it. Oh yeah, I also knew that one of the characters was a salesman and that he would die, but that was only a bit of highly deductive reasoning.
The play is set in 1950s America, and the biggest fault I could find with the production was that the scottish cast´s attempts at the American accent were for the most part embarassing. However the actor playing Willy, the salesman and main character, pulled it off nearly flawlessly so it was ultimately pretty good.
And finally on the last night I went to see the famous Edinburgh Tatoo.
I want to ride my bicycle
Seeing as I play in a Highland Pipe band in Australia, I couldn´t exactly go to Edinburgh while the Tatoo was on and just ... not go to the tatoo. I would´t be able to show my face! Besides, I was genuinely interested in seeing it myself.
And to be honest, I was slighly disappointed. I guess I was expecting bagpipes until my ears bled. I was expecting to positively drown in them. I was expecting so many bagpipes that they literally had to throw them into the audience to get rid of them. Okay I got a bit carried away, but I did expect more pipes than I got.
Of course the massed pipes and drums at the very start and the finale at the end had plenty of pipes, but throughout the middle of it there was only a light smattering here and there and the rest was variations on brass bands throughout the world with gimmicks. Don´t get me wrong - I thought the band from the Netherlands that played on bicycles were quite interesting (don´t ask me how the Tuba player managed to steer!), but when at least half of the items were gimmicks such as this, and most of the rest were straight brass bands I really craved the sound of the pipes.
Edinburgh Castle from the top of the Sir Walter Scott monument
And I haven´t even begun to tell you about the sightseeing I did in Edinburgh! And, well, I didn´t really do that much. I visited the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle and climbed the Sir Walter Scott monument.
As I´ve mentioned before, museums aren´t that great to write about. I love visiting them, but writing about them is often tedious, particuarly for this sort of gigantic museum that covers everything imaginable.
Edinburgh castle is a bit easier to write about, but it has such a long and colourful history it´s hard to do it justice. Like so many castles it has been repurposed and rebuilt uncountable amounts of time. There is probably nothing remaining of whatever fort was originally built there thousands of years ago, but the chapel built at the top of the castle is the oldest building in Edinburgh. The castle does command a spectacular position over the town, perched up on its rocky outcrop. It´s almost surreal to see this green, rocky hill jutting out in the middle of this highly built up city. It´s also been the scene of enough sieges, intrigues, assassinations, political machinations and beach volleyball tournaments to keep historians busy for decades, although I may have made that last one up.
Sir Walter Scott Monument
And finally I got to get my fix for climbing monuments, by clambering up the over two hundred steps to the top of the sixty odd metre high Sir Walter Scott monument. Sir Walter Scott was a famous Scottish Novelist, having written such books as Rob Roy and Ivanhoe. I´m not quite sure why they thought this monument would be suitable for him - it looks like someone got a "do it yourself" cathedral kit, used up all the fancy archways, buttresses, vaultings and sculptures then couldn´t be bothered making the rest of the church. Still an impressive monument though, and you get quite a view from the top.
Now, however, I´m back in Germany for a week to get some well needed rest. I´ll still make a few posts, and I urgently need to update my Pub Challenge, but be expecting exciting posts again in about a week´s time when I head off to Venice.

Monday 22 August 2011

And Briefly, Aviemore and Aberdeen


Nice Cairngorm scenery around Aviemore
This post is going to be a bit scant - I have to play catchup for a few days. The first of which, of course, was Aviemore.
As I said, I showed up quite late at Aviemore. The place is really a hub for extreme sports - skiing, mountain biking, hiking, cross-stitching, that sort of thing. Every second building is an "outdoors" shop. Apart from getting a disappointingly good Aussie Burger and a Cooper's Pale Ale at the local Australian theme pub, I did nothing that night. The next morning, however, I went on quite a good walk through the local nature reserve. Unlike all the imagined animals I saw on Loch Lomond and Loch Ness, I actually saw a few things.
Photo-shy deer
In order: one heron, a number of ducks, a mole (scampering wildly to not get trodden on), a heap of finches or sparrows or something and a deer. For some reason wildlife seems to have an uncanny ability to tell the exact moment when I'm about to press the shutter button on my camera. I can be standing for ages getting the shot just right, but the moment I press the button then turn their head or walk away. Still, it was quite a nice walk, although I got my trousers soaked from the dewy undergrowth.
North Sea from Aberdeen
So after that I headed off to Aberdeen, going the long way to see another distillery. This was probably the best distillery tour I've done, better even than Singleton. Royal Lochaber is a very small distillery with only two stills, but it was favoured by Queen Victoria (hence "Royal"), and the tour-guide was passionate and incredibly informative. The sample wasn't bad either. But since I took such a long way around, I ended up in Aberdeen just before 4pm. Parking lots in Aberdeen move. They hide when you drive past. There's signs for them everywhere, but following them doesn't lead you to any parking lots, just more signs. As soon as you do park your car and start walking you can barely move for all the parking lots. So by the time I got parked, found the tourist information and found my hostel all the museums and things I wanted to see were shut. Shame that because I had to leave quite early the next morning to drive my little Ka all the way back to Dumbarton to return it on time. So all I really experienced in Aberdeen was a nice walk along the beach.
The next day I got up at sparrowfart and drove all the way to Dumbarton. Even though it's a crappy little car with an uncomfortable seat, I was a little bit sad when I gave the keys in. I'd grown about as attached as a lover of old-school volkswagens can get to a new model hired ford two door hatchback. But after taking the train to Edinburgh I saw it was all for the best. The Edinburgh festival was on and the streets were packed. Unless I was particularly keen on getting a whole lot of points running over pedestrians, I was much better off without a car.

