Scotland Dreaming
Here’s a “wish list” of sorts, adapted from http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/travel/tourists-flock-to-scotland-s-magnificent-seven-attractions-1-4039181#ixzz41ScsirTe
Been there in 2015, will go back in 2016: A total of 1.57 million people paid to visit Edinburgh Castle during 2015, though the other places attracting a million visitors were free to enter.
The National Museum of Scotland was the second most popular tourist site in Scotland in 2015, followed by the Scottish National Gallery and (saw the outside in 2015) St Giles Cathedral.
In Glasgow, (maybe 2016?) Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which ten years ago, undertook a three-year, £27.9 million refurbishment, was the most popular place for people to visit, attracting 1.26 million visitors in 2015.
Loch Lomond Shores in Balloch was the remaining site to pass the one million mark.
Professor John Lennon pg Glasgow Caledonian University, said: “Scotland is clearly punching above its weight in visitor attraction performance.”
In the list of the top ten paid for attractions, Stirling Castle also performed well, attracting 458,932 visitors last year.
In the non-paid for category, after (want to see, maybe 2016?) Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens, which saw 836,755 visitors flock through its doors in 2015, Gretna Green’s Famous Blacksmith’s Shop was the next popular, with 775,868 tourist visits.
The Helix Park in Falkirk, which features the Kelpies horse head sculptures and the Falkirk Wheel provided a combined appeal to 1.3 million visitors to Scotland. Other top paid-for sites included Edinburgh Zoo, (Been there in 2015) Edinburgh Bus Tours, Glasgow Science Centre and (Been there in 2015, completely by accident) Urquhart Castle in Drumnadrochit.
The Royal Yacht Britannia and the Scotch Whisky Experience, both in Edinburgh, the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick and Culzean Castle and Country Park in Ayrshire completed the top 10 paid-for list.
We’ll see what 2016 holds and maybe add on a 2017 trip?
Right now our 2016 trip includes 3 days in Edinburgh to see the Edinburgh Tattoo again (HOORAY!). Hopefully I will be able to get to the top of Edinburgh Castle to see the Scottish National War Memorial where my grandfather’s name is listed as a war hero.
Then, we move on to Glasgow for 7 days. No real plans yet, but we’re taking a side trip to Lockerbie, a trip I’ve wanted to make for several years.
Someday, I would love to visit Eilean Donan Castle, the one that’s in the Piano Guys video This is Your Fight Song…
Scotland Notes
Beinn: is the most common Gaelic word for “mountain”
Coffee americano: (black coffee with 2 shots of espresso)
Chips: French Fries
Dinnae: Don’t. My grandmother and people in the church where I grew up said this all the time. “A dinnae ken” which means “I don’t know”.
Haggis: Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach though now often in an artificial casing instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: “Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour”.
We have my grandmother’s old cookbook with recipes for haggis, lights, sweetbreads (don’t ask), blood pudding… I never could have made it in the olden days!
We also saw haggis pizza, haggis flavored chips, frozen haggis… We tried none of that.
I was going to put a picture but I couldn’t stomach it (NO pun intended!)
Loch en Eilein: Simply – loch means lake. Eilein means island. So, there’s an island in the lake 🙂
Place suffixes:
-more:
-ness: a promontory or headland. Loch Ness is a lake with a promontory
-shire: Roughly “county of” Inverness-shire; Perthshire
-strath: a wide river valley, a stretch of relatively flat, fertile land bounded by hills. Strathspey is the River Spey and the valley around it.
Interesting place names:
- Crook of Devon: The name derives from the sudden angle (crook) which the River Devon makes near the village. A village within the parish of Fossoway in Perthshire. It is located about 6 miles southwest of Kinross on the A977 road. Until relatively recently the official name of the village was Fossoway (as evidenced on the war memorial etc.) but this has been usurped by the widely used nickname “crook of devon”.
- Drumnadrochit: It derives from the Scottish Gaelic ‘druim na drochaid’ meaning the ‘Ridge of the Bridge’.
- Firth of Forth: (Scottish Gaelic: Linne Foirthe) is the estuary or firth of Scotland’s River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea, between Fife to the north and Lothian to the south. It was known as Bodotria in Roman times.
- Inverfarigaig: (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Farragaig) is a hamlet at the mouth of the River Farigaig, on the south-east shore of Loch Ness in Inverness-shire, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland.
- Kingdom of Fife: (Scottish Gaelic: Fìobha) is a council area and historic county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland.
- Killiecrankie. I have no idea how it got this name. It sounds sort of like you want to kill the crank but that can’t be right.
Killiecrankie (Gaelic: Coille Chreithnich) is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland on the River Garry. - Loch Faskally: (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Faschoille is a man-made reservoir in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) northwest of Pitlochry.
Playlist of all my Scotland videos plus others of interest: