Goodbye Lisbon...On To Bonnie Scotland

The last couple of days in Lisbon we were basically waiting to leave. Not that we didn’t enjoy the city, we were just ready to move on. Caitlin and Scotland beckoned.

We got ourselves in the mood for Scotland by watching Outlander, the first season of which is available on Netflix in Portugal. After a few episodes, we were hooked. (For readers not familiar with it, Outlander is a multi-episode historical drama, based on the novels by American author Diana Gabaldon, set in mid-1700s Scotland at the time of the Jacobite rebellion – with the tiny wrinkle that the central character has gone back in time from 1945.) Given that Caitlin’s employer, Mount Stuart, has a trove of important historical documents that includes some written in Bonnie Prince Charlie’s hand, it was apt preparation.

The packing up and departure were uneventful. Karen was urging me to jettison my beloved brown Camper sneakers. They were already through in the soles, which can’t be replaced, and now they were coming unstitched as well. Plus, we feared we might need to lighten up for the EasyJet flight to Glasgow, as EasyJet allows two fewer kilograms in checked baggage. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, gentle readers. Even though I have a newer black pair exactly the same.

We didn’t see Rita or Henrique, our landlords, again. At one point, Rita had promised to send Henrique over to try and fix a broken black-out blind, but that never happened. He is an advisor to a minister in the Portuguese government after all. We never did clap eyes on Rita either – the whole time we were there – although she handles all the correspondence with renters. She has two toddlers at home.

Our driver, recommended by Rita, came within a few minutes of the appointed hour and drove us to the airport by a completely different route than the one the cabby who brought us in had taken – a more sensible route that didn’t involve going into the crazy-busy centre of the city in the middle of the day. And it was significantly cheaper than the one we’d booked for Ralph and Pat, 12€. (Sorry guys!)

Lisbon’s is a well- but not flashily-designed new-ish airport, organized along similar lines to those in London and Barcelona (and probably many others in Europe, but those three, I know) – a central shopping/lounge area with video screens that show your gate number, but not until shortly before flight time. It was a quite different trip from the one coming over. We hadn’t been up all night and fighting jet lag. Everything seemed easy.

We landed at Heathrow about 6 in the evening, walked to the airport bus terminal, managed to get on an earlier bus to Gatwick than the one we’d booked, and were on our way little more than an hour after touching down. The bus was almost empty, the ride smooth and, for the most part, delay free. This was surprising given the route took us on the M25, London’s “orbital” road, infamous for hours-long traffic snarls. I had expected it to be still rush-hour, as it was only a little after 7 in the evening.

At Gatwick, we grabbed a cab (£12) to our Hotwire-booked hotel, a Crown Plaza. It was disappointingly un-luxurious for a supposedly four-star property, but the price was still good ($80.94 CDN), and the room fine. We got there a little after 9 and ate in the hotel restaurant, a surprisingly good, but horrendously expensive (£58 – $110), meal: the roast pork special for Karen, grilled chicken for me. We slept reasonably well, woke at a not-ungodly hour, had time for full breakfast (£17 each – eek!) and cabbed back to the airport for our 2:15 p.m. flight to Glasgow.

Caitlin, who’d been in York for a friend’s engagement party and had taken the train back, met us as we came off the plane. She had just said goodbye to another friend, Angela, who happened to be on a business trip, staying at a hotel across the street from the terminal. They’d managed to squeeze in a quick coffee.

Given that Caitlin had been partying all weekend, and had a cold, she seemed in reasonable shape, beautiful as always. It was good to be with her again. I quite like my daughter.

We picked up our rental car and had Miss TomTom guide us out of the airport and on our way to the first of two ferries we’d take to get to Caitlin’s new home on the Isle of Bute. I am always slightly amazed at how quickly I get oriented to driving on the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the car, using the wrong hand on the shifter and wrong feet on the pedals. It’s as if there’s a little data file with all the information about how to make the adjustment, and it activates automatically the minute I get behind the wheel. Even better, it appears to improve slightly with each visit to Blighty. It helped this time too that I wasn’t sleep deprived when setting out.

