July 30 – There is only one item on our agenda today. We walked a mile and a half across town to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which we have been told is the very best thing to see in Glasgow.
Kelvingrove
The gallery is near the River Kelvin, hence the name, although we did not see the river today. The museum has some natural history, with dinosaur bones, ancient Scottish animals, and an ancient Egypt room.
Ancient Irish elk
We moved on to the art gallery. The main hall contained a mobile of faces in various expressions, which gave me my focus for the day: faces.
A Man in Armour – Rembrandt Robert Louis Stevenson Portrait of the Art Dealer Alexander Reid – Van Gogh Woman in Oriental Dress – MatissePortrait of Madame Fray – RenoirThe Young Girls – Mary Cassatt
There were many more faces, as you can imagine, and many more things to see if you were not looking for faces.
At 1pm, everyone gathered round to hear the famous Kelvingrove organ concert, built in 1901 and containing 2889 pipes. Not only could we watch the organist as he played, but there were close up jumbo cams on his hands and on his feet! The concert consisted of the entire soundtrack from Grease. I miss Pat.
We can’t leave Glasgow without sharing some wall art:
July 28 – Our West Highland Way hike starts in three days, in a little town just north of Glasgow, so this morning we made our way to the ScotRail station in Haymarket, and caught the train for the forty five minute ride west to Glasgow. Once again, the train was super clean, with cheerful personnel and stations clearly marked. What a pleasure!
We stepped out of the Glasgow Queen St. station right onto historic George Square, laid out in 1781 and named in honor of King George III. The first thing we saw was a row of statues, some with traffic cones on their heads – how curious!
Prince Albert in a coneA young Queen Victoria with crown and birdSir Robert Peel with only a bird
Around the corner, in front of the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, stood a statue of the First Duke of Wellington with a cone on his head colored in pink and blue to support the Ukraine!
The Duke of Wellington
My Google search revealed that a traffic cone first appeared on the Duke’s statue back in the 1980s, and as fast as city workers removed it, it would reappear the next evening. The city threatened action against anyone defacing the statue, but the people of Glasgow rallied round the cause, and now the statue with cone (sometimes the horse has a cone too) appears on Glasgow tee shirts and post cards as a symbol of the city. I like a city that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
As we were there at the Gallery of Modern Art, we checked it out. There was lots of space, and not much art. We watched some videos, like a woman riding on a snowmobile for twelve minutes. Other offerings:
Head in a basket Dream ForeverGroup of Coffee Mugs
There was one Andy Warhol, and here it is:
Oyster Stew Soup, 1969
At 3pm we were able to check into our hotel, one of a UK chain called Point A. When we opened the door to our room, I thought we were on the lowest deck of a ship. The room is just slightly larger than the bed, with no furniture, no seating, no doorknobs, no amenities of any sort, and no windows. A little pull-out tray may hold a few of your things, but if the tray is pulled out, you can’t walk around the bed. The hotel is highly rated. Oh dear.
July 29 – As there was no coffee maker in our room, Jim got out his camp stove, placed it in the shower, cooked us a lovely oatmeal and coffee breakfast, and served it on the bed. Some day, we’re going to get in trouble.
Glasgow, known as the Merchant City, is a working class city that doesn’t offer the range of touristy attractions that we had in Edinburgh. Don’t worry, we’ll find things to do. We set out this morning for a walk to the Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis.
Glasgow Cathedral
The cathedral is dedicated to St. Mungo, the founder and patron saint of Glasgow. He was a missionary in the sixth century, and named Glasgow, which means ‘beloved green place’.
Adam and Eve stained glass
The cathedral was dark and austere. Outlander fans will be interested to know that the cathedral served as Claire’s French hospital in season 2.
The 37 acre cemetery behind the cathedral is called the Necropolis, containing the bodies of 50,000 Victorian souls, including a memorial to John Knox, founder of the Presbyterian church in the 1500s.
Sir John Knox memorial
It also contains a memorial to William Wallace, who you will remember from Braveheart. Freedom!
William Wallace memorial
We wandered up and down many rows of monuments, but we didn’t find a single Hay or Blair (my ancestral clans) even though my forebears hailed from Lanarkshire, just a half hour’s drive south of here. I guess a half hour was pretty far, back in the day.
Many of the monuments were topped with statues of caskets or urns, which seemed a little odd to me.
Down at the bottom of the hill was a small, fenced-off area where the Victorian Jews were interred. There was a sign with a tally of the number of men, women, children and babies buried there.
After lunch we walked across town to the Glasgow Botanic Garedens. Lots of Glaswegians strolling the walkways or lying in the sunshine – the weather got up to a balmy 72 degrees.
There were rows of connected greenhouses displaying tropical plants that Scots might not typically see – ferns, cacti, and some teensy orchids.
