Edinburgh - Nairn - Glasgow : 2013-07

Took a great trip to Scotland for a week in July 2013. The route included Edinburgh, white water rafting near Nairn, Loch Ness and Glasgow.

First, we flew into Edinburgh from Aéroport de Beauvais-Tillé. Beauvais is nice and small (easy to get through) but it is almost an hour away via bus. The bus leaves from Porte Maillot in Paris and is 16€. If you have the time, you can often get cheaper flights from Beauvais. We took a taxi from the Edinburgh airport to the George Hotel (7.5 miles). Probably cheaper ways to get there, but it was a time / comfort issue. The George Hotel was very nice and they have a pancake machine for breakfast. I only mention the pancake machine since it seemed to be a bid deal.

We arrived later in the day, so we had supper at the Wildfire on Rose Street. It was good food and service.

Above, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, is the first picture I took - proof I was there and I liked the building. On the right is he front of the Wildfire and just across the street the windows had these impressive metal covers. If you walk down the street, you can read a fishing tale including what was or wasn't caught each day.

Day 2, we rented bikes at Cycle Scotland. The shop was manned by three Italians, probably still in college, their English was better than my French, and they were very nice.

We rode up to the Edinburgh Castle but there was a pretty big line so we just stayed on the outside. I think we would have paid to get in if it wasn't cloudy - the clouds kind of blocked the view. Here are some pics from the front entrance.

Thanks to Trip Advisor, we found out the National Museum of Scotland was free (all of their national museums are free)! This was a cool museum. It was pretty big and had a vast variety of things to look at. There was too much to photograph but I was impressed with the Grand Gallery (below, right) and the statue of James Watt (left) by Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey. Good old, James Watt.

Above (l), I took a close up of this water fountain (also in the Grand Gallery picture toward the back) because it reminded me of the Wallace Fountains in Paris. Above, right is the front of the museum. Yep, the sidewalk is wet - got caught in the rain on the bike.
The next stop was a ride up on Calton Hill. There's a couple monuments there, including the National Monument of Scotland, and the view was great. Great panoramic of the National Monument...

Luckily the days are long in July because we had to return the bikes, get back to the airport, rent a car and start the drive up north. The last stop for the day was the Newton Hotel just outside Nairn. It was a cool place (castle like), had pretty good food and, of course, scotch.

Above is a corner of the hotel and a bottle of Lamb's Navy Rum. I had to take a picture because I have a friend who goes by Lamb and he actually works for the Department of the Navy. Too classic. Below is a panoramic I took of the Newton Hotel.

Day 3. We drove about 13 miles to do some white water rafting with Ace Adventures on the River Findhorn. The crew at Ace Adventures was fantastic and the scenery along the river was incredible. The water was cold, amazingly clear, and it looked like scotch! Our guide told us it was of high quality (potable) and is brown naturally because of all the peat moss growing on the boulders. We also jumped off some rocks which was really awesome. It's always higher on a cliff than when you're looking up at it.
After rafting, we drove down south to Glasgow. However, we took the scenic route because we couldn't pass up Loch Ness (it was too close). There is a Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition about a third of the way down the loch (from the north) so we though we'd take a visit. They do a pretty cool job of walking you through different rooms which correlate to different aspects of the loch; its characteristics, the myth of the monster, studies of the loch, etc. It was a good little museum. And the best part - which I couldn't believe - was I actually saw Nessy! Twice!

Wait, the one on the right is actually in the museum.  The left pic is the real one.

After Loch Ness, we continued south and luckily the road took us through Glencoe right along the Three Sisters. I don't know what others imagine when they think of Scotland, but this is exactly what I imagined. Simply amazing. We got there a little late in the day so my pictures weren't very good, so here's one from MU Ohio. If you get a chance search images of the Three Sisters.

After a couple more hours, we arrived at the Glasgow airport and dropped off the car. Then it was a short bus ride to downtown Glasgow. Luckily, the bus driver let us out at the corner of our hotel - the CitizenM. That was very nice of him since it was late and dark which always makes it harder to find places. The Citizen M is a pretty cool concept - the furniture is of the modern art genre and you check in and out with kiosks. They even print your room keys.

Day 4. Another nice feature of the hotel (by chance) was a place to rent bikes was just a half mile away. Dales Cycles is mainly for retail, but they now rent bikes. Another helpful tip by Trip Advisor. You can tell they're "new" at it because they do things like give you brand new locks. I.e., they don't have or know where the rental locks are. But they were very nice and the bikes were great.
We cycled through Kelvingrove Park, stopped by University of Glasgow, and reentered the park to visit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum or (wiki).
The U of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and looks very Scottish / English. Which, by the way, is not as common in Glasgow. It has a much more modern feel to it than does Edinburgh, for example.

The entrance to the University (l) and the tower inside the campus.

