ICONIC IMAGES OF SCOTLAND (Part One)

The Scottish thistle is but one of many iconic images of Scotland--those sights which call up other mental visages of the Scottish experience.  Even if you’ve never traveled to the land of haggis, broadswords, and heather certain pictures clue you that you are seeing Scotland or will come to mind when someone mentions Scotland.

In this series of posts I will share some of what I believe are the most Scottish of images, starting with the structures which seem to crowd the landscape, Scotland’s castles.  Whether lived in or recently lived in, such as castles Methven, Glamis, Menzies, or Craigievar,

Methven Castle near Perth

Glamis Castle, the home Queen Mum and childhood home of Elizabeth II. 

Menzies Castle in the Highlands.

Craigievar Castle, lived in until the 1960s.

or ruins like Balvenie, Loch an Eilein, or Stalker, these castles represent the history of a nation whose culture is both violent and enlightened.  

Balvenie Castle near Balvenie and Glenfiddich Distilleries.

Loch an Eilein Castle in Cairngorm National Park.

Castle Stalker on the west coast.

Historic castles, particularly Stirling and Edinburgh, are major tourist draws and bustle with crowds year round.  

Stirling Castle of Braveheart fame.

Edinburgh Castle seen from the old shopping district below.

And yet other castles become picture postcards for Scotland tourism-- Eilean Donan and Dunnottar being the best examples.  

Castle Eilean Donan, seen with hot air balloon as an opening for BBC programming in America.

Dunnottar Castle near Aberdeen on the North Sea.

Look on any map of Scotalnd and you will notice the dots of castles--touristy, lived in, ruined, and almost forgotten--in every corner of the country.

Next, an important image that comes to mind when Scotland is mentioned is golf.  As the Home of Golf, where the game was developed if not invented, golf and Scotland are almost synonymous. 

Anne pitches out of the bunkers backwards at Kingsbarns GC near St Andrews.

The British Open, especially when played at St Andrews Old Course, and this year’s Ryder Cup venue Gleneagles are known to many more than weekend duffers.  Golf in Scotland, though is not relegated to the famous courses, but instead infects the country like a plague--a plague many of us relish.  Scotland, about two-thirds the size of Oregon, has at last count 595 golf courses while Oregon has but 260.  

St Andrews from St Andrews Castle Course.

St Andrews Castle Course, newest of the seven St Andrews Links Trust courses. 

Every village, even some of the smallest, will have a golf course.  

Anne at Isle of Skye GC, where else but the Isle of Skye.

Scenes of golf courses, famous or unheralded, will forever represent Scotland.

Whereas New York may be known for its skyscrapers, Scotland is better known for quaint villages where people still walk to the butcher and bakery shops daily.  

Comrie Village, Perthshire, Central Scotland.

The village of Crieff is our home base when we're in Scotland. 

Comrie in the Autumn.

Filled with little shops and tea rooms, these villages, such as Crieff and Comrie in central Scotland, are a joy to visit to see everyday life in Scotland.  

The village of Portree, the main town on the Isle of Skye.

Tarbert on the Kintyre Peninsula in the evening.

Others become picture postcards to the memory.

         And while the quaint villages of Scotland are home to many Scots, there are other locals you’ll meet in the country--which in most cases is not far from the villages.  Most iconic is the "Hieland Coo" (Highland Cow), 

a hearty breed able to withstand the rigors of wet Scottish summers and cold winters.  Sometimes you get to meet some of the locals in the road, this is affectionately known as a Scottish traffic jam.  

The other local resident, responsible for the Scottish Clearances where many crofters were thrown off their land to make room for more profitable production, is the Scottish sheep.  

So iconic (and cute are the sheep and lambs) that Anne has managed to bring a herd of them home over the years. 

Last in this first part of Scotland images is an unsuspected figure, the Queen.  With very little love of things English by the Scots--and for good reason, just read a little history--it is amazing how much love and respect there is for the Queen. 

The Queen visiting Balmoral Castle (her Scottish summer residence) after a storm.  Photo taken by a Austrian friend we met at Merlindale B&B in Crieff.

Elizabeth II may be an English monarch, but she is The Queen to the Scots and thus an image of great importance.

Next: Part Two and then Part Three...were you expecting anything else?  

A Week in the Kingdom of Fife, Part 2 plus

To continue the story...    

Anne with her rally cap on trying to win our match.

Wednesday was a day off from golf: a touring day.  From our castle apartment we made a beeline--at least as straight as we could on the back roads of Fife--for Starbucks in St Andrews.  While having our lattes and sweets we had entertaining conversations, first with a young girl who saw my Nikon D7100 and wanted some advice on camera choices, and second with a girl from Portland who was in her second year at St Andrews University.  The weather, which had been quite showery, started to turn a little better as we drove out to the St Andrews Botanic Garden.  

The fall colors are starting to show.

St Andrews Botanic has a nice hot house section.

Even in late September there were still plenty of blooms to photograph, especially in their themed hot houses.  Next was a visit to one of our favorite golf courses, Crail, in order to book golf for the next day.  While in Crail we stopped for photos in their small harbour.  

Finally, after a walking tour of the village of Kilconquhar, we had dinner in the local pub, the Kinneuchar Inn.  

Good food with the locals.

The golf we had arranged the day before was at the second course at Crail, the Craighead Links.  Anne and I had played the course several years ago and had heard that the course had been much improved.  

Crail Craighead course plays where the Firth of Forth meets the North Sea.

Anne playing the 3rd at Crail Craighead.

We talked to the club secretary and asked if we could check out the improvements.  He comped us today’s round--they really like what I’ve written about their courses.  After golf it was off to another garden; this time the walled garden at Kellie Castle.  

Kellie Castle from the walled garden.

Fruit on the garden wall at Kellie Castle.

Again there was much in bloom to photograph.  Dinner that night was at one of our favorites in the area, the Ship Inn in Elie. 

Lamb shank for me and steak and Guinness pie for Anne.

Our last day in Fife was golf on the most difficult course of this part of the trip.  Lundin GC along the Firth of Forth is another Open qualifying course. 

One of the toughest holes at Lundin plays around the trees.

The course is long, the holes are tricky, and the wind seemed always to be in your face.  Often Anne had to hit over more gunk (marram grasses, heather, gorse, and other nasty stuff) than even her best shots could reach.  This was exhausting golf.  I had enough energy after golf to walk out on the Lundin Ladies‘ course 

Lundin standing stones on the Ladies' links.

to photograph the three large (13 feet tall) ancient (about 4000 years old) standing stones in the middle of the second fairway.  The rest of the day was spent packing for our move to the Highlands.  But that’s fodder for the next post.  

Our Encounters with Tegenaria Gigantea. 

      We've seen them before and don't like them.  They're large and they're fast.  Twice on this trip--at the B&B in Stonehaven and our time share in Ballater (Highlands)--we've had face to face confrontations with Tangenaria duellica (or gigantea) aka the Scottish house spider.  

They aren't poisonous, but they are 1-1/2 to 2 inches across.  For a common house spider they are uncommonly fast and tend to run straight at you.  With a great deal of to-do and screaming, we dispatched both of our adversaries.  If you count the legs in the photo you will see that you there are only seven; we found the eighth on the bathroom floor in the B&B from our first attempt on its life the night before.  Give me a slow, plodding Black Widow any day.