The largest greenhouse, the Kibble Palace, also held a group of Victorian marble statues:
CainEveMary and Martha Victorian MarblesKibble Palace
The main lawn was landscaped with identical plants in rows like soldiers. I kept thinking, ‘Eliese would not approve!’
One of the parks benches was covered in colorful crochet. When we stopped to admire it, a local woman stopped to ask if we knew the story. She told us that after the death of a local artist, her daughters decorated her favorite bench as a memorial. Another nice person, stopping to share.
We walked all afternoon, admiring the plants and enjoying the sunshine. A good day!
When true friends meet in adverse hour; ‘Tis like a sunbeam through a shower. – Sir Walter Scott
July 27 – Another sunny day! What else can we see in town?
Our giraffe count increased today by 7. I’m a long way from that free ice cream.
We walked this morning through the Princes Street Gardens, where lots of roses were in bloom.
We stopped in at St. Cuthbert’s – very pretty:
Louis Tiffany window of David and his slingshot
Here is the Sir Walter Scott monument, below on the left. Scott, a native son, is best known as the author of Ivanhoe, written in the early 1800s, and for saying, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
We saw the memorial to Greyfriar’s Bobby, the little pup who faithfully guarded his master’s grave for fourteen years. The patina has worn off his nose, as so many people touch him for luck.
We visited the Scottish National Gallery, jam packed with classic European art. To avoid being overwhelmed by so many paintings, I like to focus on one thing. Today my focus was on babies. Enjoy:
This one goes into my album of odd-looking JesusesThis is baby Moses after his rescue from the river More odd JesusesJesus and his cousin John
The one below is technically not a baby, but is supposed to be twelve year old Jesus speaking with the rabbis at the temple. Does he look 12 to you?
Jesus at the Temple
We also visited a Camera Obscura that had lots of optical illusions:
A thermal Karen and Jim
The buskers were out, entertaining the masses:
We visited the Museum of Edinburgh, which displayed some quirky ceramics:
The Museum on the Mound told about the history of Scottish banking. Would you like to see what a million pounds looks like? You’re welcome!
Finally, what would an adventure be without some wall art? There wasn’t a lot, but here’s one political and one pastoral. Not sure what Paddington is doing chained in Rwanda?
We had dinner at a lovely Nepalese restaurant, where Jim spoke with the owner about old times in Nepal. Then it was back to our apartment to pack up and get a good nights rest. Tomorrow, we’re off to Glasgow!
July 26 – Boy, did we sleep last night! Still a bit groggy this morning, but feeling human again. Today is a recovery day, with no itinerary planned. After a breakfast of oatmeal (Scots call it porridge and prefer it salted, not sweet), coffee and hot crossed buns, we’re feeling almost energetic! As the weather promises to be lovely – mid 60s with no precipitation – we put on our boots and set out to see some Edinburgh.
Our place is not far from The Royal Mile, home to Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace and a mile of shops, restaurants and tourist madness in between.
As we walked toward the city, I spotted a colorful giraffe, and stopped to grab a photo. A local mom explained that there were 70 uniquely painted giraffes all around Edinburgh, and if I found every one, I’d get a free ice cream! A nice person of Scotland, stopping to share with strangers. Here’s all I found today:
(Remember that you can click or touch any photo to make it larger)
For some reason, there were also a couple of cows. Do you think I can count them toward my prize?
Lovely architecture:
Tolbooth
Churches and buildings that used to be churches:
St. Mary’s Episcopal CathedralThe Hub, formerly Tolbooth Kirk
We went into St. Giles Cathedral:
Entrance to St. Giles Cathedral Thistles on the ceiling of the Thistle Chapel
We and many others stood outside and gazed at Edinburgh Castle, but tickets for the entire week were sold out. It is built on an old volcano called Castle Rock, and served as a royal residence from the reign of King David in the 1100s to the 1600s. It is one of the most often attacked castles in the world. We’ll just have to imagine what the Scottish Crown Jewels inside must look like.
Edinburgh Castle The Castle Rock
The national flower of Scotland is the thistle. This tourist shop captures the spirit:
Lots of statues, of course:
Who’s that handsome statue? It’s Jim!
Below is the statue commemorating Wojtek, a brown bear that served with the Polish troops who fought alongside the Brits in WWII, carrying 100 pound boxes of ammunition. After the war he was brought to Scotland, where he lived the rest of his life at the Edinburgh Zoo.
Corporal Wojtek
At the end of the Royal Mile stands the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is the Queen’s official residence when she visits Scotland. It’s most famous inhabitant was Mary, Queen of Scots.
Holyrood Palace
A little history, and lots of walking. A great day. More tomorrow!
