Scotland

All the pictures are at the end on this one- there were too many to place throughout the post.  I just got back from a weekend in Barcelona and my Dad and step-mom arrived in Paris Monday for their ten day visit.  I'm going to Italy with them this weekend, Normandy with three friends the following weekend, Paris the weekend after that and then it's final exams!  Mary and I are travelling together to Ireland, Munich, and Prague the last week before we come home.  My time here is rapidly coming to an end and I have a lot of travel left to do.

Three weeks ago for fall break, I met Mary in London and we traveled around Scotland together for five days, visiting Edinburgh, Stirling, Glasgow, the highlands, and Inverness.  It didn't start out too well- my Ryanair flight from Montpellier was delayed causing me to miss my train to London, which in turn caused me to miss the last subway to Uxbridge, where Mary lives.  I had to buy a new train ticket from the airport in Birmingham and got no sleep that night as I gad another flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh at 7am that morning.  Luckily, the rest of the trip was a success and Scotland is stunning for its combination of old, historical towns and cities, and a mountainous countryside that is surprisingly easy to explore without a car.  Our first stop, running on no sleep was Edinburgh, the "capital" of Scotland, located in the southeast.  

Edinburgh was perhaps my favorite part of the trip.  We had a free hotel in the harbor area thanks to a mistake made my Holiday Inn.  The public buses were cheap and easy to use and the city itself is full of stone buildings, great pubs and Edinburgh Castle of course.  Since it was close to Halloween, we even took ghost walk.  Usually gimmicky, this one was not because it ended in a series of underground stone crypts and it was quite terrifying at times.  Despite being exceedingly tired, we toured Edinburgh Castle and saw the rest of the cities major landmarks- cathedrals, monuments, etc before taking a nap and heading back out for a curry dinner at a local pub (Brits cook excellent curry!) and going on the ghost tour.  The next day, we headed out early to catch our bus to Stirling, about an hour west.

Stirling is smaller town but it too had a massive castle that once protected all of Scotland from English invasions.  This castle was furnished and represented what it would have looked like when Mary Queen of Scots lived there before the unification of Scotland and England.  Scotland fought for centuries to stay independent and William Wallace, whose tower monument we visited led one the final efforts against England.  We also had traditional English breakfasts in Stirling that you'll see pictured below- I'm still not a fan of blood sausage...

That evening we took the train to Glasgow, another hour west on the opposite coast.  We never got a chance to see Glasgow during the daylight but it is a much larger and less touristy city so we used it as a place to stay but we did walk around it quite a bit in the evening and it resembled Edinburgh but wasn't as nice.

The next morning, we got up early and got lost en route to our tour bus, which would take us through the mountains and the highlands on an all day tour.  It was horrible weather- lots of wind and rain, but it eventually cleared up and we stopped frequently along the way to eat in small villages, take pictures in the mountains and we even took a boat tour on Loch Ness.  Did we meet the monster?  Check out the photos...

Sadly, the tour took us right by Inverness, where we would go that night by bus!  So when we got back to Glasgow, we ate dinner and got right back on a bus to Inverness.  It was a Megabus, but in the UK they don't have power outlets and wifi.  In fact, ours broke down in Perth, but luckily we didn't have to wait long for a replacement.

The next day, we got an all day bus pass to take us into the countryside.  We went to three different towns visiting an old whiskey distillery in one and spent a few hours in Elgin- a really nice little town on the North sea.  Elgin has the ruins of an amazing Cathedral- my favorite individual place we saw on the trip.  It was also a very picturesque little town- Christmas lights, cobblestone streets, hills surround it, the works.

That evening and part of the next day we spent in the city of Inverness, situated far in the north, on the North sea.  It's a quiet, uneventful city, but there was a neat battlefield nearby where we got stranded after missing a shuttle back into town.  The Victorian Market and old cobblestone streets were nice to walk around and shop if one is interested and the river running through the city was pretty night.  The afternoon of our last day, we boarded a train that would take us nine hours back to London through Glasgow.  The next day (Nov. 2), I flew back to Montpellier to start classes again.

Loch Ness

The Loch Ness Monster!!!

Mary and I on the shore of Loch Ness

On the hill above Elgin in N. Scotland at sunset

Elgin Cathedral, ruins.  QUITE haunted inside those towers.

Loch Lomond, just north of Glasgow in horrid weather

the mountains of the highlands

small town of Fort Augustus where the tour stopped for lunch

St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh

Typical Edinburgh building

From the top of the Wallace Mounument

Broken down Megabus- random parking lot in Perth...

Very cool monument in Edinburgh

Classic small scottish town, can't remember which one

Edinburgh Castle

Inside Stirling Caslte

Edinburgh castle

Part of the Dallas Dhu Distillery which took 30 minutes to walk to in the middle of nowhere!  I broke this machine after I hit it with my elbow and it flooded.  I kidd you not.

