Scottish Photo Roundup

A few of my favorite photos from our Scottish Christmas:

One of our first stops in Scotland - and our first whisky purchase

Another Royal Mile Edinburgh photo

The Highlands are seriously beautiful

Photos of these phone booths never get old

Christmas Day on the Isle of Skye

Ran into a few Highland Cattle

View from our hotel room at Hotel Eilean Iarmain on Isle of Skye

There are no words

Just because she was too cute not to include

Christmas in Scotland

View from Edinburgh Castle

We spent our final Christmas in Europe in Scotland. December is an odd choice to visit the country, but we correctly figured that if we wanted to get to Scotland before moving back to the U.S., Christmas was the time. BB [Before Baby], trip planning went very differently. I would exhaustively research our destination, possible activities, and hotels. When we left for Scotland, Baby Nora was just shy of four months old. I was lucky I had clean clothes for us. We did have a guidebook, but I had not even cracked it open. So imagine our surprise when everyone from hoteliers to waiters to shopkeepers would greet us, ask where we were from, then say, "So are here for Hogmany?" We were clueless. Finally, as Nathan was updating his Facebook page, a Scottish friend asked the same question and Nathan admitted that we had no idea what this Hogmany was. That is when we found out that one of the hottest, most vibrant, New Year's celebrations in the entire world is in Scotland. Hogmany. We were flying back to Naples on December 30. So much for that.

Our Edinburgh hotel, The Scotsman

Resting up for their Big Night

Scotland was remarkably warm for our time there, but it did indeed rain every day but one. We started out in Edinburgh, arriving to our hotel about 9pm, very hungry. We thought nothing of heading out to dinner at 9:30pm. Here in Naples, the families with young children show up around 10ish, so we were ahead of the rush. Scotland is apparently more like the U.S. The restaurants were closing. No problem. We remembered the great pub grub from Ireland, so we looked for a pub. Music would be a happy bonus. No go. Babies are not allowed in pubs. Again, here in Italy, babies are allowed everywhere - fanciest restaurant in town? No problem. Bar? They offer to bring the baby juice. Coffee bar so small it's standing room only? Wheel that stroller in. We returned to our hotel still hungry and opted for sandwiches from room service. The next day we enjoyed strolling up and down Edinburgh's beautiful, historic Royal Mile, anchored at one end by the Edinburgh Castle and the other by Holyrood Palace. Stopping off at Cadenhead's Whisky provided a little warming cheer. Some sunshine peeked through our second day, as we toured the Castle, walked through New Town, and got to see reindeer! Edinburgh had a huge, Christmas Market going on, which we walked through briefly, but mostly, we just enjoyed the atmosphere of the old town. 

Edinburgh's Royal Mile - isn't it beautiful, even in the rain!

Driving to Isle of Skye through the Highlands - stunning!

On the night before we were to drive to the remote, Isle of Skye, we landed in the Emergency Room (or A&E in the UK) with Nora. She was diagnosed with bronchiolitis due to RSV - basically, a respiratory viral infection. She did not need to have oxygen, but we were instructed to watch her breathing carefully and to take her into the hospital on the Isle of Skye  if we noticed certain issues with her breathing. We were quite nervous about this, of course. After a drive through the stunning, Scottish Highlands on Christmas Eve, we settled into our hotel, Hotel Eilean Iarmain, and walked over to the hotel's very fancy restaurant. We were seated next to a nice couple from town, there for a nice dinner out, and chatted with them briefly. After dinner, we ran into them in the hotel lounge, a warm and cozy spot for pre or post dinner drinks and relaxing. Chatting briefly again, we mentioned our nervousness on being in such a remote area with the baby sick...turns out the lady was a doctor at the hospital and her husband a nurse. They allayed our fears completely and gave us directions to the hospital should an emergency arise. We never had to use those directions, but Nora did have to sleep upright in her stroller every night, and I woke up roughly every 7 minutes to check on her. Until I came down with the flu myself. Then Nathan had to take care of both of us in between much deserved jaunts to the hotel bar (open on Christmas Day - yay!) for a wee dram. Until he also came down with the flu. We were one sorry family. Severely ill, rain, and cold...and we still loved Scotland. That says a lot about a country.

