{"id":34,"date":"2006-08-09T17:01:27","date_gmt":"2006-08-09T17:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/?p=34"},"modified":"2006-08-09T17:01:27","modified_gmt":"2006-08-09T17:01:27","slug":"countdown-to-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/countdown-to-scotland\/","title":{"rendered":"Countdown to Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In just a month I&#8217;ll be on my way to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scotland\">Scotland<\/a>, land of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Golf\">golf<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Caber_toss\">caber tossing<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ewan_McGregor\">Ewan McGregor<\/a>! My plane tickets are in my possession, and I&#8217;m checking out travel guides. And re-reading <i>The Game of Kings<\/i>, by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dorothy_Dunnett\">Dorothy Dunnett<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not that I will have much time to go wandering by myself. The tour has been exhaustively pre-planned by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.music-contact.com\/\">Music Contact International<\/a>, the company that handles all of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vpr.net\/\">Vermont Public Radio<\/a>&#8216;s trips. My itinerary goes like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sept 8 &#038; 9: Flight to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Glasgow\">Glasgow<\/a>. Meet tour participants &#038; adjust time zones.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 10: Glasgow guided tour.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 11: Travel via <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Loch_Lomond\">Loch Lomond<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rannoch_Moor\">Rannoch Moor<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Glen_Coe\">Glencoe<\/a> to Fort William for lunch. In the afternoon, a guided walk on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ben_Nevis\">Ben Nevis<\/a>, Britain&#8217;s highest mountain.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 12: Day trip to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Inner_Hebrides\">Inner Hebrides<\/a> islands of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Isle_of_Mull\">Mull<\/a> &#038; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Iona\">Iona<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 13: Travel via train &#038; ferry across the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Isle_of_Skye\">Isle of Skye<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Outer_Hebrides\">Outer Hebrides<\/a> island of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_Uist\">North Uist<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Benbecula\">Benbecula<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 14: A nature walk and tour of a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harris_tweed\">tweed<\/a> weaver&#8217;s home on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harris\">Isle of Harris<\/a>. Overnight in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stornoway\">Stornoway<\/a> on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lewis\">Isle of Lewis<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 15: A tour of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/BBC_Radio_nan_G%C3%A0idheal\">BBC studios<\/a> in Stornoway, followed by a motor tour of the island, including visits to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Callanish_stone_circle\">some standing stones<\/a> &#038; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carloway_Broch\">Pictish ruins<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 16: A visit to a Gaelic Arts Center in Port Ness, then a ferry ride back to the mainland to spend the night in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Inverness\">Inverness<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 17: Visits to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cawdor_Castle\">Cawdor Castle<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Battle_of_Culloden\">Culloden battlefields<\/a>, and the Neolithic burial sites at the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Clava_cairn\">Clava cairns<\/a>. In the afternoon, a boat cruise of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Loch_Ness\">Loch Ness<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 18: A talk by an environmental historian on the Scottish landscape at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rothiemurchus.net\/\">Rothiemurchus Estate<\/a>, followed by a visit to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglenlivet.com\">Glenlivet Distillery<\/a>. Overnight in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edinburgh\">Edinburgh<\/a>.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 19: Tour of Edinburgh and free time to roam. A special final dinner will start with a presentation on Scottish music &#038; instruments.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Sept 20: Bus to Glasgow to catch a return flight to the U.S. Whew!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nI&#8217;ve heard great things about Scotland, and this trip has been planned with great care by the organizers, but the thing I&#8217;m looking forward to most is spending time with host <a href=\"http:\/\/willemlange.com\/\">Willem Lange<\/a>. Anyone who listens to VPR probably knows his voice. He&#8217;s the crusty fellow who always ends his folksy and thoughtful pieces by saying, &#8220;I gotta get back to work.&#8221; He&#8217;s a great guy, and most importantly, he was a friend of my Dad&#8217;s. I think of this trip partly as a tribute to my Dad, and I&#8217;ll be raising a whisky glass to him at least once (more likely several times). Slainte!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In just a month I&#8217;ll be on my way to Scotland, land of golf, caber tossing, and Ewan McGregor! My plane tickets are in my possession, and I&#8217;m checking out travel guides. And re-reading The Game of Kings, by Dorothy Dunnett. Not that I will have much time to go wandering by myself. The tour [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therem.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}