Scottish animals – both edible and metal

It’s important to keep tour mates happy, and now that Ron had been able to trespass at St. Andrews, it was time to get Kris out to see her large metal horses.

We saw the Kelpies as part of an 8-hour driving tour and one thing I noticed as we traveled around is a lot of cute sheep. There are more sheep than people in Scotland.

All four of us are delighted by the hundreds…thousands…of assorted sheep continuously visible from our bus. But I don’t believe Jim is charmed in the same way that I am. Jim is assessing the barbecue possibilities. Or maybe he’d eat them raw – this concoction he ate the other day never made contact with any kind of cooking mechanism.

And while Jim is wanting to eat the sheep we are seeing, Ron has veered off onto his own livestock tangent. The other day, on our Rabbies Day Tour bus, Ron told me that, given the immense volume of sheep and lambs we are seeing, all of the sheep in Scotland clearly had sex on the same day.

I had no problem with this assertion – I think we are all used to statements like this from Ron. My embarrassment only arose because Ron had been “placed” on our Rabbies bus right up front – in a jump seat by the driver and, about 6 hours into our touring day, I heard Ron try out his single day sheep sex extravaganza theory on our poor driver, David. David is well-trained, though. He ignored the theory and redirected Ron to these statistics – there are 6 million sheep in Scotland. When the birthing season arrives, that number soars to 12 million for awhile, and then drops back down to 6 million. How? People like Jim, snacking the population back down in size.

We did make it to the Kelpies! Although I made fun of Kris’s interest in the Kelpies, I will admit that these 100 foot tall horses are spectacular. They are near the Forth and Clyde Canal…about 45 minutes outside of Edinburgh…and are a tribute to the historic Clydesdale horses that provided transportation and moved barges loaded with goods. The cost to build these was 6.6 million dollars, largely funded by the Scottish National Lottery.

Here are the Kelpies during the day:

I discovered two things while visiting the Kelpies site. One is that the Kelpies are lit at night – in a rotating assortment of colors. There is no art that speaks to me more than 100 feet of rotating twinkling metal and so I asked Ron about driving back out in the dark and got a solid NO so we’ll all have to settle for this:

In addition to the wonder of the site, the Kelpies’ gift shop sold these adorable tweezers, decorated with a unicorn. The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland, making these tweezers a prize and extremely relevant trip memento for me.

We had our final touring day with Kris and Jim – a focus on architecture and manor houses. In contrast to the other bus tours we took from Edinburgh, this was a day I designed myself. I am ever thankful that my travel mates trust me (and chip in money!) to create these types of travel days.

We were picked up by Michael of Hopscotch Travel, who said he’s never taken anyone on a tour of this site grouping, but he seemed pretty game for the itinerary. Michael turned out to be one of those rare tour guides who hits every mark: safe driver, shares history (but not too much history!!), and has a great sense of humor. It was like driving around with a buddy and even though it was way more expensive than the Rabbies group tour, this was one of my favorite touring days ever.

We put Jim up front for the tour. Ron was deemed untrustworthy after his sheep sex theory and Jim turned out to be perfect for Michael. They both have an ardent passion for foods that most of us put in the garbage – and they bonded over that immediately. They happily discussed the increased nutritional value of entrails, hearts, and bone marrow. In case you’ve got appetite left, we got to listen to a description of how to make haggis and blood pudding as well (don’t forget the pig’s blood and pork fat).

(Note: the rest of us in the van were not completely excluded as we had a separate bonding moment later on in the day, when we could not find an easy-access bathroom, as we all shared our best urine urgency stories. This is the kind of extraordinary and dedicated driver Michael is and I think it’s easy to see how we learned so much about Scottish history from him.)

Our first stop was Rosslyn Chapel, from 1446. It was made famous in the DaVinci Code movie. Look at this gothic masterpiece:

And the intricate stone carving inside:

Rosslyn Chapel was saved from ruin in the last 30 years. The chapel, subject to Scotland’s wet weather for over 500 years, had reached a critical state of decay. Mold and moss was growing onto the stone carvings on the ceilings and the structure of the chapel was in danger. A group of scientists and architects devised a plan that included covering the entire chapel with this canopy for 10 years so that it could naturally and slowly dry out and then, after the 10 years, starting a 4 year renovation:

From Rosslyn Chapel, we went to the home of Sir Walter Scott – Abbotsford House, from 1817. This architectural style is called a Scottish Baronial but what it really seems to be is bits and pieces of gothic arches coupled with a Disney castle. It’s just perfect:

The house is full of Scott’s decor, jam-packed with books and art and other things he decided to hang on the walls. Here’s the entry room:

And here’s the library, with over 9000 books and a fantastic ceiling:

Our final house was Thirlestane Castle, from 1587. It was a nice contrast to Abbotsford House:

They also had this snack bar for Jim:

Thirlestane Castle has been lived in by the Maitland family since 1590. The current family has moved itself over into one corner of the castle and opened up the rest of the place to private touring and events like classic car shows and dachshund gatherings. It’s funny to walk around the Castle – their private things are everywhere – pictures of their children hugging family dogs and the items on their bedside tables, mixed right in with oil portraits from the 17th century. The whole tour feels like a massive invasion of their privacy, but I suppose we’re a (very small) part of their plan to maintain a house they can no longer really afford. We paid $100 for our private tour and we were the only people there, guided around by two extremely enthusiastic volunteers.

The highlight of the interior is the 17th century Dunsterfield gold-gilded plaster ceilings:

Kris and Jim have headed home and we hope to see them again in Sicily in the fall. Ron and I have two more days and a night at the London Zoo on our way back home so I’ll report one more time from the zoo. It will surely be sad that Jim misses our unmonitored overnight at the zoo, given his interest in eating the 6 million Scottish sheep – the zoo would present an epic fine dining opportunity for him.