                           

The route we took was the back way: the Gourock-Dunoon ferry across part of the Firth of Clyde, then the Colintraive ferry across the Kyles of Bute to the island. To get to the Colintraive ferry, we had to go down a wild stretch of single-track (but paved) road through sparsely inhabited highlands. The scenery, almost as soon as we got away from the airport, was ravishing and would continue so for our entire stay: broody skies (Scotland does great clouds), gentle mountains, bigger mountains in the distance, lots of green, surprisingly wild.

We came this way because it’s more scenic than the (slightly) faster route – which goes through ugly Glasgow suburbs to the Wemyss Bay-Rothesay (Bute) ferry – and because there’s a pub at Colintraive, on the mainland side, that Caitlin likes. (She’s not very positive about island eateries and we never did sample any.) The pub is very typically...British. (I was going to say ‘English’ – sorry, Scottish nationalists!) We ate in the main bar with the locals, a small room with tightly-packed, mismatching tables and chairs and traditional L-shaped carved wooden bar with stools. The food was fresh – my hamburger was handmade from local beef – and well prepared. The hostess, one of the owners, was charming, kept calling me Darling.

A fine introduction to Bute (even though it’s technically not on the island). As my sister Pat said after her visit in the fall, Bute and vicinity seems a lot like southern England 30 or 40 years ago: still quaintly British, in a way the modern south no longer is. The Colintraive pub reminded me of something out of an old Britcom.

The drive along the coast road from the ferry was lovely in the evening light: through Port Banatyne with its sailboats, then Rothesay, which is bigger and prettier than I imagined, and finally to Kerrycroy Village, where Caitlin lives, just outside the Mount Stuart gates. Bute is everything Caitlin’s photos on Facebook promised: gorgeous, with the water and the hills off in the distance. And her little cottage is perfect. She’s as snug in it as a bug in a rug. We drank wine and nattered until it was (early) bed time – we were all tired, us from travel, Caitlin from partying and cold.

Caitlin's cottage (hers is the right-hand half)

Gates into Mount Stuart at Kerrycroy Village

The next morning, Karen and I were up at the crack of dawn, even before Caitlin, who was going in to work for 8. Our plan was to walk with her to the house if we were up in time, and that’s what we did. She walks about 100 meters down her street (the only street in Kerrycroy – and with houses only on one side because the village green is on the other, and then the Firth of Clyde) to the monogrammed gates into Mount Stuart. They’re unlocked and just need to be unlatched to enter, which we did, walking in past the stone gate house.

The park is spectacular. (You will hear a lot of raves in this account; I’m in love with this place already, and not just because Caitlin is here.) The lords of the manor have been planting trees, from all over the world, for 300 years. Some are giants. Many are exotic looking – although some also remind me of British Columbia. So you have this lush forest, park land, the Firth of Clyde peaking through the trees to your left, and the road goes on for over a kilometer before you get to the house. The morning was fabulously sunny. The walk can be a little eerie on dark winter mornings, Caitlin has told us, but today, the gods were smiling, although it was a little chilly.

Caitlin was giving us something of a guided tour as we walked along, but I don’t think she fully appreciates the park. The house and all the treasures in it, yes, she gets that for sure. But to me, the park is almost as special. As you get closer to the house, it grows a little less wild, a little more garden-like. It is rhododendron season in southern Scotland, and the Earls and Marquesses of Bute collected rhodies as well as trees. (The 18th-century third Earl, the focus of much of Caitlin’s research on the art collection, was also a noted amateur botanist. He helped found Kew Gardens in London.)

They apparently have some very rare varieties of rhododendrons. I never understood the mania over rhodies, now I do. Here in Ontario, they’re difficult to grow and even when they do thrive, are nothing like as spectacular as many of these. Some are huge, most are bursting with blooms. My favourite had deep red blossoms.

