If you look through the UK World in Pictures category on this blog, you will find quite a few “glimpses”, “impressions”, and even dedicated sets of Scottish sights and locales that caught my eye in between whisky tastings on various trips to the country. The itineraries may be structured around…
The Scotch Whisky Association lists over 70 distillery visitor centers in various corners of Scotland. Our whisky trips to the country are meant essentially as discovery vehicles for heretofore untried single malts. I’m happy to make a repeat visit here or there, but most of the target distilleries on a…
In our years living in London, we never prioritized a visit to the British seat of government, the Westminster Palace. Of the various reasons for shunning it in the past, none stand up to scrutiny, so I’ll refrain from offering an explanation. It is part of a World Heritage site…
I finished my old Tower of London entry with a statement of intent to build a better portfolio of it on future visits. Quite a few years came and went by before I had a chance to do that. On the recent trip to London, the Tower was near the…
My standard photographic walkabout usually results in hundreds of pictures of practically anything that catches my eye. I eventually throw away around three-quarters of those “negatives” – and use only a portion of the remainder for retrospectives in this space – but my default stance is “shoot first”. That is…
I trust that I well established in these pages that a trip to Scotland is never about just whisky for me. The itinerary may be defined by the distillery locations, but points in between also get a modicum of attention. Herewith is a small array of depictions of such points.…
I already mark the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site as visited (#73 on my list) on the strength of the brief stop in 2015. Considering that the inscription lists 414 locations, a passing look at a single one clearly stretches the definition of “visited”. Improvements are welcome.…
On my third visit to Edinburgh, a full day exploring the wonderful city center was the least I had to set aside, including several landmark visits and a large walkabout circuit. The skies were dreary in the morning, turned cloudy blue for a short time midday, and then reverted to…
With World Heritage exploits on top of two unmissable distillery visits, the day we spent on Mainland Orkney had more designated activities than any other day of the trip. In between those, taking advantage of a relatively bright day, I caught a few nice perspectives around the island. Probably the…
While in Orkney on the recent trip, we mixed a history-seeking outing into our scotch-centric itinerary. A group of monuments known as the “Heart of Neolithic Orkney” offers a remarkable record of life on this remote archipelago that dates back 5,000 years. Of the four locations, two can be visited…
Multiple travel quarters mark the island of Skye as one of the most impressive destinations in the country that sets a pretty high bar when it comes to magnificent landscapes. Since our whisky trips are never about just scotch – or so I’d like to believe – I was very…
As previously mentioned, the recently concluded trip was larger in scope and time than its predecessors – we visited 20 distilleries over the course of a week-plus, of which 15 were first-time visits. Following my traditional approach, I will start the series of trip retrospections with a quick round of…
After the somber mood of the previous installment in this series, my randomized selection popped up a picture highlighted by the azure celestial hues. A bit ironic, since this photo was taken on the British Isles, which, you know, are not habitually associated with such brilliance in the skies. This…
In our surreal times, we all need a bit of help to take our mind off the pandemic and its consequences, both present and future. In my case – as anyone who is even cursorily familiar with me might easily guess – the thought of resuming traveling once the world…
This is not an exceptional photo but it occupies a special place in my memory. It was opportunistically taken from the upper deck of a bus idling by the Mansion House, looking towards the Royal Exchange. So very iconic British red double-decker is moving across the line of vision. In…
I have come to the end of my photo-notes from the recent trip to Scotland. For those interested, a cross-section of the best photos is now also available in my Flickr photostream.
While criss-crossing parts of Scotland in search of not yet tasted whisky, we occasionally stopped to admire the surroundings. Here is a collection of glimpses. The first shot can be filed in “in the middle of nowhere” category, but I can very definitively place it in the hamlet of Carbeth,…
The Forth Bridge, which had the longest spans of any railway bridge when it opened in 1890, and was the earliest great multispan cantilever bridge, was inscribed on the World Heritage list a few months after my previous visit to Scotland. I must have glimpsed it from a distance while…
A day set aside for exploring Edinburgh offered me a chance to see sights that I did not manage to see three years ago, and just to walk around town. On-and-off wet snowfall conspired to make the walk challenging, but I can nonetheless share a few highlights captured in between…
Our trip to Scotland was structured around whisky, but we did not completely neglect the country’s history and culture. Among our non-drinking stops was the majestic Stirling Castle. The storied castle was a main royal center at various points in history, and nowadays offers plethora of educational exhibits on the…