The fried tomatoes are the best part of an English breakfast

Cathar Castles

A few weekends ago, my Medieval Literature class went on a field trip to tour two medieval era castles in southwestern France.  It was a long bus trip into the Pyrenees Mountains to get there but it was well worth it.  The castles were occupied by Cathar Christians, a group declared heretical by the Pope for going against the teachings of the Catholic Church.  The Cathar christian sect started in the french town of Albi and grew large in southern France, a wealthy area that disliked paying taxes to the church.  So many Catholics defected to the group that the Pope declared a crusade against them and the Cathars hid in these castles high in the mountains.

The Cathars believed in some strange things that also offended the Church.  They believed that each person is a fallen angel and inherently evil.  They also believed in reincarnation and did not have the same view of Jesus or salvation as medieval Catholicism.  Eventually, all Cathars and even those who helped protect them were destroyed by French crusaders, but their castles remained and they are an amazing sight.

Perched high on mountaintops, the hike to get to them and the constant gale force winds at the sites are enough to keep most visitors away!  The views from castles as well as their unique histories made for an excellent day trip and added nicely to our class discussions.  We experienced how the Cathars were fugitives in terrible conditions with no way to get supplies or escape.  In fact, our bus driver made up hike up the mountain and then drove away so we really were stuck for a while...

All in all, the ruins of the castles are intact, the stone pillars, walls, dungeons, and even a chapel remain for people to tour.  The second castle we visited is even the longest castle from end to end in the world.  Check out the pictures below.

Pyrenees in the background 

View from the first castle

Chapel and alter in larger castle

We climbed up this mountain to get to the castle

You can just make out a castle in the distance (pictured up close below)

Inside wall of castle

Intricately designed ceiling at the smaller castle

    In between this field trip and fall break from the university, my group took another trip to the french town of Anduze to visit a Bamboo forest and natural caves.  While it was an interesting trip, I'm not going to do a blog on it.  My next post will be on my trip to Scotland, which took place from October 26 to Nov. 2.  Thursday, I'm going to Barcelona, Spain for four days and I'm really looking forward to some promised warm and dry weather.  Montpellier and most of southern France is currently a flood zone and the rain shows no signs of stopping...

London Day 3

Sorry for the delay in posting this!  Last Wednesday, I went to Scotland for six days and I needed this week to catch up on my work.  This is my last post on my trip to London and it's going to be abbreviated because I'm so behind on posts.

Since I posted last, about three weeks ago, I've been to Scotland and back and otherwise in Montpellier, where the weather has gotten significantly cooler, with lots of windy, rainy days the past couple weeks.  My classes are still going well and I'm starting to prepare for my exams which are about six weeks away, but comprise the entirety of my grade for two of my classes taken with other french students.  I have no idea what to expect, so I'm starting to prepare early!  My host family is still very nice and accommodating of me and I am frequently reminded of how happy I am to have made the decision to live in a family.  Despite enjoying my time here so much, I am looking forward to going home as well.  My dad and stepmom are coming to visit in ten days and we are going to Italy together and once they leave, I will have exactly one month remaining.  Since I go back to Chicago New Year's Day to start winter classes one day later, I won't have much time at home, but I will enjoy it all the same.  Now on to London...

The last day in London (Sunday, October 2), was a whirlwind day full visits to historical landmarks, museums, and as I recall, was a beautiful day to see London.  We saw Buckingham Palace in the morning, but we decided not to tour it, because it was insanely expensive ($30) and time consuming.  The outside was impressive and the guards were just like you imagine- standing tall, letting nothing distract them.  After Buckingham, we toured another royal residence which has been converted into a Modern Art museum, Kensington Palace, former home of Princess Diana.  I thought it was creepy inside- they made a modern art museum based on the live's of the princesses that have lived there throughout history.  Each room relived some aspect of the mostly dreary lives of the princesses.  On the day we were there, Disney had taken over the grounds for a movie shoot and the international Disney Princess competition was taking place.  Since it's under renovation, the famous gardens and grounds were diminished, but the inside of the palace was ornately decorated and full of the history of its former inhabitants.

Kensington Palace

Following Kensington Palace, we toured the HMS Belfast, a decommissioned WWII battleship that sits in the Thames River.  It was both massive and impressive, its corridors, staircases, ports, and hatches a labyrinth easily lost in.  We didn't stay long because we had to get to the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels, but this ship was a nice break from old buildings and monarchical history.  Its use in WWII and its near perfect preservation made it a unique attraction especially if like me, one enjoys military history.

Me standing starboard on the HMS Belfast, Thames River on the right.

The Tower of London was the most impressive site we visited that day, because it contained some amazing history.  It was built by William the Conqueror and housed English Kings for centuries.  It was also a fortess and prison and also did a stint as a menagerie.  Yes, that's right, it was used by the monarchy as a zoo to hold exotic animals given as gifts by foreign leaders.  Polar bears, lions, and monkeys lived in Tower of London for over 500 years.  

But the more interesting part about the Tower is that it is known as a place of violence, was, and torture.  Enemies of the crown and the state were often imprisoned there.  Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, was held and executed at Tower of London for the crime of not producing a male heir.  Countless people were wrongly imprisoned and tortured over the years and the Tower had a special use as a place to hide young princes who were the rightful heirs to the throne claimed by someone else. The Tower is not really a tower, but more of a fortress and small city, with many stone buildings and strong fortifications against attack. 

