Inverness Airport and Tuesday near the Cairngorms

First impression of the Scottish Highlands is green. Wet and green. Lots of lochs!

After a long day of travel over the Atlantic and a connection in London to Inverness, we stayed at the Inverness Airport hotel to catch up with the time change.

As soon as we saw this sign in the hotel bar, we had to have a beer! Of course, we both chose hoppyness.

Then, Monday night, we slept fitfully because we forgot to bring the Melatonin… sigh.

Tuesday we started at the Highland Folk Museum, which is an outdoor area with reconstructed buildings and artifacts from three eras in Highlands history. Learning the cultural history early in a visit is an excellent foundation on which to build one’s understanding of an area.

The above four pictures are from the oldest part represented, called Baile Gean, a 1700s Township. Nine sites exposed dark, windowless buildings with steep roofs. A period-clad woman explained that the buildings collected the smoke from the peat fires, allowing the humans to smoke their meat while they were inside the building. Seems nonintuitive now.

The mill area reminded us of a scene from the Outlander Series, when the main male character, Jamie, waited underwater for the menacing Red Coats to leave. We found many sites from this series to visit on this trip.

Area used in the Outlander TV series season one.

The Balameanach area, the middle village in the museum, featured 13 sites from about 200 years later.

The last area was Croit Allt Larigh, from just a bit later than the middle part of the park, er museum. Many artifacts and buildings were preserved from this more recent era.

Glenlivet used to be a place with a post office, not just a distillery.

Driving

Left side. Driver is always toward the center of the road. Remember. Look right before left.

We thought that would be our main stumbling block, but – 20% grade? Who are you kidding? But 20% they were, and 13% and super windy. At least we were warned by the signs.

Also, single carriage with passing places. Hm. Single lane we get, but the turnouts were too few for the traffic. We found ourselves, (well Brian, as he was driving) stomping on the brakes to avoid head-on collisions, unfruitfully seeking a passing place.

We made it to our nighttime destination, Craigendarroch Suites in Ballater, where we slept. Lovely place.

Trip Plan

“There’s no place on Earth with more magic and more superstition mixed into its daily life than the Scottish Highlands,” says Frank to Claire in the first episode of Outlander.

Geeks Clare and Brian will travel to Scotland in June to see ancient sites on the islands, visit castles and other sites that were filming locations for the Outlander television series, sample whiskies, and view geology along the northern coast (North Coast 500).

Our trip will begin and end in Inverness, driving first to the south and then west and finally north. Visits to the islands of Skye, Harris, Lewis, and Orkney are planned. Four car ferry trips will be necessary to access these places.

In 2013, Brian and Clare visited the Scottish Highlands as part of a geology field trip which focussed on the important controversy concerning the identification of major thrust faults in the northwest Highlands. Read a brief summary of that trip here:

Scotland HIghlands Field Trip 2013 Download

Put together this puzzle to review some of the geology.

Murten

As Brian was going through his father’s slides, this picture was unusual as his father was in the picture. His father was a student in Geneva when this picture was taken in the early 1950s.

Brian’s dad is facing the camera, partly behind the sign.

Although Brian’s dad had indicated a place on the slide, it did not make sense to Brian. By searching online for “Droguerie F. Chaignat” Brian was able to determine that the picture was taken in Murten, Switzerland (Morat in French). So we stopped there on the way from Basel to Geneva, and snapped a picture of Brian in the same place.

The name Droguerie referred to a hardware store in the 1950s, when the original photo was taken.

This part of Switzerland has both German and French names

We showed the print of Brian’s dad to the waiter where we ate a (yet another) delicious lunch, and we gave it to him. Later, he gave us the business card for the restaurant and put his personal email on the back, so we could send the higher resolution scan to him later. He thought the library in town might be interested in it for historical value.

Clare enjoying wine with lunch, overlooking Murtensee; we ate fish from the lake

That was our last adventure for this trip. We then drove to Geneva, returned the rental car, and stayed at an airport hotel. At the airport the next morning, the water fountains featured eau de Genève (as if we would be confused as to where the water originated).

At London Heathrow, we found our gate at ground level and boarded a bus to the 777. The final picture is Clare waving good-bye in front of the 777 engine before climbing the stairs up to the cabin. British Airways upgraded our seats to World Traveler Plus, presumably in compensation for cancelling our flight from London to Lyon on July 8. Not complaining!

Basel

In planning our trip, we contacted Clare’s niece, who lives in Basel, to arrange a visit after our friend’s wedding. That evening, we had a nice dinner and good wine at her house.

Taraneh is the daughter of Clare’s next older sister (only one year), and is a delight to us because of how much she loves the Earth – traveling, learning about people, places and (it turns out) food!

Unfortunately for us, her husband and older child were away, visiting her husband’s mom who is ill. But, we met her younger child. He’s a cutie! Articulate (for a 2-year old) and interested in many things. And in the “terrible twos” stage of development that all of us who have been parents understand.

The child went to his normal school Monday when we were in Basel, Taraneh took the day off work, and so we had the best day ever with our niece. First, we crossed the Rhine River.