(note: Caledonia was the Roman name given to the land now known as Scotland)
Scotland was everything I imagined it to be. That is, it fit the portrait of a beautiful, yet wild, land and tenacious, freedom-loving people that the active imagination of my childhood, early exposure to Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Robert Burns' poetry, and my inherited fondness for plaid (really, as I was chastised by many a Scottish museum, tartan) had created. Much to my satisfaction, there is a historical basis for my perception of the Scottish people and quite a lot of visible proof regarding the beauty of the country.
I thought St. Andrews, in the region of Fife, right on the eastern coast of Scotland, was the most beautiful part of Scotland we saw in a whirlwind week-long tour of the country. Undoubtedly, I'm biased by my fondness for bodies of water: the coastline of St. Andrews was absolutely stunning. One could look out, from the ruins of a tenth century cathedral over beaches, fishing coves, and ocean.
That said, we certainly enjoyed Edinburgh and would have loved to be able to stay for this weekend's Scottish Homecoming and highland games. I saw and did far too much in a week to be able to detail all of it for you, but here are some highlights:
A pack of eight of us (DJ, Jonathan, Thomas, Chelsie, Jennifer, Katie, Sarah, and I) arrived in Edinburgh midway through the week. Not unexpectedly, it was raining a bit. We spent part of the afternoon in the Scottish National Gallery until it cleared up a bit, then walked the city, from the fantastic Edinburgh Castle overlooking the entire city, to Jonathan, Chelsie, and my climb up the 287 stairs to the top of the Sir Walter Scott monument. We've learned to capitalize on the free offerings of cities in the UK, and there was certainly a lot to see in Edinburgh! Given my love of Ivanhoe and the fantastic view from the top, however, the 3 pounds we paid for access to the Scott Monument was generally agreed to a fantastic investment.
Edinburgh has the best to offer of both a historic and modern city. After rambling over the city's monuments and cultural offerings all day, we treated ourselves to an amazing dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant and set off in pursuit of authentic Scottish nightlife and whisky (mostly for DJ, as none of the rest of us like it). Some friendly Scotsmen at our hostel in Inverness had recommended a place called Wetherspoons, which after an hour or so of walking and asking strangers for directions, we were inclined to believe was simply the end to a wild goose chase on which the locals enjoyed sending tourists. When we finally found it, Wetherspoons proved to be a singularly uninteresting bar. DJ did get his whisky, however, which he declared to be excellent, and we spiced up the evening with Jonathan's "Cliff Notes" reading of David Copperfield (the second part of which was glued to other second hand books of the walls to serve as decor). In other words, he provided us with a dramatic reading of the first and last sentences of three or four chapters until we resorted to playing 20 Questions and Never Have I Ever and determined in the end that Wetherspoons hadn't been a waste of an evening after all.
Inverness was our chosen starting-off spot for visiting the Scottish
Highlands, including Loch Ness and Cawdor Castle (Macbeth in Shakespeare, if you remember, was the Thane of Cawdor Castle). (I'm going about this a bit backwards, by the way, as we went to Inverness before Edinburgh. But while Inverness was not quite the cultural experience of Scotland's capital, it is definitely worth a mention.) Our stay in Inverness began when we arrived at the Eastgate Backpackers' Hostel, where we had eight beds reserved in a sixteen bed dormitory. (In all fairness, before I tell this story, I ought to mention that my experiences with hostels in Exeter, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews have been fantastic; only Eastgate Backpackers' was another bird altogether.) The owner had spent the weekend away, with the result that one person had taken our first reservation, another altered it when we increased the number of people in our group, and someone entirely different checked us in.
A good bit of number juggling happened on paper, a good bit of sheet juggling happened on random beds, and a rising doubt that any of the linens had been washed since two or three occupants ago was checked by the sheer relief of the owner's acknowledgment that the hostel could, after all, put us up for the night if the girls slept in double beds. We acquiesced happily, until we returned at bedtime and discovered that the girls' double beds were surrounded above, in front, and to the side, by a large pack of Scottish guys watching a terrible film on a computer approximately twelve inches away from my pillow. In the end, they agreed to turn off the film, we went to sleep, and they proved to be nice enough charity workers who gave us the recommendation to go to Wetherspoon's in Edinburgh. Hmmm... (see above story).
Inverness did prove to have other attractions. Loch Ness was gorgeous- and had interesting tourist shops offering stuffed "Nessie" (aka the Loch Ness monster) animals, Nessie bumper stickers, and Loch Ness' local brew, Nessie's Monster Mash (!). We found an excellent pub with excellent live Scottish music and an excellent name: Hootananny's (!). Incidentally, Hootenanny's also offered good Thai food (!), though we did not sample it, but the proof of the good music and atmosphere was in the fact that we were entertained happily for an hour or so while sitting on the stairs until we could get a table (hence, the picture to the left).
From Inverness, we also explored Cawdor Castle, still inhabited by members of the Cawdor/Campbell family. Cawdor Castle- where the Macbeth's supposed murder of King Duncan took place-proved to be a pastiche of eras, decor, and furniture. The original 14th century castle was extensively expanded in the 17th. However, as members of the Cawdor/Cambell family still live there today, there was a some '70s decor and yesterday's National Geographic thrown-in. I thoroughly approved, as I like my history lived in. Had the castle been museum-ized according to one particular period, the visible remainders of the other historical periods of the castle would have faded away and, worse, the un-lived in castle would have lost the vibrancy of a place that continues to be used according to its original purpose. There was plenty of history to be had, however, including a secret dungeon for "unwanted visitors and the ungodly" (so said the placard for tourists) that had been forgotten for a hundred years or so and rediscovered in the 20th century.
But the best part of Scotland was the Scots. The white-mustached Scottish conductor of our train to Inverness, even while in London, could have won me to the love of his countrymen by his accent alone (he was also overwhelmingly friendly). So too could the nine-year old boy in Edinburgh who proudly wore his kilt with his Converse Allstars and the bagpipers, all living under the shadow of Walter Scott and the freedom-loving character proclaimed from the Declaration of Abroath in 1320 to "Braveheart." From tartan plaid to Scottish history, I couldn't have been gladder to have some strain of Scottishness in my heritage.
(note: The Declaration of Abroath states that "For so long as one hundred men remain alive, we shall never under any conditions submit to the domination of the English. It is not for glory or riches or honours that we fight, but only for liberty, which no good man will consent to lose but with his life.")
Perhaps it's true, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, that "the mark of the Scots of all classes [is] that he stands in an attitude towards the past unthinkable to Englishmen, and remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation." Or perhaps it's only true of those of us who are history majors.
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