Photos of my past exploits

Culloden Moor

Yet more Culloden Moor

Cawdor Castle

Some wild pheasants I saw on the side of the road

Pub Challenge 61 - 74

Hoo-wee! I sure do have a lot to catch up on. First a procession of photos of me with my face in a pint

Saucy Mary's, Kyleakin
King's Arms, Kyleakin
Castle Bar, Inverness
The Gellions, Inverness
Hootananny, Inverness (Again spelled wrong on the note!)
Market Bar, Inverness
Blackfriars, Inverness
Smith & Jones, Inverness
Glenalbyn, Inverness
Roo's Leap, Aviemore.
This is the "embarassing" Australian pub I was so keen to visit a couple of days ago.
I was quite disappointed - no rusty corrugated iron, no stolen street signs, no old weatherboard,
no dijeridoos on the walls, not even Fosters on tap. It was a lot more Australian
and a lot less embarrassing than I was hoping.
Old Blackfriar's, Aberdeen. I love my expression in this one!
Looking very prim and proper at "The Tilted Wig" in Aberdeen
I'm 90% sure this wasn't the name of the pub at all, but it was in Edinburgh
Malone's, Edinburgh

Friday 19 August 2011

Bits and bobs

I have very little planned at my current stop, Aviemore. I'm only here because it's a great location in the Cairngorms national park, and I was hoping to get some great views. As such I didn't rush to get here today, and I took the time to visit Cawdor castle and a couple more distilleries.
All that I knew about the name Cawdor before was its mention in Macbeth. To be honest I still don't know a lot about it. The castle is very pretty from the outside - travel guides love to use "Fairy Tale" when describing castles like this. The interior, however, is best described by that other cliche "labyrinthine". The castle has been in constant use since it was built, and constant renovation and reconstruction has given it an unusual floorplan. The self guided tour leads one through a bewildering procession of bedrooms, kitchens, drawing rooms and lounge rooms until you have no idea which way you're facing. And all the descriptions focussed pretty strongly on the particular features of the rooms, rather than the history of the castle or the family, so the only thing I know about them is that the founder chose the location by letting a donkey laden with gold wander around the countryside for a day and building the castle where it stopped to rest. Very thorough surveying method to be sure.
After taking a number of wrong streets that led me down seemingly hopeless, narrow roads I came to the Cragganmore, then Cardhu distilleries. Now, this isn't as serious a challenge as my Pub challenge, but at Oban I received a little "diary" of 13 "classic malt" whisky distilleries where, if I visit them, I receive a stamp. So I'm seeing how many stamps I can get. Somehow I don't think I'll beat my pub challenge number...

Yeah, still no photos. I'll try to upload some tomorrow in Aberdeen. Right now I'm off to an embarassing looking "Australian" pub down the road.

Culloden Moor

My second day in Inverness I got up late, having gone to bed quite late the night before. I'd love to show you pictures of my interesting night and the pub challenges I completed, but again I'm on a computer that won't allow me to connect my camera, so you'll just have to use your imagination. To give you some sort of idea how awesome my night was, start with me taking down a giant robot bear by a flying kick to the groin. And that should give you some idea as to why I got up at 11:30.
Well, okay - it wasn't quite that awesome, but I did drink a lot of Guinness, so there you go.
Anyway, I really only did one thing that day, which was visit Culloden Moor. This is where the famous battle of Culloden took place in the 18th century and changed Scotland's history forever. At the time a group called the Whigs were in charge of Britain, who ruled with a constitutional monarchy. However the house of Stewart contested the throne, and collectively people who supported them in rebellion were known as Jacobites. The Jacobites acquired a surprisingly large army in Scotland, where the Stuarts were from, and for quite a while campaigned very successfully against the Whigs. This was mainly because the government commanders underestimated the highland soldiers. However when they finally got the idea that the highlanders were quite formidable in battle they changed their tactics accordingly and soundly defeated the Jacobite army at Culloden Moor in 1746. To give you an idea, the Jacobite army lost 1500 men while the government troops only lost 50. Afterwards the government came down hard on Scotland and the Highlands, trying to destroy the clan system which made the Jacobites so strong. Everything from tartans to bagpipes were banned.
And Culloden Moor is a bit of an eerie place. Bleak, boggy and windswept would describe it well. The visitor centre, while a bit pricey, was incredibly informative too. I only had to go to Wikipedia once for this post!

