Fort William

We took the bus from Oban to Fort William, a scenic 1 1/2 hour trip along Loch Linnhe. Fort William is located at the southern end of the Great Glen. The continuous set of lochs, the Caledonian Canal, connect Fort William to Inverness on the eastern side of Scotland and was completed in 1822. 

While there's a quaint downtown, we stayed out on the North Road. It wasn't a scenic, but we were near the trailhead to Ben Nevis to the south and Neptune's staircase and Old Inverlochy castle to the north. 

Old Inverlochy castle is a ruined, 13th-century castle:

One of the best parts of this location was watching the Jacobite train steam its way out of Fort William to Mallaig. It's described as one of the great train journeys of the world, and the old "Harry Potter" train is iconic. It's also expensive, so later we took the regular train on the same route. But we loved wandering over to see the steam train. 

Meg took a couple hikes around Fort William - part way up Ben Nevis and another lovely hike overlooking the town:

Oban

 Oban is often seen as just a jumping off point for the Inner and Outer Hebrides. But we found it to be, all on its own, a charming town. We were here for three days, but would have been happy for much longer. I have spent hours watching the harbor, running down three flights of stairs and along the harbor to see large ships arrive or depart. There are ferries coming and going to multiple destinations every day - it's a delight to watch. I'm SO glad we are right on the water. Here's the view out my window:

Meg and Adam watching the Clansman load up. 

This is a very active harbor, but that doesn't always mean it's a good place to buy raw fish. Meg and I looked for hours in advance to try to find a store selling fish. But it turns out there's a lovely fishmonger right next to the docks for the big boats. We bought fresh fish and scallops, along with samphire, which we turn out to love. 

Dunollie Castle

Looming over the town is Dunollie Castle, dating back to the 6th century AD. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lorn from which four kings ruled an area which stretched from the west of Mull, east to Tyndrum, south to Crinan, and north to Appin. 

Personally, it just loomed above the town, begging me to climb up and see the sights - and we did!

Kerrera Island

Across the bay is the tiny island of Kerrera. We took a little ferry across, then walked the circuit around the island. It was delightful, with sheep and highland cattle and pretty meadows. Until it wasn't delightful anymore. We were late for our ferry, and the only way back was through big fields of stinging nettles. I was wearing capris. There are no pictures of the nettles - we were too busy!

More Scenery of Oban

We took lots of walks and lots of pictures. 

Carlisle to Oban

We planned this to be a train trip, and we did have some train. But heavy rains and flooding closed a number of lines - including the route from Glascow to Oban. We were able to rebook on a bus. It's not our favorite - but it worked. We still got to take the first part of the trip by train. 

After an easy hour on the train, we got back to Glascow, this time with Adam too. The rain makes for a nice shine in the pictures, but made for uncomfortable walking from the train station to the bus station. 

We never did figure out how they did this trick to appear levitated. 

The drive to Oban took around 5 hours. At first it was quick, but then we were on pretty small roads that meandered along loch after loch. Plus the traffic jam - we were stopped so long that we got out and walked down to see what was holding things up.

But at long last, and only a little queasy, we pulled into Oban. It was only a short walk to our Airbnb. It's up on the 3rd floor, but it overlooks the harbor. Amazing!

Around Carlisle

 In roman times, around AD 122, the northern border of England was in Carlisle, with Hadrian's Wall. The wall - a literal wall - stretched 73 miles from Bowness-on-Solway to South Shields, or from Carlisle to Newcastle upon Tyne. 

In Carlisle, there are still many remains of the wall, as well as various monuments to the wall, a path along the old route, and a number of other walking paths. These little monuments are a depiction of the location and spacing of the towers along the wall. 

We did a lot of walking around town. 

Glascow

 The next morning, we packed everything up again and walked to the Paisley Gilmore train station for a direct and short train into the city. We enjoyed the damp walk and our view of Paisley, though it wasn't very glamourous. 

From the downtown Glascow train station, we walked a few blocks to a trendy restaurant to meet up with mom's friend Victoria. Among other things, we got to try trendy haggis - three flavors!

Then Victoria walked with us back to the train station. 

The Glascow train station is really fun - and we weren't the only people who thought so. They were filming the day we were there - for the show Inside Central Station. The trip to Carlisle was an easy hour, and it was fun to watch out the window to see the countryside - lot of sheep. Adam was there to meet us. It was great to see him!

We walked (see the theme of the trip!) across town to our airbnb and got settled. It was great to unpack knowing we'd be in one place for several days!

Dublin

 The best thing about having a kid study abroad is getting to visit them! Not really, but selfishly, that was one of my thoughts when Adam decided to take a summer history course based in northern England - Carlisle. We decided to plan a family trip to coincide with the end of his trip. We'd get to come see where he'd been on his class, and then he could come with us on some adventures. 

Flying into Carlisle isn't a thing. The closest airports are Manchester, Glascow and Edinburgh. After checking out all three, I found us flights on Aer Lingus, which had just started flying direct out of MSP. Adam was on one of the first flights they had out of MSP - it was almost empty! Not so much with ours. We were excited to fly a new airline. You can see our green plane amid all the Delta!

All Aer Lingus flights from the U.S. go direct to Dublin first. We'd never been to Ireland at all - so we planned to spend the day in Dublin. Overnight to Dublin, all day in Dublin, then a commuter hop over to Glascow. Aer Lingus certainly fed us well!

But it was a long flight plus a 6 hour time change, so we were pretty tired when we emerged from the airport in Dublin and got a bus into the center of town. We had a lot
of our stuff with us, since losing any checked luggage was going to be a problem. 

We were totally exhausted. This seemed like a good idea at the time - but in retrospect - we were too tired to appreciate the city. But finally it was time to head back to the airport for our puddle jumper flight over to Glascow. I'd been excited to get seats in the front of the plane - not realizing that we boarded at the back!

This is us the very same day, walking from the Glascow airport to our airbnb, now with every bit of our stuff. It was nice to get moving, and it was only about a mile, but we were exhausted. 

Our airbnb was up three flights of stairs, but finally we could collapse and sleep!