15 May 2015 (Day 9) - Scotland, Day 2 - Off to Edinburgh

15 May was mostly a transit day. I enjoyed a thoroughly filling breakfast at the West End Hotel--if you want to understand what a full Scottish breakfast looks like, this is the place to find one--and packed up what few things I had taken out of my luggage the night before. I had one last look at the little town as I walked to the train station, and, soon enough, I was on a train to Edinburgh. No first class carriage on this one, but the chance to spend four more hours admiring the scenery more than made up for the lack of an especially comfortable seat. I didn't take more pictures on this train ride, but I can assure you that I spent those happy hours being treated to the same kind of forests, mountains, rivers, and valleys that had captured my imagination the previous day. I also took advantage of the fact that I had a table to write out the postcards that I had picked up at the Tower of London for my friends back home, and enjoyed another Irn-Bru, for which I was already developing cravings.

We arrived in Glasgow--where I would return a couple of days later--a little after 3pm, and I changed over to a train to Edinburgh, where I did get to enjoy first class seating as I was whisked through more countryside, much flatter than the Highlands but still just as pretty. Arriving in Edinburgh, I looked at the multiple bags I was now dragging behind me--oh, those souvenirs--and decided to indulge in a taxi rather than trying to get all of my luggage onto a bus. I harbor a certain degree of animosity toward people who try to take public transit with luggage that they can barely manage, and I wasn't about to become one myself. Soon, I arrived at Masson House, which was to become my favourite hotel of the whole trip. It had started to rain, and was glad that I had decided to take a taxi, because the hotel, which I believe used to serve as student housing, is somewhat hidden among several other buildings and set back from the road, and I doubt I would have arrived in any condition other than sopping wet if I had tried to take a bus and walk to it.

I checked in and went up to get settled into my room, which I loved from the moment I stepped into it. Add a kitchen to it, and it very well could be a little apartment. I had a proper closet, a desk, and nightstands with drawers, as well as a flat screen television mounted on the wall in front of the bed, which pretty much set me up as well as I could have wanted. I also discovered that I could use a space called the "Pantry" at the end of the hall, which was basically a lounge/kitchen crossover, and which was thrilling to me, seeing as I had not been able to have a hot supper for more than a week. My Tesco suppers were all very good--there was even a Tesco in Fort William, to my delight--and I was very grateful to be able to have something to eat that was fully labelled to prove that it wasn't going to kill me, but the prospect of something other than a sandwich was tantalizing. As it was, I'd brought some food from the Tesco in Fort William just in case I wasn't able to find anything on my first night in Edinburgh, so I was set for the moment.

Given that it was a Friday and I wanted to get my postcards sent out before the weekend, the last thing I did on the 15th was find my way to the nearest post office. It might be a simple thing, but it was an experience in itself. Walking in my nondescript black coat through the light rain, my luggage left safely behind at the hotel, and doing something as everyday as sending some letters gave me a sense of what it might be like to live in a place like Edinburgh. Until I opened my mouth to talk to the lady at the counter and my accent made my Canadianness obvious, there was nothing to distinguish me from any normal person from Edinburgh going about her day, running some last errands before the post office closed. My postcards got dotted with the Scottish rain as I affixed stamps and air mail stickers, so all of my friends got some tiny part of Scotland back home!

This little errand taken care of, I went back to Masson House, noting the main street I crossed along the way, and settled in to watch some TV and have my supper. I really can't say enough good things about Masson House. It might be a little out of the way, but it's plenty close enough to everything if you're willing to walk a bit or take public transit, and the accommodations are impressive for the price. It boasted the best water pressure I'd had for the past week, although it was a little interesting to use a shower that was literally composed of a shower head and a curtain attached to a metal U in the ceiling. You don't even need your own soap and shampoo if you're not worried about using any products on your skin, because they provide ample bottles of a very nice-smelling soap/shampoo combo. The beds are comfortable, the breakfast is fantastic and features goodies like haggis and fried mushrooms in addition to the standard fare of cereal, fruit, and yogourt, the rooms are very clean, and it definitely feels safe, with multiple electronic locks on the way to your room. Exactly what I needed and worth every penny! Needless to say, I was a happy camper as I went to sleep for the night, looking out my window at the grassy hump of Arthur's Seat and thinking about what it would be like to climb it the next day.

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14 May 2015 (Day 8) - Scotland, Day 1 - High on the Highlands

Gaelic!

My longtime dream of sleeping on a train fulfilled, I woke up on 14 May, went to my window, and promptly started losing my mind over the view. At just after seven in the morning, we were just passing Arrochar and Tarbet Station, which is so small and out of the way that, according to the National Rail Enquiries, it doesn't even have an address, just a postal code. If you know me, you know that I prefer places that can pretty much only be identified by GPS coordinates, and so you can imagine how excited I was to be gliding through a place so rugged and remote. My hastily scribbled journal entry can probably capture my feelings at that moment better than I currently can.

"WOW! Okay, this is why I took the train. We're definitely in Scotland now. I've seen sheep! And horses! And now gorgeous rocky hills and rivers. [...] And people get to live here? It's beautiful. So green and rugged-looking, with Gaelic on the station signs. Lots of lakes and rivers, too, and sheep just wandering around on the hillsides. Absolutely fantastic and exactly what I was hoping for."