Wednesday 17 August 2011

The road to Inverness

Moyle castle
Here's some good travel advice: when there's a lot of tourist advice going around a certain location regarding things like tides, swampy ground, dangerous animals, meteor showers and troupes of mimes, pay close attention as it may impact you. I discovered this this morning when I decided to go for a walk to the nearby ruined Moyle castle. I vaguely remember hearing some advice regarding a walk to some castle that said not to go during high tide as you could get stuck or encounter very swampy ground, but as the castle was within sight of where I was I decided that it can't be that castle.
So I headed off down the toad which led me to... well to call it a goat track would be an insult to goat tracks. It was really just a thin strip where it seemed as if by pure chance the foliage happened to line up in such a way that it allowed for rudimentary passage, if you didn't mind pushing through a jungle's worth of leaves. But it was dry and it led in the right direction, so I followed it. Until I came to the swampy ground. The foliage had now given way to grass and low scrub which led away to the right around a low rise to then presumably come round to the tower from behind, and to the left it led down to a rocky beach and a boathouse. The military tactician in me decided to use the cover of the high ground and outflank my enemy, hopefully taking the walls by elemnent of surprise and avoiding a siege. I took one step up the wet grass and my foot sunk into water. It was a trap! I decided to reconnoitre, and after some deliberation I decided my best tactic left was to attack by sea. I headed down to the rocky beach, hoping I could find some passage along the shore.
The route I took by sea
 But, as luck would have it, the tide was about halfway in, and what would have been a pleasant stroll on some loose gravel turned into a wade around some steep rocks. Well, I hadn't marched all the way from Kyleakin to give up when victory was in sight just because of a little water! I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my trousers and waded in. The water of course was freezing, and once I nearly slipped on a rock to land arse first in the water, though luckily my cat-like reflexes saved me from my watery fate. I also had to climb over and slide down a steep rock jutting into the little cove. But finally I arrived ashore and, putting my shoes and socks back on my freezing feet, I vowed to take the land-route on the way back - perhaps there was some dry path I had missed.
Upon reaching the castle I realized my planned conquest was a few hundred years too late - the castle was in ruins. There was an information board, presumably explaining how, fearing the wrath of my invasion, all the inhabitants fled hundreds of years ago, but the sign had weathered beyond legibility.

Moyle castle up close

After clambering around the ruins for a little while I headed back, trying to find a decent path. This, I found, was completely in vain. It was simply unbroken grass and scrub as far as the eye could see. And, as I soon found out, incredibly swampy. By the time I returned to my car my socks and shoes were soaked through. I would have been better going back the way I came.

On the way to my next stop, Inverness, I stopped by another distillery - the Singleton distillery in Muir of Ord. This one was probably the best tour I've done, and the premesis were probably the nicest too. Shame the whisky they make isn't right down my alley, but you can't have everything. Still, I got another stamp in my little book of 13 "classic malt" whisky distilleries, and because I have that little book the tour was free, so I can't complain. The tour was held up somewhat as well so the group was given an extra big glass of whisky at the end (that's still quite small mind you). All in all I think going a little bit out of my way for it was well worth the effort.
Then when I got into Inverness this afternoon (Inverness is a terrible city to drive in, by the way. Another traveller's tip. Free of charge) I checked into my hostel and decided I needed to do a load of washing. I changed my trousers and to my horror discovered the arse was filthy from sliding down muddy rocks and sitting on dirty ground, taking off and putting on shoes and socks. And now think: I always like to be at the front of a tour group, so everyone was able to see my filthy backside in the distillery.
Oh well.

Loch Ness and the Isle of Skye: a retrospective photographic essay

Bjorn's Slightly Amazing Travel Blog, now with 235% wankier titles!


Loch Ness. Again, this is the kind of place where
mere pictures will do no justice.

Keep in mind, these photos were taken from a speed boat.

The view from Talisker distillery

This is pretty much what the Isle of Skye looks like everywhere.