The walk takes a little over 20 minutes. We dropped Caitlin at the servants’ entrance where the staff goes in, just across from a very interesting-looking rock garden. We walked around to the back of the house. The broad, perfectly groomed lawn runs down almost to the Firth. Mount Stuart house is massive. It was built, in the neo-gothic style, between 1879 and 1900. The exterior is mainly sandstone.

Karen and I walked around it for a half hour or so, then hiked back to Caitlin’s cottage for some breakfast. Along the way, one of the gardeners – there is apparently a small army of them – stopped us and asked if we were ‘alright,’ and if we knew where we were going. I didn’t realize at the time that visitors are only supposed to enter the grounds if they pay, and the house wasn’t yet open as it was only 8:30. Plus, we were walking along a secondary road, the one that leads to Kerrycroy, which is probably not much used by visitors. He was basically asking us what right we had to be there. I explained we were staying with somebody in Kerrycroy, and he was fine with that.

The water is the Firth of Clyde, the yellow stuff gorse

After a leisurely breakfast, we drove into Rothesay, about 15 minutes away, and found the large Co-op grocery store. There are two in town, the only grocery stores. One, the “little Co,” is like a Tesco Express, a convenience store-sized shop with groceries. The little Co is right on the front. The other, the “big Co,” is tucked up a few blocks into the village. It’s more the size of a North American supermarket. It took some aimless driving around and finally asking a local to find it.

View along pier at Kerrycroy

Kerrycroy Village from Firth

After the shopping expedition, we set out from Caitlin’s cottage on foot again, walking back towards the house, stopping first at the small estate church, which is no longer in use and badly in need of renovations. I’m assuming it was mainly a chapel for employees, but must also have been used by family. Some of the Bute Stuarts are buried here, mostly children who did not go on to become Marquess, and their spouses. We couldn’t help noticing that many had died quite young, which is apparently the reason for the present marquess’s fitness and health mania.

Mount Stuart park: spooky hollow

Our route took us partly along the beach – the tide was out – and partly along the shore walk, a path that runs just above the beach. We came out behind the house. By then, it was getting to the time that Caitlin would be walking home to have lunch with us. We had her only house key, so had to make sure we were back before her. We were, walking along yet another path, and then, when it turned unexpectedly back towards the house, across country to get to the Kerrycroy road. We beat her home by less than 10 minutes.

Lichen on rock

Mount Stuart house through the trees

Mount Stuart park: a host of golden daffodils

Later, after we’d dropped Caitlin back at Mount Stuart house in the car, we drove around the island in the other direction – i.e. away from Kerrycroy and Rothesay. We weren’t too particular about what we saw, but aimed initially to try and find the ancient standing stones that sister Pat had taken a bus and then hiked to find. (She’s an avid Outlander fan too, and standing stones play a key role in the story. I suspect that’s at least partly why she took so much trouble to seek out this place. Pat remained, sadly or not, in the 21st century.)

Kilchattan front

We ended up driving into Kilchattan, a tiny Firth-front village of old stone houses at the end of the road. There was a gale-force wind blowing so we didn’t get out of the car for long. (The sun was still shining, though.) The stones were near there, but we also noticed a sign for St. Blane’s Chapel, apparently a ruined early-Medieval church, and decided on a whim to go there instead.

On the way to St. Blane's

It was a good decision. St. Blane’s is our kind of place. You walk along a country path through sheep pastures to this bucolic ruin. It is maintained as an historical site, but there is nothing there but a couple of weather-proof interpretive signs and the ruins of a church and old monastery walls. It had been in use as a religious site since about 500, and continued until the 1500s. Much of the church – some of the walls are still there – dates from the 1200s. It’s a lovely spot. We spent almost an hour, and would have spent longer but had to get back to Kerrycroy to meet Caitlin.

St. Blane's (and around)

Caitlin made us a lovely meal of chicken marsala, noodles and salad. Somehow we managed to hang in, chatting and drinking wine until after midnight. Luckily, Caitlin was taking the next day off work to spend it with us.

