Pre-history in Scotland - A Trip Back in Time

When I travel to Europe, I'm always amazed at how old some of the buildings are, but then am even more amazed by structures that have survived that are thousands of years old. In Inverness, we went to one such place called Clava Cairns. It's very near to the Culloden Battlefield. To get there, you have to travel a short way down a single track road, it's a good thing it's short as you can see the cars coming back out along the road and therefore know not to try to enter as the only pullout is at the car park for the cairns. 

It's pretty amazing that these people understood the movements of the sun and moon enough to build these ring cairns so that on the summer solstice the sun would shine into the cairn. 

To find and move all these stones would have taken quite a bit of effort and certainly a lot of time. I would have thought that simpler structures would have sufficed.

We spent about an hour walking around the four cairns and other stones that were there. On our way out, we saw this little resident. He didn't see to be afraid of all the large humans around him. 

On the Isle of Arran, we had thought to go the Machrie Moor Standing Stones but when you only have one full day to visit the island's attractions, walking an hour to see some Neolithic standing stones would really have taken up too much time. Instead we decided to go see a cairn that's just off the highway. It was only about a five minute walk up the hill.

By not walking for hours to the standing stones, we had enough time to visit Lochranza castle and to stop at the the Arran distillery before heading back to Brodick.

At the distillery, we all had a bite to eat and did a little shopping in the gift shop. I sampled some Arran Gold, a cream liqueur made with single malt whisky. It was really good, better than Bailey's but unfortunately I can't buy it here.

On getting back to Brodick, we went out to dinner, only to find that our ferry the next day had been cancelled due to an engine problem but that's a story for another day. 

I hope you enjoyed this trip back in time. My brother said, good thing you didn't touch the stones. Not being an Outlander fan, I didn't understand that's how they travel in time. But we had touched the stones so I guess we really had travelled in time when you think of the thousands of years they've been there.

RPod Adventures - Parks of the St Lawrence - Glengarry

Last week, my youngest sister, her husband and I went camping at Glengarry campground just outside of Lancaster, Ontario.  This is another of the parks on the St Lawrence but this one is not on an island on the Long Sault Parkway rather it is a little further east and right on the St Lawrence river.  The view across the river is not of New York state because the river bends and the border doesn't just follow the river, it is the province of Quebec.  

I arrived first, registered and drove down to the campsites.  I had received a text message from my sister and they were very close to arriving too.  I looked at our two sites and thought it would be easier for me to back into theirs and that way I would be facing their site. I tried to back in but was too far forward and was going to hit the site post, so I decided to drive around the loop and try again. I saw my sister and her husband arriving just as I pulled out. As I drove around the loop I decided, what the heck, and just pulled through the site behind mine that was empty at the time rather than trying to back in.  So much easier, although I'm sure I could have backed in had I tried again. 

My site at Glengarry (#50)

The view behind my site.

Liam at my sister's site, you can just see my trailer.

The beach in the day use area was closed and campground was pretty empty, most of the unserviced sites were not being used although there were a few hardy tent campers; most of the people camping were seasonal campers or transients just passing through. That made the campground fairly quiet except for when they mowed the lawn which seemed to be a daily occurrence. The campground is near the highway and the train tracks, the highway noise just becomes white noise and I only really noticed the trains the first night. 

On our second day, we drove out the see the St Raphael Ruins and the Martintown Grist mill. The St Raphael Ruins haven't really been ruins all that long, the church burned down in 1970 and the walls were stabilized in 1974.  The church was built by Scottish immigrants to Canada in 1821. It was the second church built on the site, the first just being small chapel. There is a new church attached to the wall of the ruins on the far side and it is still is an active parish. The ruins are now a National Historic site.

The ruins are free to visit, donations are appreciated, and are dog friendly. The Martintown grist mill is on the same road, about 15 kilometers from the church. Unfortunately for us, the grist mill is only open weekdays until Labour Day, then it's only open weekends until end Oct. 

The next day we had some rain so after a late breakfast we drove into Lancaster to a gift shop. The gift shop had a number of different buildings that you could wander through, by the time we were finished shopping it had stopped raining. The old couple on the bench and lamp post were actually for sale. 

The next day we went to a local cheese shop, they aren't doing tours or giving out samples right now due to COVID but they were still open, We bought some cheeses, chutney and red pepper jelly that we had as an appetizer before dinner.

My sister and I also walked over to the Anglican Church whose property the campground surrounds. You can see the church right from the campground but it is fenced off so you have to walk back out to the service road to go see it, except on Sundays when they open a gate to allow campers to join them at Sunday Service.

There were no long hikes on this trip just walks through the campground but I don't think the dogs minded. They did get to go on the day trips and only had to stay in the car while we shopped. Liam is getting better at being left on the camp site although once I had to put him in the car while I was making his dinner, he has no patience at all when he knows food is coming. 

