The next stop was the Explorers Garden located on a hill overlooking the Pitlochry Festival theatre in Perthshire. Pitlochery is famous for its theatre. We have sent other clients to the theatre and it is very popular. The garden is no doubt very pretty in the summer, but we were there in early April and it was too early for anything to bloom. Visiting this place would depend on the time of year. Pitlochry itself is a charming little town and worth a stop.
The next day we drove to Glasgow after spending the night in the Holiday Inn Express in Perth. If you are coming this way, be sure to stop and see the one of the greatest castles in all of Europe: Stirling Castle. You go right by it on the way to Glasgow, and strategically the most important castle in the history of Scotland. You want to get a tour and learn about the fabulous history associated with this castle with its re-built Great Hall. On arrival in Glasgow, we checked into the Thistle Hotel. Over the years, we have stayed in several different Thistle hotels and been consistently disappointed in them all. There are many better options in most cities. Our room was simply shabby and in need of renovation. The carpet was worn and torn; the fabric on the chairs was faded from the sun, and we had trouble with the lights and one morning the shower head just simply shut off in the middle of the shower! It got ugly after that. I would not recommend this hotel for a stay in Glasgow. The only positive thing I'll say is that the location is excellent, right in the central city and close to anything you need in central Glasgow.
We attended a reception in the Museum of Transport, which is a must see in Glasgow if you have any interest in trains and cars. It is really a very good museum. The venue for the trade show is located on the waterfront in an exhibition center called the SECC, or warmly known as " The Armadillo". It is huge and in addition to the Expo there were several other events going on simultaneously.
After two days of Expo, we took a bus to the airport (which is 30 min. W of downtown) and rented a small car for our separate little extension of our trip. We rented a small Ford 4 door sedan which was powered by a small turbo diesel engine and a 5 speed transmission. Great little car which got 46 MPG! This is a good thing as petrol prices in the UK are outrageous. When we were there, it was about $7.00/US gallon. They sell it by the liter; there are 3.78 liters to the US gallon, and you can convert the volume and then convert price from British Pounds to US dollars. A small tip for those of you driving in the UK. The UK, and particularly London is the most surveilled society in the world. Cameras are everywhere! Either law enforcement of private cameras are watching. If you are in public, you are on camera somewhere and ditto if you go into almost any store. Of course no sane person drives in central London, and no car is needed and there is a surcharge to drive in central London. Taxis and the Tube are the way to go in London. In Scotland and the English roads, there are speed cameras everywhere and you simply must be careful. On the roads, they tell you where the cameras are, and you can see them and the road has stripes painted perpendicular to your route of travel. The camera takes a photo or film and by measuring the time to cross the stripes they can compute your speed. Also, another cute trick is cameras that talk to each other. if you pass a certain point, a camera takes a picture and notes the time. If you break the speed limit and continue down the road, another camera takes your picture and compares the time. If the time is shorter than the time needed to travel at the speed limit; bingo, they have you. Pretty sad in my book, but that is just my opinion.
From Glasgow we visited some really interesting places on the outskirts for which you need a car and which we had not visited in all our other trips to Glasgow. Just to the South, Greenbank Gardens are open and which we enjoyed very much despite an overcast and drizzly day. This place has approximately 447 different varieties of Daffodils. I had no idea there were anywhere near that many different types. We also stopped at Pollack House which is also just south of Glasgow and near the famous Burrell Collection. We have seen the Burrell Collection on a previous trip and opted to try Pollack House. The docent was simply a wonderful guy and very helpful. This home and others are run and maintained by the National Trust For Scotland.
We also visited the Musuem of Agriculture, which was really fascinating. It covers the history of agriculture in Scotland from the very early days, and they have a fascinating collection of farm tools and implements which covers hundreds of years of technology. They also have a working farm about 1/2 mile from the museum. We walked there (there is a tractor which pulls a tram up the hill; times vary by season and demand). We got an interesting tour of the by a docent who wanted to show us every piece of furniture and knickknack in each room of the house. Guide overkill again. There was very little going on in terms of seeing farm animals working et. seq.