We had a leisurely start the next morning. It was 11 by the time we set out for the Colintraive ferry. The itinerary for the day was to drive to Inveraray, a pretty fishing/tourist village with a “castle” that Caitlin had visited with work mates recently and wanted us to see. The Mount Stuart folks are very disparaging about the “castle,” actually a mock-medieval 19th century manor house. They see it as competition for Mount Stuart, and resent it because it draws significantly more visitors than their property. The reason for this, they insist, is simply that Inveraray is on the main route to Oban, another famous Scottish beauty spot and tourist magnet, with an historic whisky distillery. Oban is also a gateway to the Hebrides.

Colintraive: ferry on its way (it only takes five minutes)

View along Kyle of Bute toward Port Banatyne

This is no doubt true, but we think a big part of the reason for Mount Stuart lagging as a tourist draw is that the ferry is too expensive – about £50 return for a car with a family of four. This means that, even though the ferry is only an hour or so from Glasgow and only takes about 35 minutes to cross, Bute is not really viable as a day trip. You need to stay over to make it worthwhile, and that, of course, gets even more expensive. And there are few places to stay, none very appealing apparently.

                                                             

Old Castle Lachlan (Loch Fyne)

We took an unplanned detour – it was that kind of day – to visit Castle Lachlan, the ruined stronghold of the ancient chiefs of Clan Machlachlan. This was another place Caitlin had visited and wanted us to see. It’s basically in the middle of nowhere, down a single-track road on Loch Fyne. And yet, there is a very posh gourmet restaurant there, the Inver, where Caitlin and friends had dined. It is apparently run by refugees from London and Glasgow and is getting good notices, becoming a destination. It was closed this day.

Castle Lachlan with view along Loch Fyne

The castle is also currently closed. It is supposedly undergoing restorations that will allow it to be opened again, but by the looks of it, the work is stalled. This is more properly Old Castle Lachlan. New Castle Lachlan is an 18th century baronial mansion up the road a way. This one, dating from the 15th century, but on a site that has had a castle since the 13th, is relatively small and not terribly interesting architecturally, but there is something poignant and picturesque about it sitting on a hill overlooking the beautiful loch. So much history has happened here...

The place first fell into ruin after the Machlachlan clan sided with Bonnie Prince Charlie in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Its laird was killed at the Battle of Culloden, supposedly by a cannon ball. After Culloden came the Highland Clearances, when the British army hunted down and slaughtered surviving highland clansmen and often their families, including many that had never taken up arms against the king. It’s a terrible episode in the history of the two nations, and one that is by no means forgotten in Scotland.

We walked out along a boardwalk over wetlands to the castle and wandered around it. There’s not much to see. The ladies bailed pretty quickly because the wind was howling again. I stayed on and took photos of the place, and the wild trees that surround it. I love these lichen-covered trees in Scotland.

 

We got back on the main road and drove on to Inveraray. The drive from Kerrycroy, in total, was supposed to be about an hour and 45 minutes but took longer with our detour. Inveraray is a cute town with some pretty views along Loch Fyne, with fishing boats, etc. 

Inveraray on Loch Fyne

First order of business, though, was lunch. Caitlin already knew where she wanted to take us, the George Hotel, a pub originally opened in 1770 – for which reason alone she was enamoured of it. It’s another very traditional, atmospheric British-style pub, with a roaring fire and dark wood bar, lined with shelves and shelves of whisky bottles. We had surprisingly good food. I can’t remember what the others had, but I had a very nice pork stew. And Innis & Gunn beer from the tap.

There are two tourist attractions in Inveraray: an 18th century gaol that has been done up as a Disney-ish fun family place, and the “castle.” We looked at both, and passed. The gaol, with its kitschy, kid-friendly displays held no appeal, the castle was relatively expensive and it was too late in the day to get our money’s worth. Plus, it was starting to rain. So we shopped a little in the tourist boutiques, without buying anything, then started back to Bute.