Evening sky

Rockett on the St Lawrence

We were lucky with weather with only the one day with rain and the temperatures were perfect too.  You needed a fleece in the evenings but during the day you could have worn shorts. We have one more trip planned before the 2021 camping season ends. The trip home was pretty uneventful. I did have a small accident but we don't cry over spilt milk. I travel with 1 litre cartons of milk and cream as they have a plastic screw on cap and they lay in the fridge on their sides. Well, I guess I didn't close the cap tightly as there was milk all over the fridge and floor of the trailer. Really, I had planned to wash the floor in the trailer anyway. 

Roaming

The week before last I had to go away for work. It was a really tough go; I had to go to meetings in Rome, Italy.  The meetings were for a week but I added a few days afterwards to stay on and play tourist. My sister Annette came along with me again to enjoy a government-paid hotel room, well at least for the days of the meetings; I had to pay for extra days that we stayed.

I had never been to Rome before, it is a lovely city so full of history.   Our trip there was uneventful, unlike the trip to Brussels in March.  We had booked on Air Canada aircraft all the way so were able to do online check ins and we had also paid for one seat selection so that we would be sitting together on the Toronto to Rome leg. We arrived in Rome on Sunday morning. We used the Leonardo Express train to get from the airport to Termini station and then walked to the hotel which was only about two blocks away.  We stayed at the Best Western Premier Royal Santina hotel. After checking into the hotel and unpacking, we explored around the hotel a little.

Hotel room

Grounds around the National Museum

Piazza Republica

Statue to John Paul II

Outside Termini Station

Side entrance to Termini Station

While I was at meetings, Annette had time to explore Rome.  The hotel had a Smart Phone in each room that you could use and one feature she liked was the button already set up to take you back to the hotel. In the evenings we were able to wander about a bit ourselves and it was nice that Annette was able to get the lay of land during the day.

The first evening we went to the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. Annette had found the Trevi Fountain during he day but hadn't seen the Pantheon.    The legend says that if you throw a coin into the fountain you will return to Rome, so of course we both threw a coin in.

The Pantheon

The Pantheon was once a temple to the gods but was converted to a church and so survived when many temples were torn down. We also went down to the  Piazza Navona on the recommendation of some other delegates at my meetings. We had supper there after exploring the square.

Piazza Navona

Tuesday evening, we took the Metro down to the Colosseum . We had tickets for it on the weekend but wanted to see it at night as well.

Panorama shot of the Colosseum and Arch

Wednesday, already getting tired of pizza and pasta, we headed over the Hard Rock Cafe for supper. We didn't have reservations so we had to wait awhile to be seated but it wasn't too long a wait.
155 County Road 16, 

Hard Rock Cafe Roma

 Thursday, our hosts had organized an afternoon visit to the Engineers museum followed by a reception at the museum. 

Communications Vehicle for carrier pigeons

Engineers Chapel

Model of an ammunition depot

Reception

Hail Caesar!

On Friday, our meetings ended early so we were able to get in some sightseeing in the afternoon.

Memorial to Victor Emmanuelle

Romulus and Remus

But as we had booked a Segway tour that evening, we found our way down to the meeting point early and then had dinner in the area. The Segway tour was loads of fun. It was my first time and it wasn't hard at all to learn to ride. While wandering around before our Segway ride, we found a cat sanctuary in some of the ruins.

Ruins with Stone Pines

Lazy afternoon

 Our Segway tour took us back to many places we had seen during the day but they looked so much different at night.

Castel Sant'Angelo

St Peter's

Piazza Navona

Trevi Fountain

Roman ruins

Now with the meetings were over, we had the weekend to see what we had decided were the two main attractions. Saturday would be Vatican City with the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel while Sunday would be spent at the Colosseum and the Forum and Palatine Hill ruins. Monday, we had left as sort of a free day for shopping and packing.

Sunday, we had tickets for the Colosseum. The tickets were also good for one entry for the Forum and Palatine Hill Ruins. The tickets have to be used either on the same day or on two consecutive days so that's another reason we left Monday as a free day.

Stone Pines

Our last day was a Monday, most museums are closed but not churches.  We decided to tour a few churches and then do some shopping. There were still some church services that were going on in the morning so you had to be respectful and not enter those areas.

Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore

Monday evening since our flights on Tuesday were not too early we went out and treated ourselves to a very nice dinner and a bottle of wine at Ristorante Target. I would highly recommend this restaurant. A bit pricier than most restaurants in the area but quite worth it.

The trip home went well too. We arrived at the train station, got our tickets and boarded the train with about 10 minutes to wait. We did some shopping at the airport and ate our last gelato in Italy, then made our way to our gate. We had to clear immigration in Toronto but this time we didn't have to collect our checked bags, they were booked right on through to our destinations. We had time in Toronto to have supper before heading each to our own gates for our flights home.

Termini Station

Fiumicino Airport

I do hope the legend of the Trevi Fountain is true!!!