Glenfinnan Viaduct / Glencoe Daytrip!

 

Last Tuesday, my Mom, Levi and I went on a day trip North of Glasgow to the Glenfinnan Viaduct. This is the famous viaduct that was used in the first Harry Potter movie when he is on his way to Hogwarts. We woke up and left the house at 7 AM so we could be at the Buchanan street bus station at 7:45. We met our bus and our tour guide. We had three other people on the day trip with us, they were from France. We started off driving and passed many Lochs. We found out there are around 30,000 Lochs total in Scotland. As we got further away from Glasgow higher up into the mountains we got great views of the snow that had just fallen on the top of the mountains. The views were amazing:

We stopped at a rest area where we got a great view over the Loch:

We stopped on the side of the road to look at a cool waterfall. 

The next spot we stopped was at a famous place known as the three sisters. They are the peaks of three huge mountains all right next to each other and they all had snow on top of them. 

The sun was peaking through the clouds and the view was crazy. Heres an epic panorama photo that I took:

We stopped next in a city called Glencoe. We walked through the visitors center and they had an original house that they were recreating. It was more of a hut:

The next town we stopped in was Fort William. This was a cute and small town that had a cool church and a main street that we walked down with some shops and a couple bakery's on it. 

This is a monument to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII:

We found this really cool church next to a graveyard.

We walked down the main street. 

There were a few restaurants, pubs, charity shops, bakery's, craft shops and wool shops. We found a cool bike covered in caledonian wool:

On our walk back we stopped at one of the bakery's to buy some food for lunch. We got some sandwiches and I got some sort of pistachio pastry that was very delicious.

We drove through Glenfinnan on our way to Mallaig which is a small fishing village. We would stop at the Glenfinnan Viaduct on our drive back. We stopped at a large Loch that led out to the sea and we could see a smaller Viaduct in the distance. 

We drove further North and once we got pretty close to Mallaig we stopped at some beaches that are very popular because of how nice they are to other beaches, comparatively speaking, in Scotland. 

Once we got to Mallaig we had about 40 minutes there to spend. We walked around the middle of the town and it was a very small fishing village. We could see a few houses further up the hill. There were a lot of fishing boats in the harbor and there was one or two shops and a tea room. 

On our drive back we stopped in Glenfinnan to check out the huge Viaduct. We went up the hill to get a great view of it then we walked close up to it along a river that had great drinking water. It was huge up close looks very vast. 

View of the Glenfinnan Monument

We also walked to the Glenfinnan Monument which was right on the edge of the water. It is a tall monument that signified the 1745 Jacobite rising when Prince Charles claimed that area with the support of the Jacobites. 

We drove back to Glasgow and got back around 7 PM.

We walked into town to get something to eat and ended up eating at Wagamama. I had never been there before but I got a great pork bowl with a fried egg, rice and other vegetables. It was very good. I also tried some of Levi's jasmine tea that he got that had a jasmine green tea flower in it. 

We did a ton in one day and I really enjoyed the trip. We stopped many times and explored some cool small towns we had never visited before. The Glenfinnan Viaduct was really cool to experience up close and walking under it. 

-Jackson

Fort William 

Tea for two.......... or three, or four.....

 Is life getting back to some sense of normalcy?  Oh please let it be true.

It seems that Scotland is coming out of the covid chaos, and settling down a bit.  Restrictions are dropping and I am left in awe of how surreal it has all been.  

With that said,  I've been having a bit of fun with friends.  So much so, that one of my friends just pointed out that FUN is a word I use all the time.  Really???  I didn't realize this until she said it, but lo and behold, I then said it about 5 times in the next 5 minutes.  Mind blown, I really had no idea. 

So, GUILTY as charged!  

Ha!  I like having fun and living life!  I actually even like being one who says the 'f' word a lot.  In fact, I believe that will be my word for 2022.  I think that we should all have fun as much as we can.  It's been a tough past couple of years, and I am ready to add some enjoyment to the lockdown life we have been living.  And as y'all know, fear just ain't my 'gig.'  I'm willing to throw caution to the wind and let the universe drive me to where I ought to go.  And lately, where that has been, is to have tea!  

Tea with friends,,, I mean seriously, how FUN is that!?!?!

This is Mary, my American in Glasgow friend and confidant.

We hitched a ride on a vintage bus from 1967, complete with minimal shocks, prosecco, and tiny cute food to eat.  I was smitten!

Look at how cute is this, or should I say fun?

We proceeded to tour Glasgow in all of its glory.  It was a beautiful sunny day to go bouncing along the cobblestones.

The Necropolis is one of my favorite graveyards ever, with the Glasgow Cathedral below it. 

 

City centre

Fabulous photo of Mary.

This crane in Glasgow is as famous as the Poolbeg towers in Dublin.  The locals LOVE them, for me it is an acquired taste.  

Now that I had the vintage tea bus tour under my belt, it was time to enjoy another Glasgow famed and vintage location.  The Mackintosh Tea Rooms.

An Englishwoman, a Scottish woman, a Northern Irish lass and an American, all walk into a tea room.  And proceed to laugh and have loads of FUN (and, well, tea)!

Effie the Englishwoman, drinking coffee in a tearoom.  

Karyn and Kitty working our way through cakes!

Charles Rennie Mackintosh is a long dead artist from Glasgow, gaining his fame mostly postmortem.  He and his artistic wife (Margaret Macdonald) have left such beautiful art all over the city.  This tearoom is stunning!  A true belter.   

Needless to say, it really was a blast.  And a high caloric one at that.  

So the moral of the story this week is.......life is short, friends, have way more FUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

........and don't be afraid to use the 'f' word!

the crazy tea-tipping 

Cairns