Scotland

Gavin had another meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. Since the meeting was the day before Thanksgiving, we decided to spend the rest of the weekend in Scotland.

We stayed at a hotel called the Beardmore, which is connected to a hospital. I'm not sure why it's connected to the hospital because when we asked about it, the hotel said that most of their guests are there for business and not for the hospital.

We asked some people at the hotel what I should do in Glasgow while Gavin was in his meeting. They all told me to skip Glasgow and head into Edinburgh.

After Gavin's meeting, we drove north towards a small town called Fort William, where we stayed for the night.

Now, in Europe, there isn't a lot of fast food options. There are only a few chains, McDonalds, KFC, Subway, and Pizza Hut. We didn't want to stop long for lunch because it got so dark so early in Scotland (the sun set around 2), so we stopped at KFC at lunch. It was a surprise how much better the food was there than it is in the States.
Loch Lomond.
This is Loch Linnhe, which is near Fort William.

We have a suspicion that the hotel we were staying at was actually a nursing home. When we got there, there were several elderly people hanging out by the bar. The breakfast room looked exactly the cafeteria at the care center my grandma lived at. This was our Thanksgiving breakfast. We backed tracked a little to Ben Nevis, which is the highest point in the British Isles. We found a little waterfall right by the road.

We were heading to Loch Ness, but Gavin was insistent that he wanted to check out this stupid monument that this tiny city had. What he really wanted to do was surprise me with the Harry Potter train tracks. It's a really impressive structure.

It looked like there was some fun hikes around it, but it was too cold.

One of the things Gavin really wanted to see in Scotland was the highland cows. They are only found in Scotland and are really furry to survive the cold winters there. I love the long hair covering their eyes.

You might have to click on the picture to see them better. They are really cute cows.

Our next stop was Loch Ness to hunt down Nessie.

We loved the random waterfalls along the road.

The Scottish Highlands are a really pretty place.

We stopped at the Loch Ness Center for a minute. This is the original sub they used to look for Nessie.

Loch Ness.

We stopped at the Urquhart Castle, which is the midpoint of the lake.

The castle was built in 1230 A.D. Every hundred years or so, a wandering clan would come upon the castle, think it would be a nice place to live, fight the current clan living there, and the whole castle would have to be rebuilt. This happened 5 or 6 times. It was finally abandoned in 1689.

There were tours that would take you out on Loch Ness to look for Nessie, equiped with sonar to detect any movement deep down in the lake.

The kitchen area of the castle.

I searched so hard for Nessie. I was sure I was going to see her.

The Urquhart Castle probably had the prettiest setting out of all of the castles we have seen in Europe. Loch Ness is such a pretty lake.

A fighter jet flew over us while we were there.

A replica of the catapults they used there.

After Loch Ness, we drove north through the town of Inverness, which is where the play MacBeth takes place.

It got too dark for pictures after that, but we drove to Edinburgh and went looking for a place to have Thanksgiving dinner. Gavin wasn't feeling so well at this point, so we just grabbed something quick for me and headed to bed. It was certainly an interesting Thanksgiving. It hardly felt like Thanksgiving at all, but the Scottish Highland were so beautiful, it more than made up for it. :)

Venice Glass Making

The video is a little long, but it's the glass maker on Morano. He's making a vase and it took him about 7 minutes to complete it.

View from the Rialto Bridge

This is a quick video taken from the Rialto Bridge, looking down the Grand Canal.

Venice

We loved Venice. It was probably our favorite place out of everywhere we went. There were tiny ally ways and bridges everywhere. We had a bit of a rough start when we first got there (we couldn't remember what hotel we booked), but loved our time there.

We were also there during high tide, so every morning, most of Venice flooded. We asked some people who live there and apparently this only happens a few days each year. I guess we were just lucky. San Marco square set up walk ways so people could get around.

The platform we chose to walk on led us right into St. Mark's Basilica, which was built in 828 A.D.

The Basilica flooded as well.


It had beautiful, detailed tiled floors.





Everywhere you go, there are masks for sale. Some were really pretty.




Gondolas going under the Bridge of Sighs.
The Bridge of Sighs. We were annoyed that they were doing construction and most of the bridge was covered up.
Along the waterfront.
We toured the Doge's Palace, which was the former Doge's residence, the main government building, and the palace of justice.
This is the courtyard. Most of it is marble.

The ceiling of the Golden Staircase, which leads to the Doge's apartment.
We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, but we snuck a couple. ;)

One of the cells of the prison there.
Walking across the Bridge of Sighs, which connects the Doge's Palace to the prison. The bridge provided those who were convicted their last view of Venice before being imprisoned.
Looking out from the Bridge of Sighs.
The Scala dei Giganti, which leads directly to the Doge's Apartment. Those are statues of Neptune and Mars at the top.
There was a room that held old columns.
I loved the details of the courtyards.


One thing that Venice is famous for is their glass. There were so many glass shops that were selling beautiful pieces of glass.
The Rialto Bridge.
Walking across the Rialto Bridge.
Every store was obsessed in making sure that we knew their stuff was made in Italy and no China. That was usually the first thing they said to us.
You can only walk along the Grand Canal for a small part. We had lunch at a place right next to the water.
We loved the little alley ways. It was fun just to walk around and see where we ended up.
Looking down the Grand Canal.

Every open space there had some sort of market.



We loved walking around and finding random bridges crossing the canals.



St. Mark's Square at night.
St. Mark's Basilica


Doge's Palace.



Rialto Bridge at night.
The Grand Canal.
The next day, our hotel arranged a tour of Morano Island, which is where most of the glass is made. We really just took a boat to the island and toured a shop, but it was still really fun.

It was really interesting to watch them make glass. It's a really quick process. We watched him make a horse and a vase in under ten minutes.



The powdery stuff is what they melt to make the glass.
It was funny after the tour because you are then taken into the shop and the sales people pounce on you. We had a guy following us around, acting like our best friend, but as soon as he figured out we weren't going to buy anything, he ditched us and went to bother someone else.

The view from our hotel room. We could almost see the tower. It was just a little to the right.
We found it hilarious how they do the keys here. It's like this in most of the hotels we stayed in. Your key in on a huge tassel that you leave with the front desk as you go out for the day and pick it up when you come back. The front desk guy said it was so they knew who was still out at night.


The Chiesea della Salute. We were there during the Feast of Good Health, which people pray to the Madonna for good health.


Inside the Chiesa della Salute.

We toured the Gallerie dell Accademia, which is a famous art gallery. I really wanted to see Da Vinchi's Virtuvian Man, but since it's a drawing and very fragile, it's only on display a few times a year. I was really disappointed.


Our last day, there were a couple of things we wanted to do, but had trouble getting around because of the flooding.
You can see how high the water was. The steps are completely covered.



St. Mark's Basilica.
Campanile di San Marco.

The view of Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore.
On our way to the airport, we took the boat bus up the Grand Canal. I loved how the houses along the Canal all had docks right on the river.
The Rialto Bridge.



We had some trouble getting home, including getting on the wrong bus and ending up in the middle of the city Trevsio and losing our boarding passes in the taxt to the airport.

We loved Venice. Venice was so beautiful and fun. We could have spent forever wandering around the little alleyways, looking at the shops and eating the delicous food.