United Kingdom, April 13 - 22, 2009

Introduction

2009-05-11T23:44:00.003-05:00

Hope you enjoy the pictures. Feel free to skip my witty commentary (and shabby spelling). For full size versions of any of the pictures, just click on the picture.

Day 1

2009-05-02T12:26:00.000-05:00

Our objective for Day 1, as stated on the official itinerary which I created, was to, "stay awake!" We arrived in London around 7:30 am London time, which would have been 1:30 am US Central time. Allison slept more than I did on the flight, but we were both exhausted. However, with almost 6 hours until we could check into the hotel, we proceeded to wander the city in a near drunken stupor.

Of course, my wife is beautiful even after a 9 hour flight and no sleep. We then proceeded to familiarize ourselves with the local flora and fauna in Hyde Park.

Then we ran across this thing below. I'm not sure what it is, but it looks cool.

Next, we made our way to Trafalgar Square, which was sadly obscured by construction. Got some pics of the lions out front before we grabbed lunch in The Crypt at St. Martin-in-the-Field (An old church with a deli in the actual crypt underneath.)

After we ate our tuna sandwich lunch, we continued to roam the streets, heading in the general direction of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Below are The Royal Courts of Justice.
St. Paul's Cathedral.
Pidgeon on the head.

Characteristic London buildings.

Day 2

2009-05-02T12:25:00.011-05:00

That red bus was everywhere! Day 2's objective was "see stuff," and so we did. We decided to hit Regent's Park in the morning, and make our way towards the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey in the afternoon and hang around for some night shots of the river.

You know how those British love their gardens!

View from Primrose Hill.

London Eye behind a Royal Air Force memorial.

Obligatory Big Ben pic.

Westminster Abbey main entrance. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside. Spectacular architecture.

MLK? This made me feel at home. Little taste of the American South.

Protestors around a statue of Winston Churchill

River Thames and Parliament.

The Tower of London wasn't so impressive as I had imagined. But Tower Bridge was nice.

"Please queue here... or the monster will eat you!"

The river was beautiful at night.

We stumbled upon these two amazing classical musicians playing under the bridge for spare change.

Day 3

2009-05-02T12:25:00.007-05:00

Day 3 was spent on the train to Scotland. The plan was to take in as much of the countryside as possible, rather than miss it by flying. Not great conditions for photography, but it was a beautiful ride none the less. Definitely worth the 8 hour trip.

Edinburgh Castle as we rolled through town.

Welcome to Scotland!

Day 4

2009-05-02T12:24:00.006-05:00

Day 4 began in Inverness, which literally means "mouth of ness." It is known as the capitol of the highlands, and the gateway to Loch Ness. We spent the morning touring around Inverness before taking a bus to our main destination in Scotland, a little village named Drumnadrochit situated on Urquhart Bay on the Loch. Our camera battery was giving us fits, so there aren't too many pictures from day 4. We managed a few shots of Inverness in the morning and a few more when we got down to Loch Ness.

So many beautiful old churches.

I believe this is the River Ness

These canals were quite cool. They had a mechanism for moving boats uphill.

Unfortunately, this shot doesn't do justice to this view. It's the Beauty Firth, and it was incredibly cold and windy on the shore.

Urquhart Bay winds around the hills.

The ruins of Urquhart Castle. Unfortunately, we never made it down for a tour, but we got some nice pics on different days.

The hills near Drumnadrochit, part of the Great Glen. Sheep everywhere. Would love to live in one of the houses on the hills.

This view is just behind our bed & breakfast. If you're ever there, look up the Brady's B&B. Great hosts in a great location!

Day 5

2009-05-02T12:23:00.002-05:00

Day 5 happened to be Allison's birthday. We had seen pictures of the Isle of Skye in a Scotland book we bought to plan for the trip, and I knew she wanted to see it. So we undertook the 2 hour bus ride, which was well worth it. The scenery between Drumnadrochit and Skye was absolutely incredible. Thanks to a low camera battery and some lessons learned from trying to take pictures from a moving train, I didn't take many pictures from the bus. One place I regret not taking pictures was at Kyle of Lochalsh, across the water from Skye. It was hands down the most beautiful scenery on the trip. As it was a perfectly clear day, the water between the mainland and Skye was bright blue, and you could see all the mountains that encircled it. Nonetheless, Skye yielded bounteous beauty, if slightly otherworldly. Our main objective was to scale the mountain above.