Christmas 2012, Hotel Eilean Iarmain on Isle of Skye - our holiday home

Despite our illnesses, we were determined to see what we could manage, so we did a couple of Isle of Skye drives before sadly departing our lovely loch-side hotel that fed us yummy food and local whisky and even had Santa leave a few gifts for us on Christmas morning. The lounge of the hotel served as a guest gathering place, where we could make friends and enjoy Christmas in the company of other travelers. Leaving Isle of Skye, we went to Oban (via a drive by Loch Ness...no Nessie sightings for us though), mainly for the Oban distillery, but also because it was supposed to be a charming town. It probably is, but we mostly just slept. We'd love to go back to Scotland again and not all three get sick. And at a time when Nora is allowed in the pubs so we can enjoy the music, so I suppose that will be in 16 years time or so that we can plan another trip there.

Loch Ness, but no Nessie in sight

Christmas Market Wrap-Up

Nuremberg Rooftops

I have a few more photos from our 2011 German Christmas Market trip. An old friend drove down from his home in the north to spend a long weekend with us. We took a daytrip to the beautiful and crowded Nuremberg. For a town that was so heavily bombed in WWII, it sure does retain an amazing amount of character. The Christmas Market in Nuremberg was wall to wall people, so by the time we reached the end of the very first aisle, we were already in need of a respite via a cup of gluhvein. And after that drink, we decided we could skip the other aisles, tour the church, and walk around the town. Supposedly, you can climb up into the old city walls and walk along the covered passageway. We found an entrance, climbed some stairs, and ended up in some family’s kitchen. They waved us on, so we climbed some more and found ourselves in an art gallery that seemed to be closed, despite the open door. We took a couple of photos and made our way down to the street and around the corner to the castle, which had amazing views over the city.

Pretty Nuremberg

Inside the Nuremberg cathedral

Schloss Nymphenburg

Back in Munich for our final couple of days, we visited the very large, English Garden, which has a Chinese Tower (and another Christmas Market) in the center of it, peaceful pathways, and the very odd feature of a manmade surf break. These people are cra-cra for sure. Surfing in Germany in December…no, thank you. We also took in a quick walk around Schloss Nymphenberg – while we packed a lot of “seeing” into the days, we didn’t pack in a lot of “doing.” We mainly just wanted to wander around with our friend and visit. Mission complete.

Chinese Tower in the English Garden

Inland Surf Break

One of the more ornate, shop signs in Nuremberg

2000 Years Modern

Yet another day trip on the Great Christmas Markets of 2011 Trip was to the city of Augsburg,   which had quite a different feel than the other towns we'd visited in Bavaria. While the city is beautiful, there was definitely a more modern vibe, ironic considering Augsburg was founded over 2000 years ago. Perhaps due to the large university that's there, perhaps it's the sleek and quiet tram running through the historic part of town, or maybe it's that the pedestrian streets are wide and bordered with freshly painted, brightly colored buildings. The market filled the main square in town and was refreshingly quiet on a drizzly weekday morning, so we sped through it quickly, sipped the requisite cup of gluhwein, then headed into the pedestrian zone to take in more of the city.

We came upon the Fuggerei,  a fascinating complex that is the world's oldest social settlement still in use today. In the early 1500s, one of Augsburg's rich citizens (Jakob Fugger) founded the project in order to house the city's poor. The rent was, and still is, one Rhenish Guilder per year ($1.15) for an apartment that has it's own kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, and small bonus room. The settlement was designed to be a city within a city, so the Fuggerei has its own city walls, city gates that were locked at night (and still are), its own church, hospital, and so forth. The story of the Fuggerei just gets better - Jakob Fuggerei set up an endowment meant to cover the upkeep costs of the project, and that endowment still funds the Fuggerei today, 400 years later! I was so fascinated by this that I did a little bit of research. The original endowment was equal to $11,500, but in today's market, was the equivalent of about 3,750,000. So an endowment of under four million dollars is still working today to do its job...along with the 4euro per person entry fee for non-residents to enter the settlement gates.