The main castle at the Tower of London

Today, it houses the Crown Jewels, which you can find pictures of online, but our cameras were obviously not allowed inside.  They are extremely well protected and visitors pass by them on a moving walkway.  The jewels and crowns are stunning in their size and variety, especially the sword collection.  Who would use a gold sword with a diamond hilt in battle?  Nobody of course, but they made them anyway for Kings to carry with them.  The monarchy often borrowed untold amounts of money to make new crowns and jewelry they could not afford, because the English monarchy was notorious for being broke.  After leaving Tower of London, I had experience of riding on an original double decker bus.  It was randomly assigned to the route Mary and I took and there was nothing electronic, no doors, and a human ticket collector.  London has a few of these buses running around still and they are authentic and refurbished.  If I find the pictures of this, I will add them to the post.

The outer Castle- the living quarters.

As close as cameras are aloud to the Crown Jewel's

That evening, we went to two pubs- one where Mary's grandparents met during WWII and the other where we ate the obligatory British meal- fish and chips, which wasn't actually very good.  Nothing was crispy, sadly, but since then I have had much better fish and chips at another pub, so it's not all bad.    The following morning I flew back to Montpellier from Birmingham, UK, about two hours from London by train, which left from King's Cross Station.  I couldn't help but get a picture at Platform        9 3/4, where the Hogwart's Express leaves in Harry Potter.  The station has a special area set up to take pictures and to commemorate its place in the books.  After this picture, I traveled back to Montpellier without any problems.

Platform 9 3/4.  Covered up by my head of course.

My next post will be about a class field trip to two mountaintop castles in the Pyrenees used by religious exiles, the Cathar Christians, in the middle ages.  These castles were difficult to get to and it was dangerously windy atop the mountains they sat on, but it was an amazing experience.  More on that in my next post!

London: Day 2

On our second day together in London, Mary and I visited Westminster Abbey, Winston Churchill's War Rooms, and we took a boat tour of the Thames River.  Despite being excessively crowded, Westminster Abbey is the most beautiful church I have been inside.  It contains the tombs of nearly all of Britain's monarchs and it is intricately decorated, each room representing a different era of British history, with different design schemes, colors, and materials that make up the ornate sarcophagi.  Guards banned cameras inside and unlike in St. Peter's Basilica, they meant it.  You really do have to pay 13 pounds and go to London to see the inside.  But I promise it is worth it.  The sheer amount of history inside and the beauty of the building and its contents- ranging from carvings of kings, queens, and knights to thousand year old tapestries to the tomb of the unknown soldier...to things as superficial as the exact spot where "William and Kate got married!".  It took a long time to get through the entire thing too see every room. What is remarkable to me is that Anglican priests still live there and they hold public services every Sunday.

Since we got a late start that day, we were not able to tour Parliament (pictured directly above).  Similar to the White House, you need a background check and since I'm on the no-fly list for trying to bring a fully stocked tool kit (razor blade, hammer, etc) and six pack of Izzy's through security in Buffalo two years ago, I knew mine would take a bit too long.  So instead, we went to Winston Churchill's War Rooms, an underground office building used by the British Government during the Blitz of London by Nazi Germany during WWII.

The War Rooms were the epicenter of the government during the Blitz because they were the only safe place Prime Minister Churchill could be while made war and defense plans.  They are my favorite historical monument yet, because they were well-maintained and contained an amazing amount of original furniture, equipment and papers.  As I walked through the labyrinth of underground rooms, I knew what it must have been like to live down there when all you could hear were bombs and air raid sirens.  Scary.  Cinder block walls, poor lighting, poor ventilation, small hallways, and generally very military style barrack conditions.  Churchill, his family, his staff and British generals and their staff lived here for weeks or even months at a time.  The entire war was planned from here- they had a secure communications room, a map room with precise world maps wrapped all around the room, bedrooms, a kitchen, and of course, THE War Room.  The famous conference room where Churchill spent met with his generals and staff daily remained just as it was left in 1945.  Mary's grandmother worked in the War Rooms during WWII so it was very cool to be down there seeing it all.  Everything was behind glass of course, so the pictures are a bit fuzzy below.

Our final activity that day was a great tour boat ride down the Thames River.  It's a great way to see the major sights of the city from a far before going to them.  As you'll see from the pictures, it was a beautiful evening in London.

The London Eye, a Giant Ferris wheel, as seen from the boat.

Passing under London Bridge

A crowded top deck of our river boat.  Westminster and Parliament in the background.

This is the foot bridge that gets destroyed in the 7th Harry Potter film!!!  We passed under it in the boat.

Boats cannot pass under Tower Bridge, it ended here.

Mary and I on Tower Bridge at the end of an excellent sightseeing day!

Day three will come soon.  Everything is still going well here- my classes are relatively easy and my host family still feeds me well!  I love most things about France, but I could do without the striking.  All part of the experience, of course.  On Oct. 26th, I'm going back to England for a six day trip to Scotland with Mary.  Barcelona, Paris, Dublin, and a week long trip TBD are coming up.  Study abroad is half over.