A couple shots here are actually from the bus on Skye. Unlike the rest of England and Scotland, Skye was still yellow and brown. Rocky and barren, it felt a little like Mars.

The sea juts in on one of the many inlets on Skye.

When we boarded the bus to Skye, we had no real idea where we should be let off. Our tour book described the Cuillin Mountains as Britain's finest mountain range and within walking distance of Sligachan. So we asked the driver to let us off there (again, I had to ask for the proper pronunciation). Little did we no that Sligachan consisted of two pubs, a bed and breakfast, and a few scattered farm houses. We were greeted by the enormous Cuillins that surrouned the valley where Sligachan was situated. With about 6 hours to kill, we set out for the mountains. Luckily, there were other hikers headed that way, so we followed them.

See the tallest peak in the above picture? That's the one we were shooting for! Only about 950 meters up!

It was hard not to stop and take picture after picture.

The ubiquitous Scottish sheep.

We stopped here for the light lunch that we packed. It is about half way up the mountain.

There were numerous mountain streams, and even a few lakes as you can see here.

Getting closer!

Allison's line was, "just one more peak." We were getting close to the summit, but decided the last stretch required equipment and experience which we lacked, although we saw a few more hard core climbers scaling the top.

This is the summit from the highest point we achieved and the view of the valley below.

The view was our reward. You can see the tiny village of Sligachan (the little white buildings). We estimated this spot to be around 750 meters, based on the height of the other peaks around us and our proximity to the summit.

Two sweaty, ragged hikers.

Day 6

2009-05-02T12:23:00.001-05:00

Day 6 being Sunday, our day consisted of morning and evening church services at this Church of Scotland, which was down the street from our B&B. Turns out the pastor had recenlty finished a Doctorate of Ministry at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson. Small world! We spent the afternoon exploring some of the trails around Drumnadrochit. Light hiking after our tiring hike up the mountain at Skye. Our legs definitely felt it. We were thankful for a much needed day of rest.

I think this was my second favorite view of the entire trip. Loch Ness and Drumnadrochit from a lookout point on our afternoon hike.
After lunch we made our way down to the Loch to wade in. The water was cold but crystal clear.

The sheep are everywhere!

Day 7

2009-05-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

Day 7 was our last full day in Scotland, and much of it was spent buying souvenirs and re-visiting Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle. I was quite fond of the Loch and its green surrounding hills.

Surprisingly, this forest was inhabited by trees from America.

Tranquil Scottish villages on the hills.

One last trip to Urquhart Bay.

Days 8 and 9

2009-05-02T11:55:00.002-05:00

With our camera battery low, and two days of planes, buses, taxis and cheap hotels, we didn't really take any more pictures. Tuesday we flew from Inverness to Luton Airport, which is north of London. We had to take the bus from Drumnadrochit into Inverness, and then catch another to the Inverness airport. By the time we got into Luton, found the bus into town, took the subway to Heathrow Airport, and another bus to our hotel a few minutes from Heathrow, we were wiped and ready for bed before our long flight in the morning. The next morning (in our cheap hotel) we suffered through a substandard breakfast, hopped a taxi to Heathrow, and boarded our flight out of the UK.

It is always a nice feeling when you come back into America. I have to close by saying though, public transportation in America is worthless. I won't go into the whole story, but basically our cab driver had no idea what he was doing or where he was going, and it took us 40 minutes to go to our destination which was 5 minutes away.

After getting to our car, we made the 7 hour treck from Houston to Jackson. We had been up since about 7:00 am London time. We got into Jackson around 6:oo am London time, with little to no sleep in between. Needless to say, it was an exciting drive back. We made it, and are quite happy to be home!

Check out the View!

2009-04-25T13:15:00.002-05:00

My favorite view one more time, and the Shaw family crest and motto. Faith and Fortitude!