From here, we drove southwest along the coast past Turnberry golf links and Troon. Just north of there is Culzean Castle, which well worth a stop if in the area. While pricey, you can stay at the Eisenhower Apartments. These are essentially hotel rooms in the castle which were converted from the apartment which the British gave to General Eisenhower for his service in WW II. Just across the road from the entrance to Troon, is the ancestral home of Johnny Walker (of Johnny Walker Scotch fame), which is now a hotel. I stayed here several years ago and it is a very comfortable old hotel. We continued south on the A77 to Stranraer for the night. Ellie found a very nice B&B right on the water on the main street; the Lakeview Guest House. We had a very nice room on what we would call the second floor (in the UK and Europe and Australia and New Zealand, the "first floor" is our second floor. What we call the "first floor" is the Ground Floor. We spent a very pleasant evening there, and were off the next morning for Ardwell Gardens. There we met a young woman who worked the gardens and a vegetable garden and had a very pleasant chat with her and took a hike through the property. We continued South to the southernmost tip of Scotland, to the Mull of Galloway and the lighthouse there. Getting there is half the fun as you end up on a single track road for the last couple of miles. Periodically, there are "laybys" where oncoming traffic "lays by" until you pass. These types of road are common on the Isle of Mull also and you find these in the very northern parts of Scotland. From there we drove to to Kirkcudbright and stayed at a 5 star guesthouse called Fludha Guesthouse. It was guesthouse of the year for 2008 for Scotland and the only 5 star in Dumfries and Galloway. It sits up on a hill overlooking the river and is like a couple of other guesthouses and B&Bs in that an old manor home has been essentially gutted and all modern plumbing and bathrooms and flat screen TVs installed. New windows, and very modern kitchen, all of which makes for a very lovely stay. The only other guests at breakfast was a Scottish couple on holiday and we had a very enjoyable chat with them over a wonderfully prepared breakfast. We then spent the next day mainly in Threave Gardens near the town of Castle Douglas. The grounds here are magnificent and Ellie got some really great macro close up shots of some of the flowers. Also had lunch here, and they have a very nice small cafeteria. After lunch we drove to the little village of New Abbey, 5 miles S. of Dumfries. The purpose was to visit the Corn Mill there. It is one of the few existing mills from medievial times. The mill was usually owned by the Lord, who had serfs working the land. As rent, the Lord took a percentage of the crop. Of course the wheat, corn or whatever had to be milled and for the service of milling the serf's crop, they paid an additional percentage of their crop to cover this expense. This mill was small, and very, very old. We had a comprehensive tour, and it was explained that this mill was used into the early part of the 20th century. And much to my surprise, the best milling stones come from France. The whole thing is powered by water flow which of course has to be controlled; not too much from heavy rainfall runoff, and enough for dry times and reduced water flow to run the mill.
After a second night at Fludha, we drove most of the day up to Glasgow Airport, turned in the rental car, and walked to the Holiday Inn Express right at the airport. A couple of years ago we showed my brother and his wife around Scotland and put them up here on their last night. A very clean, functional place with a restaurant and a bar. Early AM continental breakfast and we were off to the Terminal in the rain. There is a covered walkway from right across the street from the hotel to the terminal. We went through security at GLA, flew BA to LHR, then transfered to Terminal 3 to catch American airlines to JFK, and then connecting on a non-stop to SAN. We spent our waiting time in the Admirals Club, which is a nice one in London and they are building a new and bigger one there as well. On the 777, and push back. As soon as we are on the taxiway , we return to the gate. El Supremo (the captain) comes on the PA and says that an ill passenger insisted on getting off. Of course this means her bags must be removed also - bomb worries and all that. So we get out of LHR too late to make our connection in JFK. After clearing immigration and customs, we check with AA and they say then can send us to ORD, and we only get home an hour later than planned. We get new luggage tags and re-check the bags and get on the flight to ORD. From ORD to SAN no problem until try to get luggage in SAN. Ellie's bag shows up, mine does not despite my checking mine at the same time she checks hers. Go figure! Mystery solved next day when my bag is delivered by AA. I open same to unpack and there is a notice from the TSA that they opened and inspected my bag. While Ellie's bag made the flight mine did not because of the bag check.
Overall, the trip was fabulous and we found new places for our clients that we had not seen before. The downside was the airlines and the delays and the lost luggage. Moral of the story on luggage; ALWAYS bring a carry-on with a change of clothes for at least one day and some toiletries. If you can travel light enough to bring just a carry-on, all the better. If you do that, be prepared to do your laundry every night of the trip, which gets very old very quick, and hotel charges for laundry amount to extortion; I don't to have buy my clothes back, just pay to have them laundered! I also pack a Leatherman multi tool device which has a knife blade which I could not get on the plane and a small pocket knife which I can't put on a carry-on
Next blog; New Zealand - We did three weeks earlier in the year and 2400 miles around both the N. and S. Island. God's country!
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