Alba

Over the past two or so years, our travel habits have changed a lot. I think that's to be expected in the middle of a global pandemic. Countries have been replaced by states. Short distance air travel has been replaced by hopping in the car and driving. Cities and museums have been replaced with National Parks and the great outdoors. And continents? Is there such a thing as another continent? We've only ventured outside North America once since January of 2020.

And yes, we are still very much in the middle of a global pandemic. There may be effective safeguards against hospitalization and death that are available to some of us, but that COVID stuff is still out there.

We have been very fortunate with our trips in the last couple of years. We have had months at a time where we didn't go anywhere, but ultimately we have found ways to travel, and travel safely. I don't think that we have reduced the number of trips we've taken. In fact, we may have actually increased the quantity of our getaways. It's shocking to write that, but I think it's true. 

And therein lies the biggest change in our travel habits during the pandemic. We've touched a lot of places for a little bit of time each, but we haven't really spent a long time anywhere being in a place. It was time to buck that trend.

Scottish music. The Ben Nevis pub, Glasgow.

Now, one could argue that touching a lot of places lightly has been a general theme of my travel over the past nine years. I wouldn't debate that. We covered Italy in nine days in 2015 by staying in three cities for three nights each; we even spent one of our two and half days in Florence by taking a day trip out of town. We did something similar the previous year by insisting on squeezing three nights in Marrakech into a trip to Spain that lasted less than a week and a half total. We've also only spent two weeks away twice over that same span: in 2018 in Kenya and Tanzania and in 2019 in New Zealand.

I've loved those quick trips where we've packed a lot in. I like collecting countries and cities, after all. But I've also treasured a deep dive trip every once in a while. Paris in 2016. Peru in 2019. Our two weeks away in each of Kenya / Tanzania and New Zealand. Even during the pandemic once; the last time we settled and stayed anywhere in the last three years long enough to focus for some time was in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons National Parks in October of 2020. Focusing on one place for a while is different than touching somewhere lightly before moving on. It was not only time to buck the short trips trend, it was time for a deep dive.

Our destination: Scotland. The Picts and Gaels called the place Alba after they joined their kingdoms together in 889. Time to explore Alba for a while, and in some good depth.

Dunnottar Castle, south of Aberdeen. One way in and out and the sea on all sides.

Scotland is about the size of South Carolina. When I say "about" the size of South Carolina, I really mean just a bit smaller; like just a bit less than 95% of the size of South Carolina. We planned to spend 14 nights in Scotland. I know there is no way I could spend 14 nights in South Carolina on a single trip (or maybe ever; sorry SC!). If you had asked me a few years ago about spending two weeks in Scotland, I might have been shocked to have been able to do that. Having said that, I feel we barely scratched the surface of Scotland this year. There is so much there to see. 

This was not my first trip to Scotland as an adult. I'd been in 1997 to Glasgow and in 2007 to Edinburgh, Inverness and Glasgow. But when I'd been to those cities, I'd pretty much stayed there. My vision didn't really expand beyond the city limits and I missed so much. I also didn't give much thought to anything not on mainland Scotland, and that was for sure something we wanted to remedy on this trip. We spent about half of our 14 days in the Hebrides and that part of the trip was so much different than being on the mainland. 

We saw these two weeks as a way to get to know Scotland a little more intimately than I had before. And honestly, I think we nailed it in our two weeks in country. Not trying to be cocky, but I really think we did. We hit history. We ate the food. We listened to music. We dug into Scotland's influence on the world. We spent a lot of time on all sorts of boats. We even busted a myth or two, not the least of which is this clan-based tartan thing, which is not based in history but instead was made up and assigned by the Victorians 100 years or so after the British government outlawed tartan completely to completely repress the Highlanders.

The Firth of Forth Bridge. 1882-1890. Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Fowler.

Scotland's history is wild. It's full of conflict and resistance and warfare and passion. There are intact and ruined castles all over the country which stand as a testament to that part of the country's past. And when I say all over the country, I really do mean that. We had seven castles on our agenda, although we only made it to two. 

It's also full of industry and exploration and scientific advancement in a way few other countries its size can boast. The Firth of Forth bridge, David Livingstone, James Watt, Albion Motors, the Falkirk Wheel, shipbuilding on the Clyde, Robert Stevenson. We didn't plan to necessarily touch all of this, but somehow we did. And more.

All that history is set in a place which is wild and rugged and remote and full of life and all of it worth exploring, even if you have to drive down countless one-lane (but two-way) roads to get there. We concentrated on finding some of that life that's out there, particularly focusing on the millions of seabirds that nest on Scotland's coasts in a time of the year where they are actually doing that rather than heading out to sea alone as they do for the rest of the year.

I also think we saw more sheep than we have ever seen in two weeks in our entire lives while driving around Scotland. And I don't mean just like regular white sheep with the occasional odd black sheep mixed in for good measure. I mean white sheep and black faced sheep and sheep with horns that curled around two and three times and sheep that had two sets of horns growing from their heads. I mean crazy sheep stuff. If there was any doubt that we'd been able to achieve a deep dive into Scotland in our two weeks there, the variety of sheep we saw had to erase any of those doubts.

I also managed to get one other thing out of Scotland: COVID-19. Yep, after eluding infection while traveling carefully all over the United States (and one week in Portugal) in the past two plus years, it finally got me in a place where very few people live and that supposedly had a low rate of infection. It hit me on this trip when we were mostly complete with our time in Scotland, so it didn't really affect our time in that country. I guess now I can say I've survived COVID for real, two weeks after I boasted in my annual birthday blog post about managing to avoid getting the virus. Irony.

Blog posts to follow.

The cover photo of this post is Loch Ness. Yes, we went looking for Nessie. No we didn't find her. I'm amazed people still report sightings of the monster (or whatever it is or is not) even today. As of our visit in late June, there had been four reporting sightings in 2022. Crazy stuff. Maybe there is something to it after all.

What a welcome to Scotland. Tunnock's sweets, courtesy of the voco Grand Central in Glasgow. Much appreciated!!