Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Stratford-Upon-Avon

We're back in England, and the bay windows of our Airbnb glimpse back in time to Tudor England - the 1500s. The town is full of uneven buildings that date back to that time - or are made to look like that. The river Avon runs alongside the town, and in 1800, the canal was completed to connect Stratford to Birmingham. We've had a lovely few days to explore and see living history here. 


High street

Shakespeare's birthplace

A glimpse behind the whitewashing at the wattle and daub construction. Maintained, it's actually really strong, quite fireproof, and attractive.

A lock along the canal. 

Me biking along the toe path beside the canal. 

Wouldn't it be cool to take the canals to York or Liverpool or London? 

There are tons of Mute Swans along the river and canal. 

And an amazing bumblebee!

And cute cafes for morning coffee and scones. 

One day when I was out biking, I ended up next to the Stratford racecourse, established in 1755. The back of the track runs right next to the bike trail - I took this picture with my lousy 3x zoom. 

And tonight Wendy and mom went to the Royal Shakespeare Theater to see Midsummer Nights Dream. 

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Isle of Skye

Scots, along with the rest of the world, seem puzzled with our obsession with Shetland. But all of them seem to have been to the Isle of Skye. It's certainly nice - but it also feels like a tourist destination. A nice one, but even now, in winter, the place is crawling with tourists. 

The main town of Portree's main harbor is down and to the left of the pink building. It's very cute. We are staying on the other side of the "Lump" - the hill/peninsula behind those buildings. 
See the blue sailboat in the foreground? Follow it's mast up - it's pointing to our cottage. It's right ON the water on the other bay, which is called the "Lovely Muck". At high tide, it's a gorgeous bay. At low tide, it's full of rooks, jackdaws, gulls, and other birds. We love it. 

I climbed up the Lump this morning to watch the sunrise from Apothecary’s tower at the top of the lump. 

Here's the view I got. 

Along with this one. 

And here's a view of the trail that goes around the lump. 

But we have explored outside Portree. We took some very narrow and pothole filled roads to get to the upscale Talisker distillery. They had amazing non-gendered bathrooms. Apparently some pretty good whisky too. 


Always sheep - but this time, very clean, very pretty sheep - with horns!

Then we went to the Fairy Pools. The winding thing you see is the path along the creek, with one waterfall and pool after another. 

Here's one of the waterfalls. 

This waterfall falls right off the cliff into the ocean. Amazing. 

And what is the highlands without a highland cow? 

Northlink and Loch Ness

One of the best parts of going to Shetland is the overnight ferry. It's such a fun experience to board the large and fancy (to me) ship, settle in our cabin, and eat dinner. The crossing was supposed to be pretty calm - but in the end, it was pretty exciting - up, down, side to side. 

A picture I took of the ferry at night before our crossing. 

The reception desk displays real shields from Up Helly Aa festivals gone by.

Wendy out on the back deck.

The cafe seating. The chairs are tethered to the floor, the tables have a lip to keep things on them, and they'd laid out grippy shelf liner to keep things in place. Such is winter in the North Sea. 

Arriving in Aberdeen in the morning. 

We then drove west, across Scotland, stopping in the small town of Elgin for the Walker Shortbread factory store. My favorite is the stem ginger cookies - I'm hoping to make such a thing once I get home. 

And then we got to the fabled Loch Ness. I'm not sure what I expected, but it's just a wide and very long inland loch, or lake, with hills rising on both sides. 

We walked down to the loch and of course I had to wade!

Several more hours of winding roads, mountain passes, castles, and a bridge, and we got to the Isle of Skye and then Portree, where all the signs are in Gaelic as well as English. 







Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Shapshots around Shetland

So many "oh wow" moments - our adventures continue:

This is Shetland - there are sheep. Lots of sheep. Mostly dirty white sheep, but some black-faced or all black. This time of year, their fleeces are long and they look like big puff balls on stick legs. They also have extremely expressive faces. 

We get a lot of weather variety in Minnesota, but nothing like Shetland. In one day, we saw EIGHT rainbows, which tells you how many times we cycled between sun, rain, clouds, sun, rain, clouds, etc. 