July 25 – We’ve heard so much on the news about nightmare travel experiences; flights delayed or canceled, baggage lost for days or never recovered, that we approached our flights to Boston and then overnight to Edinburgh with some trepidation and more preparation. We packed a full change of clothes in our carry-on, just in case.
So although one flight was canceled and our new flight gave us an eight hour layover, and although our second flight was delayed due to lack of baggage handlers, and although my movie thingy didn’t work, you’ll hear no complaints from us. We’re here!
We landed at 9am, cruised through self-serve passport control (who needs passport stamps?) and customs (nothing to declare? Just walk through!) and we’re soon out on the cool and misty street. A modern tram with stations clearly marked got us to our Haymarket neighborhood in seven stops, and a five minute walk got us to our apartment.
Check in time isn’t until 3pm, so we dropped off our packs and ventured back out into the gray drizzle to find something to do for five hours. Imagine us, jet-lagged and sleep deprived, stumbling down the street in a surreal state.
Thanks to Google, we found the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art just up the road and popped in. The drizzle was now pouring rain, so this was a great place to spend some time and have lunch.
Everything is going to be alright Picasso’s Nude Woman lying on the Beach in the SunA really big robot statue in the cafe
After a warm, fortifying lunch of squash soup, we walked back home via the Water of Leith.
Our apartment is a fourth floor walk up with a tiny modern kitchen – so modern that we can’t figure out how to work the stove! I sacked out immediately, but Jim went back out in the rain to get some provisions.
So we are here, warm and dry, full of salad, spicy edamame soup and toasted tattie scones (sort of thick potato pancake-like bread). A good first day!
July 24, 2022 – So, it’s been a minute since our last post in March 2020, and I don’t have to tell you why. I have fewer readers now, and I bet you are missing some folks in your life too. But if life is short, we’d better get on with enjoying the time we’ve been given!
Jim booked this Scotland hike several years ago, so he reactivated our reservations this spring, and we started to plan. We are scheduled to hike the West Highland Way (96 miles) and the Great Glen Way (78 miles) over the next month.
The map below shows our daily hiking goals in blue. The yellow stars at bottom right show our arrival In Edinburgh, and the yellow star at bottom center shows the start of our hike in Glasgow.
Scotland
We are several years older than when we initially thought this hike would be a great idea. The world has changed and so have we. Can we do it? Only one way to find out!
Mar 1 – We survived Dominican Independence Day on 2/27, and we survived Saturday night in Río San Juan last night. The two celebrations sounded about the same, with every car and motorbike cranking up their sound systems to the max, on the supposition that everybody has the same favorite song. It felt like little Zumba classes on every corner. Mercifully, all the noise stopped at 10pm, and you could hear the sound of the ocean again.
This morning we awoke to a gray, rainy day, so we didn’t mind bidding adieu to Río San Juan. We boarded a big air conditioned Caribe Tours bus at 9am, and it took us directly back to Santo Domingo. We returned to Hotel Casa Aluge for one night.
So, one more stroll down the shopping street.
One more Quinceañera celebration. This beauty was fussing with her dress, but gave me a big smile when she saw my camera.
What else can I show you? Did you know that cigars are made here?
We haggled for souvenirs – a plate for our wall, a magnet for our fridge. One more shot of Mama Juana for the road.
We thought we’d get away without concern about the corona virus, but today the first case was reported from a tourist to the D.R., and the government has begun turning away cruise ships. The checkout clerks in the supermarket have donned masks. A good time to go home.
Feb 25 – Aside from the beach, the other claim to fame here at Río San Juan is Laguna Gri Gri, a small lake surrounded by gri gri trees. Gri gri is either a reference to a mangrove or a black olive tree, both of which are known for their big roots. Wikipedia has no opinion on this subject, so this is the opinion of blogs I consulted.
According to the travel sites, a visit to Laguna Gri Gri is a fine diversion for those tired of the resort beaches of Puerto Plata, about 60 miles away. For us, it is just one block away, so off we went to explore.
The lagoon has lots of little boats, waiting to take folks out on tour, but the boatmen are not pushy. We walked all around the lake on foot, marveling at the still waters and the elevated roots.
Lots of birdsong. Here’s a little crab sunning herself on a rock.
The tour boats take tourists out to the ocean, but we couldn’t see a trail from here that would take us to the beach.
The restaurants surrounding the lagoon had lots of fine wall art, though.
More mosaic tile work and wall art on the walk home.
We returned to our apartment for a swim in the rooftop pool. Here’s a picture of the exterior of our place.
Now here’s a shot of the place next door. Yes, this is a very poor country, and has no resort nearby, so the folks we meet are not much involved with tourists.
Our pool is not Olympic size, but fine for cooling off.
The view from our rooftop. See the beach?
