today i almost died/a thread about the scottish highlands

[Happy Panther]

i couldn't go to scotland because i think i'd want to stay there too much

Spend a year there and you will likely think differently. Scotland is a wonderful country and at the same time a depressing cold crime and drug ridden state.

 

My advice would be to visit!

[Trev_GFC]

Spend a year there and you will likely think differently. Scotland is a wonderful country and at the same time a depressing cold crime and drug ridden state.

My advice would be to visit!

I reckon the Hylands and Hebrides/other islands would be a nice place to live, if you can handle the rain and remoteness. City life would be unpleasant even outside of Glasgow which easily accounts for large numbers of the crime levels in Scotland, and Britain for that matter.

PhillyB or anyone else who has visited Scotland: did you visit the Isle of Mull or Skye? They look and sound beautiful.

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[PhillyB]

Spend a year there and you will likely think differently. Scotland is a wonderful country and at the same time a depressing cold crime and drug ridden state.

 

My advice would be to visit!

 

it's very dreary. adds to the atmosphere in these spectacular gorges, and sunshine becomes that much more beautiful when it shows up, but i could never live here.

 

 

I reckon the Hylands and Hebrides/other islands would be a nice place to live, if you can handle the rain and remoteness. City life would be unpleasant even outside of Glasgow which easily accounts for large numbers of the crime levels in Scotland, and Britain for that matter.

PhillyB or anyone else who has visited Scotland: did you visit the Isle of Mull or Skye? They look and sound beautiful.

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haven't been to either… no time. i'll save 'em for the next trip

[NanuqoftheNorth]

Mother Nature is the ultimate femme fatal.

 

One moment you are seduced by her stunning beauty, the very next, you are desperately struggling to free yourself from her lethal clutch.

[SCP]

Well done Phily

[PhillyB]

stumbled across an old parish with a graveyard

 

[Happy Panther]

All of the UK does great graveyards!

 

And mailboxes.

[PanthersBigD]

spent the day at the battlefield at stirling bridge and visited the william wallace monument… pretty awesome

 

My ancestors were the keepers of Stirling Castle. If you saw the unfinished 'Mar's Wark' down right below the road leading up to the castle, that was my family's. I got to visit it with my paternal cousin, so that was kind of special to us.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar's_Wark

 

If you haven't been to Edinburgh Castle yet, really try and make the trip. The view from the castle is amazing and the war museum in the castle is one of the best I visited during my trip.

 

If you're in Glasgow, I recommend Kelvingrove Museum as well, and a hike up to the University of Glasgow's campus at the top of the hill. Also, if you like taking pics of grave markers, etc., be sure to visit the Glasgow Necropolis.

[PhillyB]

very nice! the castle itself was a bit expensive after the cash we've dropped on this trip, so we decided to forgo it and spend some time at the WW monument instead… we'll be back (hopefully with more money, haha) and see it then.

 

also hauling a one-year-old around doesn't make those sorts of experiences as appealing as they might otherwise be.

[SmokinwithWilly]

Did you yell "FREEDOM!" at some point during this trip? An opportune time would have been as you were sliding down the mountain, since you were about to die.

[PanthersBigD]

The first castle I visited was Edinburgh, so after that, they all seemed a little underwhelming. I'd say you're probably fine living your entire life without seeing the inside of Stirling Castle. The only reason we went is because of the family connection. Edinburgh is worth the price of admission. All of the stuff I mentioned in Glasgow is free.

[PanthersBigD]

Loch Lomond is another free destination(other than fuel) not too far from you, if you're in Glasgow. Not sure if I ever mentioned it. Everyone I hung out with in Scotland swore that Nessie was created to lure people up to Inverness because no one wants to go to there and that Loch Lomond is their favorite lake. It was beautiful, and you can stop and let your kid see/pet highland cows or sheep all along the drive there. There are several camp grounds on the lake, but no permanent development. Great place for a drive, even in crappy weather and there's a lot of opportunities for great pictures.

 

We've got family living in Italy, so we've got trips to Italy planned for the next couple of years, but I'd love to take my wife back to Scotland with me. I'm going to try and bribe my brother in law to plan a trip within a trip to Scotland while we're visiting in Italy.

[rayzor]

i spent some time wandering around scotland by myself in the 90s. i had a friend i went to school with from sterling whose dad was a preacher there. he gave me a list of churches scattered around the country with contact people there and i would pick a place i wanted to go and told them i was a college student traveling around and told them i was a college student who knew that family and if there was someone who could house me for a couple of days. i would stay with families and they would feed me and show me around their town and fill me in on all the history there and let me stay on their couch or guest room. all they ever asked me for was for an american barbeque which basically meant they wanted me to grill out some hamburgers or hot dogs. i had a britrail scotland  pass for a couple weeks that helped me get around and i walked or took a bus pretty much everywhere else.

 

i spent a little less than a week with some college students in glascow at their flat. i spent some time in stirling, edinburgh,  inverness and aberdeen and a few days in places i can't remember off hand. probably my favorite place, tho, was the isle of skye. when i couldn't find someone's couch to sleep on i would stay at hostels and skye was one of those places. the world cup was going on at that point (maybe in france? i can't remember) and there were travelers from all over the world there so it was prett cool watching some of it with them. 

 

i hired a bicycle to ride across the island and ate some lunch on the shores at elgol in the remains of some old house that was basically just the walls left. when i went back to my bike i realized that my tire was flat. it was getting late and i think it was 12 or 16 miles or something  to get across. i met up with some prawn fishermen who had just finished for the day and lived on the other side of the island where the hostel was and they offered to take me over there on their boat. i drank a lot of coffee and got to hear a lot about life there and the history of the place. we went looking for whales but couldn't find any. just a good trip overall.

 

when i went to stirling and edinburgh i got to see the old battlefields and i remember thinking that it really didn't look like it did in braveheart. the william wallace monument was pretty cool  wood carving of him at the base wbich was inspired by mel gibsons portrayal was....well  interesting. 

 

the movie rob roy had been out a year or  before i went and i remember catching up on the history of him and wallace and thought it was funny how liam niesen was a whole lot taller than rob roy who apparently was this short stocky little red head and mel gibson was, i guess, a lot shorter than wallace who must have been huge to wield that sword of his that is on display there (at least i think it was there at the monument).

 

glascow was the hardest place to get around. it was a really tough city and was really too big for me to be walking around by myself, like i did one of the first couple days there and got lost. it was a few hours before i remembered the name of area i was staying in (castlemilk, iirc) so i could ask for directions. i didn't remember the names of any of the streets around where i was staying at. i eventually found my way back, tho. i'm not sure what time it was, but it was still light out which means it could have been after 10 or 11 at night. oh...and the people in Glasgow were the hardest to understand caus  they talked so fast and their accents were so think. everywhere  else i went was really laid back, but glascow was just constant. i'm not a big city guy so i wasn't that big a fan of glascow. 

 

scotland is such a good place to be, though. i hope to take my wife and kids there when both my daughters could appreciate it.

 

i loved reading the OP, btw. thanks for sharing that and giving me a chance to remember my time there. 

[Cat]

Your kid is adorable. 

 

I got punched in the gut by a one armed man last weekend. That was pretty exciting and extremely painful. I've never been punched before and I'm sure not many can say they've been punched by a one armed man. 

 

 

 

ps. it was on accident of course. 

 

Glad you're ok and have a blast!