Scotland, day 5: Harris.

The b&b has bikes so we rented two. This photo was taken 5 minutes in to our ride. We stopped at the supermarket in the village and when we came out noticed that my bike had a puncture. Unreal. I had to drive back on Marjolein's bike, holding my own and replace the tube AND the outer tyre. I was SO not amused... 45 minutes later we managed to continue.

Anyways, off we went and soon enough we saw our first target of today's trip: St. Clement's church in Rodel.

Marjolein in front of the church. There are MacLeod's everywhere here. The church was build in the 15th century.

This wall tomb belongs to the 8th MacLeod of Harris chief Alasdair Crotach MacLeod and was build in 1528.

This was his son William's tomb if I'm not mistaken. He was the 9th chief.

Not sure what this exactly was for.

This tomb belongs to John MacLeod of Minginish, the 10th Chief I believe.

Not too much is documented and the church fell in disuse for quite some time and ended up as a cow byre until being restored in 1873 by Catherine Herbert Countess of Dunmore.

More MacLeods outside.

St. Clement's church, Rodel, Harris, Scotland.

Vincent, Rodel, Harris, Scotland.

The view most of the day. Harris is not really well suited for cycling. Very hilly...

Close to the church there is another very interesting site that is overlooked by most people probably. There is this cairn but that's not what I meant. Cairns are everywhere here. They are little hills made of stones. Some hills are very old and some are new. People (mostly tourists I reckon) still build them...

View from the cairn. Quite nice.

This was the find of the day though! Remains of a dun (or duns?). The arrows point to 3 rectangular walls. A "dun" was an iron age fort. I haven't been able to find any information on this particular site unfortunately.

Me standing in the doorway.

On the way back we stopped at the Rodel Hotel for dinner. not overly impressed with the food but the location was great!

View.

Scotland, day 4: Harris.

Leaving Glasgow today, heading for Harris via Uig. Harris is actually the southern half of the island of Harris & Lewis. You get there by taking the bus from Glasgow to Uig (isle of Skye) and then taking the ferry to Tarbert (Harris).

We had a short break before we entered Skye over the big Skye-bridge.

Marjolein pointing across the water.

On the ferry I had a delicious beef pie!

View from the ferry. It rained a little.

But sometimes the sun came through and illuminated the water underneath.

So, as to clarify where the hell we were going today, I made you a little map! Our first b&b was in Leverburgh. We had to take the bus down from Tarbert, where we arrived by ferry from Uig.

When we arrived at our b&b we were greeted by a pair of Golden eagles (Dutch: steenarend). Stunning birds the size of a door! hearing them scream was awesome. Never seen them before.

After a wonderful dinner (prepared by Polly whom had been a chef for 10 years and who is the daughter of our host Paula) we set for a little walk on which I was first introduced to the midges. More on those pesky beasts in later blog posts I'm sure!

Cloud covered mountain tops.

The island is covered in heather. You'll see it where ever you look.

Sunset.

View.

Another view.

Sheep are also a bit like heather. They're just every where!

Scotland, day 3: Glasgow.

This morning we visited the House for an Art Lover. It's a house designed in Art deco style. The website says "The exterior of the House for an Art Lover has been realised, in materials, craftsmanship and dimensions, as closely as possible to the Mackintosh designs of 1901". I have to admit it looks pretty groovy!

Lamps in the main hall.

Decorations in the dining room. I love these pictures. She is an opening flower.

Marjolein surrounded by art deco.

There is also an amazing little garden. It's very private and quiet in there.

There was a baby magpie trying to get its parent's attention.

I sat on this bench in the sun a while. Totally relaxing. I nearly fell asleep :-)

We continued our walk to the Pollok country park. We tried to make funny pictures with this mushroom but mine didn't work out very well, couldn't focus properly. Marjolein was striking a pose but I took too long and she fell over hehe.

Pollok country park is a bit bigger than I thought.

Mom and dad and their baby. Well, not sure if it's technically "theirs" looking at their respective colours... Hmmmm.

Somewhere else a magpie was catching a ride.

The Pollok country park also houses the Burrell collection. This man, Sir William Burrell single handedly acquired a very wide variety of art from all over the world and from very different time spans and civilizations.

The figure above is a figure of a Luohan. Luohans are Buddhist disciples who have attained wisdom but who remain on earth to help others gain enlightenment. This particular figure was made in 1484 for the Wang family by someone called Liu Zhen.

Burrell didn't just collect paintings or statues. He also acquired whole doorways from buildings. This particular one came from a church that was going to be scrapped if I'm not mistaken.

Egyptian art from the period 1085 - 332 BEFORE Christ. That's old!

More Egyptian art. This is from the period 1304-1200 B.C.

They also had a temporary exhibition on Jean-Francois Millet, who painted the above. I love the peace,  calm and togetherness of this picture.

Walking a bit further I spotted this Lotus Esprit in the parking lot. What an awesome car! They are reasonably rare I think since this is the first time ever I've seen one "in the wild".

The last thing on our to-do list for today was visiting a special tree that Marjolein had been to once before. This tree is called the "Pollok beech". It's about 250 years old and stands where once a castle was where the Maxwell family lived for about 300 years. Usually beech trees grow straight up but nobody knows why this one has such a peculiar shape...

In 2002 the Pollok Beech was named one of Scotland's 100 Heritage Trees.