So here we are for a week of eat, walk, swim, croissants, swim, eat. Jim is serving up super delicious meals, and has made a friend of the grocer nearby. I’ll check back in if anything exciting happens…
Feb 23 – we said goodbye to Villa la Caleta, and Dario drove us to Las Galeras so we could catch the morning guagua back to Las Terrenas. He seemed surprised to learn we were heading for Río San Juan. Why would anyone ever want to go there?
It was early Sunday morning, so for much of the ride the van was only partially filled. Blessed relief! Back through Samaná and El Limón we went.
When we reached Las Terranas two and a half hours later, there was a lively discussion among the driver and other riders about what should be done with us. It was 11:30 am, and some riders felt we should wait in town until the big bus heading north left at 2pm. The other, equally vocal contingent thought that in the interest of time, we should continue to guagua on to our final destination.
We opted for the guagua, so the driver brought us to the next van, which took us to Sánchez. (We know in retrospect that we should have asked for this route at Samaná, but oh well.) The nice thing about the guagua system is that there are no layovers or downtime. Each driver takes you directly to the next van, and tells the next driver where you are going.
After Sánchez, we headed up into the hills, and it started to rain like crazy. On to Nagua, then finally to Río San Juan, where the final driver actually took us right to our place on the beach.
So we are now in northern D.R., in a very nice apartment with a stove and fridge and everything needed for Jim to whip us up some of his very tasty meals, once the stores open tomorrow. For tonight, we found a shop selling hot ham and cheese empanadas, and that suited us just fine.
Feb 24 – We walked around today and found several grocerias, and stocked up on essentials that included vegetables! We haven’t really had any vegetables since we arrived in country. We found a French patisserie with excellent coffee and crusty fresh bread. We also found an ATM that dispensed more than the equivalent of $20 maximum per day, which has been a challenge in every town here, as hotels and everybody else accept only cash.
Our place has a small pool on the roof, but as we are just one block from the beach, we did our swimming in the Atlantic today. Playa de los Minos has more waves than we encountered in Las Galeras, but the water was warm and the swimming was fine.
Feb 18 – We are staying this week in Villa la Caleta, which is run by a very nice Italian named Dario. We are at the eastern tip of the Samaná peninsula, and far from the cruise ship crowds. This area is frequented primarily by Europeans, and we have been hearing mostly French, some German, and some Russian in addition to Spanish.
So against all odds, one of the other villas is inhabited this week by Americans – a retired couple from Philadelphia. It’s strange but nice for us to make English conversation at dinner.
Chris and John have been more places than we have!
Dario runs a little restaurant, which serves an egg and fruit breakfast, and dinner of anything you want as long as it’s spaghetti, at prices much higher than we are accustomed to paying. We’ll have to get creative if we’re going to last the week.
We walked down the beach this morning, arriving after 15 minutes at a resort, with rows of sun worshipers slathered in lotion, lying on beach loungers, and a line queued up for drinks.
We kept walking. There were a few vendors along the beach, selling coconut milk and touristy stuff. I thought these carvings were particularly good.
After another 15 minutes, we reached the little town of Las Galeras, which we had not been able to properly inspect on our whirlwind journey yesterday.
There were lots of little cafés, spas and shops. It’s evident that English is not the primary language here.
English translation needs a bit of work!
The food offerings were still overpriced by our standards, and we had to walk a good way up the street before finding a place where the locals eat. We had a lovely lunch of chicken, beans, rice and salad, then found a very good grocery. Our room has a fridge, so we stocked up on sandwich fixings, a very tasty local cheese, and, of course, some Presidentes.
We purchased a little bottle of Mama Juana – the local specialty drink made of rum, red wine and honey, steeped in various medicinal barks. The locals say it will cure whatever ails you.
We swam in clear waters at the sandy beach.
We took a long walk up the hill to see the sunset.
I think we’ll manage here just fine.
Feb 19 – This morning we broke out our snorkels and set out to see what denizens may lurk beneath the gentle waves. Right outside our villa is a brown coral beach, with lots of places for critters to hide. We had to wear footwear into the water so we didn’t cut our feet on the sharp coral.
I have not been snorkeling since I was a kid in a swimming pool. I had reservations about how clearly I would be able to see under water without my glasses, but I was pleasantly surprised. Lots of colorful little fishies and anemones. It really is pleasant to lie face down in the water and just drift.
Here’s some of the wildlife we’ve encountered.
Hitching a ride!
So this will be our week – eat, walk, swim, snorkel, eat. Repeat. I’ll check back in if there’s anything exciting to report!
This morning we awoke to a gray, rainy day, so we didn’t mind bidding adieu to Río San Juan. We boarded a big air conditioned Caribe Tours bus at 9am, and it took us directly back to Santo Domingo. We returned to Hotel Casa Aluge for one night.
Taking Our Time 