Coming back to Sarah's place in Lerwick felt like coming home - it's our third visit. This is the view out the living room window. I love being able to peer out at the passing ships in the harbor. 
St. Ninians Beach is a tombolo, a sandy isthmus with water on both sides. Last winter, we arrived during such a high tide that the tombolo was completely covered, which was unusual, but this time it was just passable. 

So we walked across the tombolo and across the island. It turned out on the other side, there are dramatic cliffs. Gorgeous.

The ferry docks just down the road, so we often run down to see it getting ready to depart each evening. 

Along with lots of sheep, Shetland has lots of wool shops, including this one on our street. I'm hoping to bring back wool so Micah can make me a "Shetland" sweater.

Our first visit to Victoria Pier this year, basking in the sun.

And a visit to the Lodberries, Jimmy's house in the Shetland TV show. The water is gorgeous and clear - but too cold for me to wade this year!

I took my bike out this morning and biked along this coastal path. 

A common practice in Shetland is to use old boats to roof sheds or garages. Use what you've got, right? 

On an almost-treeless island, people build in stone. And stone lasts. Today we visited Jarlshof, a historic site where various people have lived for almost 5,000 years in various different shapes and sizes of dwellings, all constructed with stone walls. Jarlshof from Above (Youtube: 4 minutes) 

Later we went to the historic Querndale water mill, which was closed but still interesting. 

This "bod" is a simple dwelling where folks can stay (in the summer),

right next to the picturesque Spiggie Beach. 

Monday, February 26, 2024

Norik Up Helly Aa

 Up Helly Aa is the Viking fire festival celebrated in Shetland every winter. The big festival is in Lerwick at the end of January, and we watched it online. It's very dramatic. But very crowded. 

There are also another 12 smaller Up Helly Aa events. Last year, we went to parts of two of them, and it was really fun. They're very much community events, with the participants working for months to prepare, and touring the schools and care centers before the festival to show off their costumes. 

This year, we happened to be in Unst for the Norik Up Helly Aa, and our airbnb host kindly got us tickets to go to the hall afterwards (the rest is free). Seeing the whole thing was amazing. 

Saturday morning we stopped by the Norwick beach where the burning would occur. It is a spectacularly beautiful beach. 

At this event, they don't actually burn the beautiful galley (boat) every year. They burn a simple boat (see above) atop a huge bonfire, right above the beach. Everything was in readiness. 

A closeup view of the galley that will be burned. 

Then we headed over to the hall to "meet" the Vikings. 

And to see the official boat, with it's annual name - Nordrljos. Each year, the Jarl picks a name from history for himself and for his boat. He also leads the Jarl squad. 

That evening, we drove back down the single track road that ended at the beach. We went really early so we could get a parking place. It just didn't seem like there would be room for very many cars, and mom can't walk long distances in the dark. 

We got an amazing parking spot. Later, they parked up a LOT more cars, but we were still glad to have gotten there early. We bundled up and waited awhile as other folks arrived and the procession mustered. 

It was an incredibly beautiful night, with the full moon shining on the ocean. 

The jarl squad, followed by all the other guizer squads (groups dressed up "in disguise") walked up the hill so they could dramatically light their torches and walk back down to the beach. It was a beautiful sight, again reflected in the water below. 

The processed down to the galley and the pile of pallets and ceremonially threw their torches to start the bonfire. Amazingly, Up Helly Aa has a really good safety track record, even though it involves a LOT of naked flame!

Once this bonfire got going - it was REALLY hot! 

Then all the cars moved out in an orderly fashion along the single track road (that means there's only one lane for both directions, with small passing places when cars in opposing directions pass) to the North Unst hall. 

Almost the entire community showed up to celebrate. Each squad (there were 12 this time) did skits, starting with the Jarl squad. 

The skits were silly or fun or filled with in jokes. This one was a riff on the Barbie movie and was pretty amusing. Our host was in it too! 

And that's Up Helly Aa. The celebration at the hall went on until the wee hours, but we got tired and went home to bed, but it was an honor to be included in this little vibrant communities celebration.