Farm track near Inveraray

Our unscheduled stop on the way back, another detour, was at the beautifully named Tighnabruaich for a high-up view over the Kyles of Bute, the water channels on either side of the island’s north end. Caitlin had also been here fairly recently with friends from work and posted a gorgeous picture on Facebook. The place did not disappoint. The views are wonderful.

Kyles of Bute from Tighnabruaich

We were back in Kerrycroy village by early evening, stopping on the way through Rothesay to replenish Caitlin’s stock of sparkling wine and water at the “little Co” – the essentials, don’t you know. The weather was sunny all evening, but we were in for the night. The next morning we had an early start because Caitlin’s boss, Alice, had graciously offered to give us a guided tour of the house, starting at 8:30 a.m.

We walked over through the park in the morning. Alice was waiting for us. It was a whirlwind tour, but we saw everything, including a couple of things Caitlin had not yet seen. The place is incredible, one of the most impressive stately homes I’ve ever been in, and I’ve seen a lot over years of pandering to my daughter’s taste for old stuff. We’d already been teasing Caitlin that she was living a fairy-tale existence. And then to see this fantastic house, with its beautiful art treasures! And this is where she works!

Third Earl of Bute by Sir Joshua Reynolds

The paintings Caitlin is studying are very impressive, especially the Reynolds portraits. We can see why she’s excited by her project. But the highlight for me – I’m sorry Honey! – was the room full of Tudor portraits, none of which, as I understand it, is in the exhibition Caitlin is curating, because none fits in the narrative she has developed for the show, mainly about the collecting practices of the third Earl of Bute in the 18th century. (Note: the third Earl is not to be confused with the third Marquess of Bute who had the house built in the late 1800s. The Earls of Bute were essentially promoted in the peerage to marquesses, in 1796.)

The latest news Alice was able to share – literally days old – is that a very fine contemporary portrait of Henry VIII, originally attributed to a lesser-known painter of the day, has now been tentatively identified as the work of Hans Holbein the Younger, who made something of a career of painting Henry. (We have one in the AGO, but it pales in comparison to Mount Stuart’s.) An expert from the U.S. is apparently coming to do some testing and make a final assessment. If it is a Holbein, the painting is worth millions of pounds, much more than it would without his name attached to it. It’s a lovely painting, almost magic-realist in its impact, but there is another right beside it of an unidentified woman, by a lesser-known artist that is every bit as good to my eyes.  

We also saw a room where Caitlin had stock-piled paintings destined for the exhibition in Glasgow, paintings that were currently not on display in the house, that had been in storage. There were 15 or so, maybe more, some quite large, some by artists well enough known that I’d heard of them. They’re part of a stockpile of paintings collected over the generations, and much of this trove has yet to be properly assessed by scholars. Many have not been seen by anybody in years.

The paintings, the focus of Caitlin’s work, are marvellous, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. The grand entranceway, the Marble Hall, with its 80-foot ceilings and gorgeous stained glass designed by architect Walter Lonsdale, is stunning. Even Alice, who has been there a few years, admitted she sometimes walks into this space and is stopped in her tracks by its beauty. The sun was out the morning we were there, and shone through the windows, casting gorgeous rainbow shadows on the walls and tapestries (also fantastic). The windows depict signs of the zodiac. Embedded in each are crystal stars representing the constellations, in mathematically correct position in relation to each other. Alice later took us up on the roof so we could put our eyes to the reverse side of the crystals and see kaleidoscopic views inside the Marble Hall.

Mount Stuart house: Marble Hall

The Marble Chapel is also pretty spectacular. (That’s an understatement.) We saw the bedrooms, many available to rent to wedding parties, a source of income for the private trust that now owns and manages the house. (The paintings, however, are still owned by the Marquess – Johnny as everybody calls him, the former race car driver. It is he, personally, who pays Caitlin’s wages.) We trooped down to the basement to see the lovely indoor pool, reputedly the first heated indoor pool in a home anywhere in the world.

