Scotland the Grey

We are nearing the end of our trip :(
We've spent the last few days in Scotland, with our friends Paul and Veronica Miller, and we head back to NZ tomorrow (via 31 hours or so of flying).

So this will be the last entry about our travels (unless the plane ride is particularly interesting). We may keep the story going once we get to Melbourne (next week), but we'll see about that later.

Anyway, Scotland has been interesting. The most striking thing about it is the weather. Though I guess we should count ourselves lucky that only 2/4 days were really rainy :) We are staying in the town of Stirling, about a 45min train-ride from Edinburgh.

Stirling's main attractions are Stirling Castle and the William Wallace monument:

The castle one evening, from P&V's living room window. The fireworks were to mark the start of the WRC rally of Scotland.

In Stirling castle: in the throne room in the palace.

Stu and Wallace's sword at the Wallace monument.

It's so windy I can't see! At the top of the Wallace monument.

We did a day trip to Edinburgh, where we went to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and Edinburgh castle:

Mita and Paul, listening to our audio guides, at Holyroodhouse. We did the tour of the palace, through the first-floor rooms used by the royal family for public functions and audiences. (and where Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall held their wedding celebrations)

Stu and Mita at Holyrood Abbey.

At Edinburgh castle.

Stu also discovered, when we wandered into a tartan-weaving factory store on the Royal Mile, that his Scottish ancestors (the Wilson clan) were from the Stirling region.

Stirling and Edinburgh both have a lot of unicorns around and about. So, given the title of the blog (which, by the way, is a movie reference, for those of you who were wondering... I'll leave it to you to find out which movie!), I've included a few unicorn photos:

Today, we headed out to some of the nearby lochs in the region. We had a traditional lunch of fish and chips (a fish supper) by the side of one of the lochs (and were pretty quickly surrounded by ducks and seagulls), and did a boat ride on an old steam-ship on Loch Katerine:

Stu and Paul on the boat.

A manor on Loch Katrine.

Another pretty Loch (Loch Drunkie).

And that brings us to the end of our trip! As I said, we're off tomorrow (the 10th) and we arrive in NZ on the 12th. I get about 2hrs of my birthday (the 11th) in Singapore airport, so may do some frantic birthday shopping while in transit!

Okeley dokeley, see you soon Shaky Isles!

PS. We watched the rugby this morning - yay for NZ!

mmm... creme brulee...

We pick up our travel-story from Switzerland...

From Switzerland we headed towards Paris, stopping for the night mid-way in the small town of Beaune. Beaune is apparently known for its wine, but we didn't have time for tasting, as we were en-route to gay Paris! We did spend our last night in our trusty car, Pierre, at a local Beaune camp-ground.

sleeping in the car.

Pierre was returned (with no damage! even though the GPS took us through central Paris- past the Louvre and Opera house etc.) to Peugeot the morning after we arrived in Paris. He served us well, and will be missed.

Stu and Pierre.

The Peugeot offices were in the business district of Paris, so Stu got a photo next to the giant-square building (La Defence, which Stu thinks is rather ironic for France):

We stayed in a hotel in Paris near the red-light district - which seems to be one of the safer areas in Paris - just down the road from the Moulin Rouge:

With only a couple of days, we tried to fit in more of the main Parisian sites:

Stu under the Arch de Triumph

Hanging out on the Seine, with Eiffel in the background.

Happy snap at the top of the Eiffel tower.

It's a long way down. You can see the queue of people waiting for the lift up. We waited in the much shorter line, to walk part way up (500 steps or so), and then catch the lift.

Auckland is 18,542km from the Eiffel Tower.

We visited the catacombs in the old quarry tunnels under Paris. I wore sandals. Bad choice.

Notre Dame.

We spent a quick morning before we left Paris at the Louvre.

Stu under the main glass pyramid.

 Me and Mona. (I had an eye-infection. None of the other shots looked any better, and Stu said I had to put a version of this photo in...)

We paid a quick visit to the Mona Lisa, but spent most of our time in the ancient Egyptian sections of the Louvre.

Stu and a 3000 yr old Horus.

 In the mummified animal section, we found this little guy. Ok, so it's creepy there's a dead pet inside, but he's so cute!

3 days is definitely not enough to see even all the major highlights of Paris. We'll have to return to do it properly! There's always plenty more to see and do! As long as you can face the crowds, and the not-always-so-friendly Parisians! But I can already hear the creme brulee calling for me to return... (though I may just point at it on the menu next time, as it got a bit tiring to have the waiters laugh at my pronunciation of it - at least I was trying!)

We flew out Wednesday afternoon for Scotland, where we were greeted by Paul and Veronica, and 7 degrees and rain! So we have a few days here, before we start our homeward journey.

Mita and Stu :)

Switzerland - don't touch, you can't afford it!

The  lonely plant guide described Lucern as a cobalt lake ringed by mountains of myth, add a medieval old town and sprinkle with covered bridges, sunny plazas, candy coloured houses and waterfront promendes, and for the most part I'd have to agree.  The only catch is, to experience it all, you need to be a multi-millionaire!

The town isn't very big (none of the swiss cities seem to be) and we got to know our way around the city quite well by the end of our visit.  There are several covered bridges with have artwork in the roofs, one of the bridges caught fire (judging by the amount of "no smoking on the bridge" signs I'm guessing this may of had something to do with it) and a lot of these were lost.  The are quite creepy, one of the bridges having the dance of death panels, but different from anything else we have seen in Europe.