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum was awesome! Similar to Edinburgh's National Museum of Scotland, it had a magnificent grand hall and a massive collection. Two examples of the grand hall are below and a shot of the entrance which I thought was the main entrance, but now I think it's the back entrance. It worked out better since the bike racks were back there. 

Again, there were so many things, I actually only took a few photos. I liked The Brownie of Blednoch by E.A. Hornel. 

I also liked Ribera's Saint Peter Repentant. Jusepe de Ribera painted several saints and more than one version of St Peter so it was cool to see this one. Three, including Glasgow's, are shown below.

 Left: St Peter, 1627-29, Oil on canvas, 75 x 63 cm, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Center: Penitent Saint Peter, 1628/32, Oil on canvas, 126.5 x 97 cm, Art Institute Chicago

Right: Saint Peter Repentant, 1628, Oil on canvas, bought by Glasgow Museums in 1903

I also learned an interesting thing about Scotland's artists - a group of artists called the Glasgow Boys. You can read more at an Edinburgh site or at Wiki. The Wiki site lists the artists. Here's what Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum had to say about them...

“The Glasgow Boys were the most significant group of artists in Britain at the end of the 19th century. In the 1890s their work was widely admired in Europe and America, where they were regularly invited to exhibit.  They put Glasgow on the cultural map and encouraged following generations of Scottish artist t have confidence in their own abilities and to be open to new developments in art.

The Boys, as they preferred to be called, were a loose-knit group of about 20 artists, linked by friendships and, in most cases, a connection with Glasgow, where they trained, lived or shared studios. 

They developed a distinctive style and were drawn to similar subjects, beginning with rural people painted out of doors in a matter-of-fact way. Later, the more fashionable life of the city attracted them. Finally, colour, texture and pattern came to dominate their work.”

Not sure what I particularly liked about this piece of art, but there was something. Maybe it was the retro look. Maybe that the Atlas Shrugged movies are out. Or maybe it's because this look will always be somewhat timeless. But that's the cool thing with art - some pieces grab you, some don't.

Eastre, Hymn to the Sun, cira 1924, JD Fergusson, Brass

"[JD] Fergusson composed his head of Eastre – the Saxon goddess of Spring – almost entirely from round shapes. This, and the polished brass, were intended to represent the glow of the sun after the gloom of winter."

There was also a Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn*), A Man in Armour, but the question remains, "who is the man in armor"? It's always good to have some mysteries in art.

 A Man in Armor, 1655, Rembrandt, Oil on canvas, 137.5 x 104.5 cm

* It's always good to see a work of the masters and I also enjoy learning the full names of artists. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, for example. With the full name, it's easy to remember he's Dutch and you can see why it's easier to call him Rembrandt. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci and Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni are two more awesome examples. I'll stick with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

There was a Dali, Christ of St John of the Cross, (Glasgow's site) and I'm a Dali fan. I'm not, however, a fan of a Dali quote on the wall next to the painting which read "When I paint, the seas roar. The others splash about in the bath". It's one thing to be confident, it's another to be a braggart. It's a little to Picasso-ish for my taste. Nonetheless, the painting is a classic and was great to see.

1951, Oil on canvas, 205 cm × 116 cm, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

These two pics are random...

Left, a room full of armor in the Kelvingrove Museum and right, the Black Sparrow bar logo taken outside the bar. The Black Sparrow was 456 of 1140 restaurants on Trip Advisor. I can see why it's not much higher. I thought the service was pretty crappy. There were about 5 people in there and when we asked to sit and have a beer, the first response was "some of the tables are reserved". First of all, that's not what we asked. Secondly, reserved for what? For a few hours later? There are too many bars / restaurants in Glasgow to put up with it.

After the Kelvingrove Museum, we rode down to the river because I thought it'd be cool to see the Glasgow Science Centre, the IMAX Cinema, and the Clyde Auditorium. We didn't go in any of them as it was late in the day, but they're cool buildings. You can see from these buildings how Glasgow has a much different feel than Edinburgh or other Scottish towns.
Again, we got caught in the rain, and after it let up we rode back towards the hotel with a short stop at the Black Sparrow (mentioned above). We had to turn the bikes in before they closed but I think it was as late as 1900 which is nice. Afterwards we had fish and chips, but I can't remember where.

Day 5. We had enough time to see the Gallery of Modern Art in the morning - like Edinburgh, it was free! It was modern art which, like any art, is always personal taste and you like it or you don't. I did come across some great prints from Ian Hamilton Finlay. I didn't know his work but some were great - although they're pretty difficult to find online. Here are a couple examples...

I think the print on the left is classic. The one on the right is a good example of his use of clean lines and relatively simple graphics.

The statue in front of the GoMA

The museum isn't too large which was great since we had to get moving to the airport. We were able to see the Gallery of Modern Art. That was actually a pretty easy part of the trip. Train station was just a few blocks from the hotel and a train goes directly to the airport. Flew back to Beauvais, bused to Paris, and Velib'ed home. It was a great trip!