The Highlands

Take the train from Glasgow to Fort William. It has the reputation of being the most beautiful train ride in Europe. And though I have been on very few train rides in Europe, I cannot imagine my jaw dropping any lower than the moment when I looked up from my computer to see the sun setting over the beginnings of the Scottish highlands.

Pictures are insufficient. You must go. It will be a wonderful day, and as my thesis director insists every time train travel gets a mention, "It's wonderful. You can have lunch on board."

I went to the Highlands to hang out and write, and to climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK. It is short enough that I ran up most of it....past the tree line...

Up through pastures and heather....

...until I reached the North Face of Nevis....

...where I joined forces with a very gentlemanly Polish medical student. We spent the day attempting to climb the North Face, instead of going up the easy-peasy tourist route. 

This was about as high as we got. Then the fog rolled in. We spent some time clinging to some grassy cliffs, before I suggested that we make our way down to sanity. So we never made it all the way up, though we were only twenty feet from the ridge. Both our mothers heaved an unwitting sigh of relief, as we slid our way slowly down. Out of the fog, it was fun to ramble and trade stories.

Down in Fort William (the hub town for Nevis), the weather was downright sunny, and I had a gorgeous run back to Ban Navie (a tiny little enclave where I stayed). A little trail meanders through pastures to join the two towns.

As if the scenery weren't enough, there is also a ruined castle along the route (Inverlochy). 

And a canal to explore....

....with a fancy Victorian loch system (Neptune's staircase) to gawk at.

And my lovely mountain to salute. Next time, Ben Nevis, I will climb you. 

I have to admit that the next day, I was too tired for much running or walking. So I took the Jacobite Express, a restored steam train, from Fort William to Mallaig.

The train is now famous as the Hogwarts Express....



...but there was lots to see besides the aqueducts. For example:

(Yes, that's Scotland.)

In Mallaig, I escaped the bevies of tourists in search of fish and chips, and found a lovely little loop in the hills above town.

Scotland, I'm in love.

Glasgow in Pictures

Glasgow was gorgeous. Some fellow graduate students piled into a West End apartment, where we had a conference. We didn't expect much. Isn't Glasgow an industrialist waste land?

Not really. There were lovely parks...

....a tremendous university campus, medieval, and rebuilt in the Victorian period.

And unbelievable museums. In this one (the Kelvingrove), there is an organ concert every day at 1 pm. It may begin seriously, but it winds up playing soundtracks for Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc.

The city was full of beautiful surprises....

 ...and the tiny ones were best of all.

Tobermory

To get to Tobermory, as Colin Forth proclaims in The Railway Man, one must go to Oban. Oban is a small sea town and the gateway to the Scottish Isles. The journey has the added bonus of a glorious train ride passing Loch Lomond and Loch Awe. Our conference schedule necessitated an overnight in Oban, but necessity began to look like luck. The seafood in Oban is mindblowing. And the town isn't bad either.

At the top of the hill above town, there is a monument, built in the 19th century by a local to his family to generate employment. He died before it was finished, so it remains an empty shell that frames the view.

It's a nice run up. Up close, it offers lovely views down into the town, and out, into the sea.

Just beyond Oban, there is Fingal's Rock, a huge upright boulder which (legend has it) Fingal used to chain up his dog....and a castle, and a beach, full of washed-up jellyfish.  

If I hadn't wanted to go islanding, I certainly would've changed my mind running north from Oban. The views were unbelievable.

From Oban, it was on to Tobermory, a tiny sea town on the Isle of Mull, where we engaged more fully in our movie nostalgia, in revisiting scenes from I Know Where I'm Going. The smoked fish was fantastic, the B&B was charming....

And the town was a delight. If you go, please get deep fried scallops from the food truck on the pier. Send them all to Abu Dhabi.

Trails run north and south from town, out to a lighthouse on the one side...

...where you'll find a small, and lovely bench and monument to a man who loved the view.

In the opposite direction, trails stretch to Aros Park.

We will have to come back. The island is full of wild-life year round, with otter and whale sightings, sharks, and (while we were there, but no, we didn't see any) puffins.

It is also full of castles. Below, a Victorian one ("not a proper castle," one man told me definitively, explaining "they weren't waging any battles from it, now were they?").

I agreed, much preferring this nearby establishment for battle purposes. It's the seat of  the Maclean clan, and has bits and pieces knocking about from the 13th century, and a majestic, wind-swept lawn looking out over the water.  

Battle purposes aside, I'd rather have this tiny cottage....

...with its field of happy sheep.