While in Switerland we took a day trip to the capital Bern, only an hour or so away from Lucern by car.  We stopped at the information centre to see the Bears of Bern, there were 4 Bears kept in the city, the oldest being a 28 year old bear called Pedro. They have a large enclosure and seemed quite happy until it was dinner time and started punching the doors to be let in!  We also stopped to see the Zytglogge clock tower which rings 4 minutes fast (no idea why!) and visited the Einstein museum, where he lived while he worked in the patent office.  Bern also has lots of fountains and statues, the most interesting one is of an ogre snacking on children.  He had several on his belt for later!!

Back in Lucern we visited the transport museum, which for a city of 60,000 is most impressive.  We went on a disneyland style ride of the story of the Gotthard tunnel, the longest in Europe at the time.  We saw more trains than you could poke a stick at, a rack of cars where you could choose one and it brought it down and in the air and space section we I flew a helicopter (in a simulator) and also a F18 (again in a simulator).  This was quite exciting as we were upside down several times as we completed barrel rolls.  Mita managed to lose the horizon after completing hers so we had some unorthodox combat manuevres going on till she righted the plane!  It was so good we ended up spending most of the day there!

We also visited the most famous site, that of Pilatus Mountain.  We went up two cable cars just to get there (stopping to go on the longest summer toboggan run in Switzerland!).  Once at the top you can see half of Switzerland! Legends told of great dragons that lived in the caves of the mountain and stole pretty maidens and guarded great treasure.  It was also to have been believed that Pompus Pilot's spirit lived in the mountain lake, and it was forbidden to go near the lake for any reason.  Then one day a priest and a handful of brave villagers went up to the lake, challenged the spirit by throwing rocks in the river, and when nothing happened declared the lake cleansed of evil! We then took the steepest railway cog train in the world, with a gradient of 48 degrees down the mountain.

On the last day we went with Malavika (Mita's sister who had been putting us up while we were there and feeding us raclette much to Mita's excitment and Stu's dismay) to a informal fundraising for her quartet.  We stayed and listened until it was over and time to leave to Beaune, before our last stop on the continent, Paris!

Photos, added 3 Oct '11:

Mita and Lucerne (water tower and Chapel bridge)

Stu on Chapel Bridge

Mita and the Dying Lion of Lucerne (commemorates the Swiss guards killed in the French revolution). Mark Twain said it was 'the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.".

At the transport museum! We scored 6/10 in the theory driving test. They have strange rules in Europe.

Playing a game show in the car section of the transport museum. No one else seemed to be pressing their buttons though... Mita doesn't speak any German, or know anything about cars. Luckily no one asked her to answer any questions. We think.

Stu watching the South Africa vs. Samoa game in an Irish pub in Lucerne.

Up at Mt Pilatus:

Above the longest summer toboggan in Switzerland.

Can you see the cogwheel train?

Identifying mountains from the top of Mt Pilatus.

Mita and sister, Malavika, at the top of Pilatus.

Czech Mate! (haha, get it??)

Dobry den!
(hello in Czech)

We really enjoyed Prague. It was everything we expected, if a little more expensive than the guide books indicated - possibly a result of the large number of tourists that crowd the city. The old buildings in the town, the castle on the hill, tons of history and local legends. This is definitely a place we left feeling like we had barely scratched the surface, and that there was so much more to discover than the main tourist attractions we had time to see!

Here are a few photos of the highlights of our visit:

The astronomical clock on the clock tower of the old town hall. Every hour, little figures of the twelve apostles appear, rotating around at the top, while the skeletal and other figures next to the lower clock face ding bells.

At the top of the clock tower, after the clock has chimed every hour, this guy plays a short tune on his trumpet and waves from each of the four sides of the tower.

On the Charles bridge with Prague Castle up on the hill. The castle complex has lots of things to visit, including the royal palace, the cathedral with St Wenceslas's remains/chapel (of "Good King Wenceslas" fame - even though he was never king), prison tower and torture chamber, and gardens.

At the Old-New Synagogue. This is one of the oldest  synagogues in Europe. Jews have prayed here for over 700 years, only interupted during the Nazi occupation between 1941-1945. Stu had to wear a Jewish kippa on his head (you can just see it in blue) to enter the synagogue.

We had dinner one night in what was "the oldest cellar restaurant in Europe". All the walls were covered with beer mugs or dead animals (mostly dead animals - heads, rugs, or fully stuffed bears) - was a little creepy...

From Prague we headed to Neuschwantstein castle in Bavaria. The night before our visit, we stayed in a little village about half an hour away. The village of Jungholz is actually in a little chunk of Austria completely surrounded by Germany, and only touches the rest of Austria at the very peak of Sorgschrofen mountain (at 1638m). This out-of-the-way village was really a "typical" Austrian village - mountains all around, rolling green pastures, cows and sheep with bells around their necks that you can hear echoing around the mountains and valleys, quaint little farmhouses clustered around little path-ways. It's quite popular with Germans and Austrians for hiking in the summer, but more so in the winter when the small ski-field is open.

 Let's try uploading my first video to the blog, hopefully it works... and you might even be able to hear the clanging of the cow-bells! Hmmm... video didn't work, here's a photo instead...

View of Jungholz. We actually stayed in a cluster of houses (making up the even smaller village of Langenschwand) about 10min up the hill from the main village.

Frolicking on the hills!

A pretty view. The dots on the nearest hills are cows.

Next, on to Neuschwanstein castle. There's a lot of hype about the castle, and it didn't disappoint, though you can only see a few of the interior rooms. We also visited Schloss Hohenschwangau (where Ludwig II, who built Neuschwanstein, lived as a child during the summer months). You can't take photos inside either castle, but luckily they're both very photogenic on the outside :)

View of Neuschwanstein from Hohenschwangau.

Stu at Hohenschwangau.

View of Hohenschwangau from near Neuschwanstein.

Us and Neuschwanstein.

We're now in Luzern, staying with my sister at her flat for a few days. Another blog on our stay here in a few days...

Tschuss!