The house in fact claims a number of firsts. The architects and engineers involved in building it were tops in their fields and the third Marquess was clearly a man of vision. Many of the ideas carried out so brilliantly were his originally. It also was the first house to be purpose built with electricity and central heating. The central heating system is still in use, although it is being phased out soon, to be replaced by a state-of-the-art biomass system. (What is biomass heating? Read about it here. Mount Stuart is big on green generally – although not so big on wind turbines, apparently, which was causing some angst while we were there.)

Mount Stuart house: view of Firth of Clyde from balcony

By the time we were an hour and a half into the tour (and Alice was late for her next meeting), our heads were fairly spinning. Alice is not just pointing at things and saying, look at that. She’s also telling us stories and giving historical background – often a shorthand version because she assumed, being Caitlin’s parents, that we would know some of the background. It was a lot to take in. She’s very good at it, and clearly enjoys doing it. It was at this point, when we could hardly take in anything more, that Alice brought us into one of the libraries and showed us a small sampling of the treasures held in the family’s document archives.

The Earls and Marquesses – some of them anyway, but especially Caitlin’s guy, the third Earl – were serious collectors of books and documents, and also packrats. (Among the treasures in the house’s apparently vast storerooms, for example, are complete outfits worn by sitters for some of the famous historical portraits in the house, including the full-length, floor-to-ceiling painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds of the third Earl, done in 1773.)

Alice’s selections included original drawings by Londsdale for the stained glass in the Marble Hall, a marriage contract for Bonnie Prince Charlie with annotations by the then middle-aged “lad who was born to be king,” and a handwritten notebook kept by a noble of Elizabeth I’s court sent to witness the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots and write an official account to forestall Catholic martyr makers. (The account is quite gruesome: the axeman needed two strokes to sever the head, and the lips moved for several minutes after it was off.) And of course, the now famous Shakespeare First Folio volumes are here too - in glass cases. 

Frontispiece of Bute First Folio

Adjoining this room was another very similar where Caitlin has her desk. They’re fantastic rooms, lined with leather-bound volumes, many of them rare and valuable. The third Earl especially was a very learned man.

Mount Stuart park: road to Kerrycroy

Mount Stuart: part of rock garden

This was the end of the tour. Alice scurried off to her meeting. Caitlin walked back home with us to say goodbye, and stopped for an hour. After she left to go back, we packed up and were out the door by 12:30. We had to get on the 1 o’clock ferry to Wemyss Bay. As we were waiting in the queue to drive on to the ferry, it started to hail, but not like any hail I’ve ever seen before. It was tiny little balls of snow, not ice, that floated to the ground. I caught one and squeezed it between thumb and index finger – it felt like a tiny snowball. Weird.

Last view of Bute from ferry

The rest of our time in the UK was uneventful. Easy EasyJet flight back to Gatwick, cab to the same very nice Holiday Inn we stayed in when we were on our way to Valencia at the end of January, a quite decent dinner in the hotel restaurant, early to bed, up not too early and back to the airport, where we ate breakfast in the same chain restaurant as in January. (What can I say, we’re creatures of routine.)

When we first came into the airport we heard an announcement asking that whoever had left a black bag in the Arrivals area make themselves known to security. We heard it again a few more times, and then, as we were sitting in the restaurant, at a window overlooking the Arrivals concourse, Karen noticed that security had cordoned off a section. We assumed this was a precaution in case the unclaimed bag was a bomb, but before we left the restaurant, the cordons were gone, the alarm over.

Our Air Transat flight was fine – crap food, but otherwise fine. It has turned into a quite decent airline, I think, yet is still consistently cheaper than other carriers. In particular, the quality of service from the cabin crew has improved a zillion percent. When we first started using Air Transat, they were all surly and unfriendly. Not anymore. They’ve even won some awards – best leisure airline, or some such.

And that, gentle readers, is the end of my story. Until next year.