 12 hours later, sitting in my room at the West End Hotel in Fort William, I still hadn't gotten over it.

"I'm not sure if I was just in Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Grimm's Fairy Tales, or all three of them. Those landscapes were the stuff of dreams. [...] One minute everything is brown and rocky and unforgiving-looking, and the next minute you're looking out at lush green pastures dotted with fluffy white sheep. Then, it's back to the mountains and rocks. Then, beautiful, crystal blue water. And then more sheep. Lots of sheep."

Just in case you think I might have been overreacting to some grass and rocks, let me give you just a taste of what I was witnessing through my cabin window. When I stepped out to admire things through the hallway windows, I ran into a very nice lady from Shanghai, who was named Jade, and we agreed that the rapid changes in the scenery were amazing. Feel free to click the pictures below to see them in full-size glory.

Look at the clouds just barely kissing the top of the mountains.

From grass and rivers to rock and snow.

And then back to something in between.

We arrived in Fort William right on time, and any fears I had had about getting lost and not being able to find my hotel were quickly dispelled when I discovered that the train station and the hotel sat at opposite ends of the one main street. I revelled in the little bits of Gaelic that I caught from the people around me, though it was sometimes hard to tell if they were actually speaking Gaelic or if it was just heavily accented English! (Yes, I fangirled over the heavy Scottish accents of the hotel staff when they welcomed me, too.) Fort William is a picturesque little riverside town if there ever was one. Looking out at the horizon, there are just mountains piled on top of mountains, reaching up into the clouds, and the streets are lined with little shops selling all kinds of Scottish souvenirs. It also happens to be at the end of the West Highland Way, a long walking trail stretching 154 kilometres. 

The monument that stands to mark the end
of the West Highland Way

You see what I mean about it being picturesque?

You're pretty much surrounded by these rocky peaks in Fort William.

Not the greatest picture, but I just had to get one with the mountains!

I guess that my raving over the landscape is understandable, considering that I didn't give myself very much time to come down from the first dose of intoxicating Scottish beauty before I subjected myself to a second and even more powerful one. Having dropped off my luggage, I walked back across town to catch the 12:12pm train to Mallaig. Mallaig is a little tiny place that smells tantalizingly of fish and chips (forbidden to this fish-allergic traveller) and whose main tourist attraction is the ferry to Skye (which I wasn't able to take this time around, sadly), so why would I want to spend my first day in Scotland hanging around there? Well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, that is, in fact, the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct, featured in the flying Ford Anglia scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Seeing this, really being on this structure, was one of the major highlights of the entire trip. While I didn't get to actually ride the Jacobite (the "Hogwarts Express") because my arrival in Fort William didn't sync up with the Jacobite's departures, I had no regrets. Riding a regular train was probably better, as far as I could tell, because it was far less crowded and I had ample room to take pictures without getting 15 other people's heads and hands in my shot. The viaduct wasn't the only breathtaking thing I got to see as I rode this last bit of the West Highland Line, known as one of the most beautiful rail journeys in the world.

I was so, so pleased and overwhelmed by the beauty of what I was looking at through my window. Looking at what I wrote in my journal later that night, it's clear to me that the experience really inspired me to write something meaningful.

"The landscape [from Fort William to Mallaig and back] was even more beautiful than what I had seen coming in on the Sleeper. Huge mountains, huge blue lakes, an ancient-looking church sitting in the middle of nowhere, lush green carpets of moss covering rocks and logs in thick forests that really looked like somewhere the Fellowship of the Ring might have camped for the night... it was stunning, absolutely stunning, and it was entirely possible to imagine Hogwarts castle hiding somewhere in among all the mountains and valleys, entirely possible to imagine Harry on Buckbeak's back, soaring over the rivers and then out of sight behind a mountain. [...] Overall, the whole thing was magical, really magical. Looking out the window was like standing with my three favourite magical folk on a Hogwarts balcony, looking out at the school grounds. I'll bet JKR rode the West Highland Line at some point in her life, or, at least, the people who picked the filming locations must have. There's something just so ancient and, again, for lack of a better word, magical about the snow-capped mountains rising up into the clouds, the deep valleys, the little waterfalls tumbling down the sides of rocky outcroppings, and the forests fit for fairies. I wouldn't want to spend a night alone out there, no sir. I'd be too afraid of some kind of goblin or werewolf creeping up on me! [...] I really hope the pictures turned out so I can keep at least a little bit of that magical beauty with me. I'm still stunned. Scotland really is as beautiful as I imagined."

Words really cannot describe the feeling of seeing the Scottish landscape for the first time, though, as evidenced above, I did try to use a lot of them to capture it as best I could. I spent hours upon hours on trains on the 14th and 15th, and not once did I tire of looking out the window or wish that I had brought a book (well, another book--I'd finished Wolf on the Sleeper). I could ride from Fort William to Edinburgh (a five hour journey) again in a heartbeat, just to see it all one more time and feel that sense of wonder and connection with the land again. I cannot recommend the Highlands highly enough to anyone who has had even the vaguest notion of visiting. Get there. Take a train. Take it all in. You won't regret it.

Oh, and, as a side note, I took it upon myself to experience a little Scottish culture while I waited for my train back from Mallaig! This stuff tastes like drinking orange-flavoured corn syrup, is absolutely delicious, and became a staple for me in the rest of my Tesco suppers in Scotland.

Like a true Scotswoman!

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