Back in the Munich the following day, Nathan got a traditional, Bavarian breakfast of a white sausage, pretzel, and beer. It's some sort of special, breakfast beer...maybe...I don't really know. Is there such a thing as a breakfast beer in Bavaria? I wasn't paying attention as we were in this fabulous place that was part shop (like a World Market), part gourmet grocery store, and part exotic food court. Nathan decided to enjoy breakfast while I flitted about trying to decide between a basic croissant, some macaroons, a pretzel, some sort of yummy, fruit pie looking things, and a dozen other yummalicious foods. What better way to work off our calories than by climbing a church tower. At the top, we enjoyed the sun shining down on Munich's beautiful rooftops. In the afternoon, we visited my favorite market for which I have no pictures. While I loved the actual Christmas markets with their fancy, wooden booths, Christmas light trims, and glass or wooden ornaments, the Theresienweise market was more of an artsy market, so it was a nice departure from seeing the same ornaments over and over.

The Beautiful and the Ugly in Salzburg

We planned three day trips around Munich until meeting up with our friend at the end of the week, spending time with him in Munich, and going to Nuremberg together. The first day trip was my most anticipated - off to Salzburg, Austria. Germany has that great, train pass around Bavaria I mentioned, and Salzburg is included in it. Salzburg was high on our list. The day was rainy and freezing, and the Christmas Market at midday on a Monday was a bit dead, but we loved walking around this beautiful town, famous for the fanciful iron signs that hang outside every store front. All in all, we just enjoyed walking around the town rather than hitting up the sights, such as the castle high above town or any museums or even a Sound of Music Tour (the movie was filmed in and around Salzburg). After darkness fell (early this far north in December), I remembered that Salzburg is home to one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen, so we walked over to St. Peter's to take a look. Each grave is topped by a tiny garden and ornate ironwork, and it's like walking through a nice, city park. The church bordering the cemetery had this amazing, iron entryway, and across from the church is a restaurant that has been in business since 803 (I did not forget to put a 1 in front)! My favorite is that on their website, whereas other old businesses might have their name followed by "since 1975," or here in Europe, "since 1877," but in Salzburg, it's "since 803 AD." Just in case we might think they've been there since 803 BC. It would be an easy mistake to make.

We did not go in to eat at St. Peter Stiftskeller, and in hindsight, that was a huge mistake. Instead, we headed back to the busier section of the old town, planning to have a quick bite to eat before catching our train home. As we walked down one of the main pedestrian paths, we could hear music and saw advance parade type people as well as spectators lining up on the sides of the street. It was a narrow street, so we just stepped to the side, excited to see a fun, Christmas parade. It was not a fun, Christmas parade. It was a horror that kept going and going in the form of a Krampus run. Don't know what a Krampus is? Neither did we, but it's a demonic creature from folklore that comes down out of the Alpine hills in early December to either beat or kidnap naughty children. Nowadays, various Krampus clubs band together, create ornate, terrifying costumes out of goat hair, wear belts spewing out the smell of feces, and parade around the streets hitting people with switches. Krampus runs have become an important tradition in the region, occur on December 5 or 6 (or anytime as their popularity expands), and as I later did research, are usually fun, village events. The Salzburg one is not. From personal experience, it is violent and cruel. The police are present but do very little - they mainly stop extreme beatings, like one that occurred in 2010. A bunch of young men, drunk out of their minds, put on costumes with all their buddies, hit the women, push aside mothers who are trying to shield their scared children's faces, and in general, behave abominably. For unsuspecting tourists who had no idea this was not a fun, little parade, there is no escape - no alleys and dozens of costumed, drunk men blocking the streets. As soon as we could safely get past the remaining Krampus clubs, we practically ran to the train station as we had no desire to be in town once the official Run ended. While I wish we'd been having a beautiful dinner in a 1200 year old restaurant, who knows - we may have missed the Run but then been caught unawares by the post Run mischief, which I imagine is far worse.