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Loch Ness and Isle of Skye

Banks of Loch Ness
I had an adventure today. I rode on the fastest boat on Loch Ness, I nearly ran out of petrol on a long winding road in the highlands, picked up my first hitch-hiker and went to the ends of the Earth to visit a distillery. This should be a fun post... but it's my third in a row, and I'm itching to go to the pub. I'll try to put everything in, but I might be a bit brief. Also, I could only get one photo in before my camera ran out of batteries, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for the rest.
So first it was Loch Ness. As I said, I took a tour on a super fast boat with an excellent skipper and guide. For those of you who don't know Loch Ness is enormous - it contains more water than all the lakes and rivers of the rest of mainland Britain combined. It's also beautiful. Like the wallabies in Loch Lomond I unfortunately didn't see the monster - only a couple of yetis and another tasmanian tiger.
Then it was off to the Isle of Skye via the scenic route. I still had a fair bit of petrol when I set off and I expected to come across a petrol station sooner rather than later. As it turned out it was later rather than sooner. I nearly shouted for joy when, my petrol needle wobbling on the empty mark, I spotted a sign that said "petrol". I then nearly screamed in anguish when on the pump it said "sorry no petrol". Luckily the next one was only a couple more miles down the road, but I was still skeptical of making it. However miraculously the needle jumped up a smidge - presumably the car automatically syphoned a passing truck's tank - and I got there no problems. Then I kept going.
After passing through more beautiful scenery I finally crossed the enormous bridge to the Isle of Skye. After dropping past my Hostel at about 1pm and finding out I couldn't check in until 4pm I decided to head off to Talisker to check out the distillery. Kind of a must for one of my favourite whiskies. However, Skye is a huge island. Really it's just a chunk of mainland with a thin strip of water cutting it off. And it's about the most beautiful part of scotland I've seen so far. And I picked up a hitch hiker. I've always wanted to do it, and when I saw a guy with his thumb out at the side of the road I nearly ran him over in my enthusiasm.
He was a scruffy local and smelled of cigarette smoke, but hey! He was a hitch-hiker! And he was nice enough too.
So then I dropped him off in a town with the somewhat Japanese looking name of Sligachan. This town, marked bigger on the map than Talisker, consisted of two pubs, a steakhouse and a brewery. That's it. Talisker was a speck at the end of a tiny road. I was slightly worried by this, but undeterred.
Talisker itself lay at the end of about 10 kilometres of disshevelled one-way road. I imagined that only the most dedicated whisky enthusiasts would bother going that whole way, but the place was packed, and I only managed to take the last available spot in the tour.
It was another good tour. Better than Ben Nevis at any rate, but that's hardly saying much. And it's in about the most beautiful location you could imagine for a distillery.
But now I'm off to charge my camera and go to the pub.

Fort William Day 2

I had a relatively easy day this day becaue of the excessive exertion I made in the pub the night before. My first port of call was Inverlochy castle, a ruin just outside Fort William. There's little to be said about this place other than, apart from having fallen completely to pieces, it's a changed remarkably little in a very long time - it was built, then nobody did anything with it for hundreds of years. I did get some pretty pictures of it though.
Next I headed off to another distillery - the Ben Nevis distillery. It was... how do I put this? Oh yeah. It was a crappy distillery with a crappy tour. Sure it was only four pounds, but I would have been happy to at least pay an extra pound or two to get a twelve year old single malt at the end rather than their cheap, nasty blended rubbish. As for the tour itself, it started with a video. Now, a lot of distilleries do this, but typically they're not as bad as this one. Now I can handle cheesy and badly edited, but this was too much. It was completely narrated by the hairy giant Hector who supposedly dug out all the lochs and mountains of scotland, and explained the mythical origins of whisky. After those 3 hours of torture (or so it felt) we were given the tour proper. It was guided by a girl who talked like she was reading off a script. Like she was reading off a script she'd read 100 times and was getting sick of reading it. And the grounds... well I'm sure they would have looked like the sterile Midleton's distillery in the 70s, but now... well they look like a factory that was brand new in the 70s and was never looked after since. So I'll just leave it at that. Instead I'll talk about the gondola ride I took afterwards. It was nice. I wish I could remember the name of the mountain now... but it's a nearby and during the winter months used for snowsports. But being such a spectacular location they keep the gondola running all year round for people to go up and get a look at the view.
So enjoy the pretty pictures!


Pub Challenge 56 - 60

Taver, Fort William

Grog and Gruel, Fort William

Ben Bar, Fort William

Maryburgh (I spelled it wrong on the paper), Fort William

Skipinnish Ceilidh, Fort William