The Wonders of Scotland

[JBS]

Wonderful!
I've been to the UK once, on one of those package tours that hit and run the highlights. That was in July 1995.
The photos I took all ended up on Flickr.
I'll try and link them.
As a test, here's the Glen Mor. Second photo features the obligatory bagpiper.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17367796072

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17343797276

[Luke]

Yes, they worked - send more!

[JBS]

Three from our tour bus of the moors north of Glen Mor running towards Fort William, I think.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17183532109

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17343796156

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/16749465823

I should mention we didn't go to the Hebrides, and the farthest north we got was Inverness, and the wildest was the main road through the Cairngorms.

[JBS]

I'm not sure where this was: I labelled the pictures "The Grampians".

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/16749467123


https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17369417431

[Luke]

I love these. Apart from the views themselves (and that bagpiper!) I love the feeling of them, the saturation etc. makes me nostalgic for the early 90s!

[JBS]

A Highland stream near Balmoral, plus a view of Her Majesty's Vegetable Garden at Balmoral, with the woods immediately adjacent to the gardens.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17343796026

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17367800332

Culloden Field, as it would have been seen by the Jacobite army.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/16749469143

Loch Ness. No sign of Nessie that day.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17343795206

The beach at St Andrews. The Royal And Ancient is behind and to the left out of picture.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17369751775

And the modern city of Edinburgh as seen from the Castle
https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17183535229

[JBS]

And to sign off, from Loch Lomond: the Loch and the hills immediately next to it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/16747229104


https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/17343795466

[JBS]

I love these. Apart from the views themselves (and that bagpiper!) I love the feeling of them, the saturation etc. makes me nostalgic for the early 90s!

Thank you! If you want to see what they showed us typical Yankee tourists, the full album is here, the result of 10 days bopping around 🇬🇧.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/albums/72157710884896808/

[Luke]

Funny, where you took that Loch Ness photo from is approximately where the aforementioned Crowley's house at Boleskin was, though from lower down the hill.

[Luke]

Thank you! If you want to see what they showed us typical Yankee tourists, the full album is here, the result of 10 days bopping around 🇬🇧.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53982507@N05/albums/72157710884896808/

Love the Downing Street one!

[JBS]

Funny, where you took that Loch Ness photo from is approximately where the aforementioned Crowley's house at Boleskin was, though from lower down the hill.

Yes, they pointed out the house as we passed, though they didn't stop and there was no clear view of it.

That road we were on was a one-lane road all along the Loch and some distance north. At one point our bus had to pull over to let a car by coming from the opposite direction.

[JBS]

Love the Downing Street one!

I rather like the police officer in Ludlow, the footman in Bath, and the "dragon" in Chester.

[Luke]

Single track roads like that are par for the course all over the UK but especially in Scotland. Hence the ubiquitous passing place signs they have up there, as in my Skye6 one, or here, halfway up the Bealach na Ba:

[Elgarian Redux]

This isn't a thread. It's a Scottish visual orgy.

[Luke]

No answers to my teasers on my last photos, 26 and 27?

[Elgarian Redux]

No answers to my teasers on my last photos, 26 and 27?

Not from me. It's my birthday today and we're off out for coffee and a crossword puzzle.

[Luke]

Happy birthday! Have a great day!

[Florestan]

It's my birthday today

Happy birthday, John!

[DaveF]

No answers to my teasers on my last photos, 26 and 27?

Mendelssohn drew a rather good sketch of Dunollie - did he also sail from there en route to Staffa?

As a half-Scot who knows the country pretty well, I've been lurking on this thread.  Some wonderful pictures.

Don't know the answer to your no.27, so will reply with a puzzle of my own - we've been singing the praises (quite rightly) of the road from Ullapool to the north coast, but the place where it reaches the coast - Durness - also figures tangentially in the history of music - why is that?

A Bealach na Bà story - I went on holiday many years ago up there with an aunt of mine who was the most terrifying driver, but who thought she was wonderful - had never had an accident, and those she had had were always someone else's fault - and when we came to the bottom of the road at Kishorn and saw the "experienced drivers" sign, I was praying that she might have that molecule of self-knowledge that would prevent her from attempting it.  Luckily she did - "No, we won't go that way today!"  Phew.

[Luke]

Mendelssohn drew a rather good sketch of Dunollie - did he also sail from there en route to Staffa?

Correct (well, he sailed from Oban, but you're right about the sketch). Not only that, he drew it from exactly where I took this photo. I drove round till I found it. The sketch dates from the day he wrote a letter home which contains the first ideas for 'Fingal's Cave' - i.e., the day before he actually went to Fingal's Cave.

As a half-Scot who knows the country pretty well, I've been lurking on this thread.  Some wonderful pictures.

Don't know the answer to your no.27, so will reply with a puzzle of my own - we've been singing the praises (quite rightly) of the road from Ullapool to the north coast, but the place where it reaches the coast - Durness - also figures tangentially in the history of music - why is that?

Well, that'll be John Lennon: it was where he went on holiday as a kid (and where he took Yoko as an adult - he crashed his car driving round Loch Eriboll which rather ruined things). I stopped briefly in Durness on my night drive along the north coast - it's where the road simply turns left, and now you're heading south! -  and I took a photo of the John Lennon Memorial Garden. Originally my book was going to have a few sections on various pop/rock things (Beatles, Pink Floyd, Nick Drake a couple more) but I took them out, not without having done the work. And in fact my no.27 is VERY closely linked to your Durness fact. There's a clue in the photo.

A Bealach na Bà story - I went on holiday many years ago up there with an aunt of mine who was the most terrifying driver, but who thought she was wonderful - had never had an accident, and those she had had were always someone else's fault - and when we came to the bottom of the road at Kishorn and saw the "experienced drivers" sign, I was praying that she might have that molecule of self-knowledge that would prevent her from attempting it.  Luckily she did - "No, we won't go that way today!"  Phew.

     Yes, I was questioning myself too, but I took the plunge.... wrong term given the sheer drops!!