The East Highland Way: hiking Scotland’s newest trail

by Sean McLachlan on


I’m in Ft. William on the west coast of Scotland, the starting point for many popular long-distance hikes, including Scotland’s newest trail–the East Highland Way. Over the next six days I’ll be walking 76 miles past lochs, mountains, historic sites, and remote countryside. The hike is so new there isn’t even a guidebook yet, but Kevin Langan, who established the route and is writing a guidebook, kindly sent me some maps. The trail is unmarked, so these maps and a compass will be vital to be making it to Aviemore in the Central Highlands.

I wake up to a beautiful view of Loch Linnhe outside my window. The view is all that’s beautiful. It’s pouring rain, my legs hurt from climbing Ben Nevis yesterday, and I have a persistent cough courtesy of my four-year-old son that makes me hack up great gobbets of phlegm every time I say “loch”. A perfect morning to start trekking across Scotland!

Because of the scarcity of accommodation in this part of Scotland, the days aren’t of even distance. My first stop, the village of Spean Bridge, is only nine miles from Ft. William. Make that eleven since I’m staying west of town, but even so it’s an easy first day. This gives me a chance to walk out my fatigue from climbing the UK’s tallest mountain and gives me time to explore historic Ft. William.

There’s always been settlement along the shores of this loch that opens into the North Atlantic, but the city owes its prominence to the fort that gives it its name. Fort William was an English base to keep the Scots in line. There’s now a movement by some nationalists in town to change the name to something more Scottish! Not much of the original fort survives, and for more information I head to the West Highland Museum. What strikes me about this museum is the focus on the rebellions against the English. While these are a major part of Scottish history and still affect today’s politics, the coverage seems almost obsessive. Weapons and paintings of Bonnie Prince Charlie are everywhere. My own clan, Clan MacLachlan, took part in the rebellions, and what I know of Scottish history is centered around the various Lost Causes my ancestors supported. Not talking about the Scottish rebellions while in the Highlands would be like not talking about the Civil War while traveling through the American South. As I continue on my hike I’ll see places where my ancestors marched and fought, and learn more about their role in Scottish history.

I dawdle in the museum talking to the curator and hoping the rain will ease up, but it only gets worse, so I stop delaying and head on out. The town is unremarkable beyond the beautiful views of the loch. The main street has been given over to tourism and the rest of the town looks a bit run down. At the edge of town is Inverlochy Castle, pictured above. This imposing castle was built in the 13th century to guard the River Lochy and the western edge of the Great Glen, the easiest transit route to the northeast. It’s built in a basic, solid manner with a moat, a square plan, and giant towers at each corner. This isn’t some elegant Renaissance chateau castle, but a practical fortification meant to take plenty of abuse. It was the base of power for the Comyn family as they asserted their influence over much of medieval Scotland. Two battles were fought at this site and almost 800 years later much of the stonework still looks solid.

%Gallery-99692%The route east from the castle is an easy but not particularly attractive one. Like the first day of the Hadrian’s Wall Path and other popular paths, much time is spent getting out of populated areas. The route follows just south of a railway and highway on a dirt trail through managed forest. Logging is big business up here and orderly rows of trees are grown to be cut down and replaced with the next generation. Not exactly primeval woodland, but it does keep the sight of cars from my eyes.

The weather clears, then clouds up and rains, then clears again. This is typical Scottish weather–“four seasons in one day” as the saying goes. Before long I’m in Spean Bridge, a village on the River Spean. I decide the weather and my legs are in good enough shape to take a popular three-mile scenic loop trail near town. It’s the prettiest land I’ve seen all day, mostly unfarmed with wild trees and a real feel of untamed nature. It leads to the mossy ruins of High Bridge, scene of the first battle of the Jacobite uprising of 1745.

Bonnie Prince Charlie had recently landed in Scotland and was gathering the Highlanders to march on England to overthrow the Hanoverian monarchy in favor of his own Stuart line. Clan MacLachlan was quick to join up. If I had been alive at that time I doubt I’d have been enthusiastic about overthrowing one monarch only to be ruled by another, but nobody went against the wishes of their clan chief. While we were still sharpening our swords up north, a dozen men from Clan MacDonald hid at one end of this bridge awaiting a force of 85 English soldiers sent to reinforce Ft. William. On August 16th (my birthday) 1745, the redcoats tried to cross. The MacDonalds shouted at the tops of their lungs, leaping from bush to bush on the steep slope of the opposite bank and firing their muskets. The redcoats thought they were outnumbered and ran.

My ancestors did get to help out in the next battle, at Prestonpans on September 21 (my son’s birthday). On that misty morning, an English army of 2,300 men was virtually wiped out by a fierce Highland charge. This was my ancestors’ sole tactic. A mass of men would charge at the enemy. Once in musket range they’d fire their muskets (if they had them), then charge again into pistol range, fire their pistols (if they had them) and throw them at the enemy. Then they charged into the enemy lines with a shield and dirk in one hand and a sword in the other. The sheer momentum of the howling, slashing, hacking Highlanders was enough to break the English lines. It was a good start to an ill-fated campaign.

The trail continues up a steep bare hill that provides me with a grand view of the rough Highland terrain I will tackle tomorrow. At the summit is a memorial to the British commandos of World War Two. They trained here, not to overthrow one king in favor of another, but to overthrow a mad dictator bent on world domination. Never in history has the line between right and wrong been so clear cut. Nearby is a sobering garden where people leave photos of loved ones who fought and died in that war and in Iraq and Afghanistan. All my achievements pale in comparison.

Tomorrow: The East Highland Way Day Two: Into the Highlands!

Czech Republic: From Prague Castle to Česky Krumlov Castle, a land of castles and fairy tales

by Gadling Staff on

For hundreds of years, Czech Republic was the land of knights and castles, royalty and moats, and drawbridges. Though the country boasts hundreds of castles and palaces across its hills and mountains, several impressive castles are close enough to Prague to be seen within one vacation. Still depicting the spirit of their peak days as royal medieval fortresses, these five castles are worth a closer look.

Prague Castle
Founded in the 9th century, the Prague Castle is one of the oldest castles in the region. During its long history, the Castle housed Bohemian Kings, Holy Roman Emperors, and Presidents of Czech Republic. Today, the Prague Castle is said to be the biggest ancient castle, and gleams as the jewel glistening above the Vltava River as the centerpiece of Prague.

What to do: Plan to spend a day to tour the soaring Cathedral, extensive gardens, and regal palaces within the Prague Castle.

Karlštein Castle
Founded in 1348 by Czech King and Roman Emporer Charles IV, this castle sits high on a hill overlooking the sleepy Vltava Moldau River. The town below advances up the hill with quaint shops and Czech-style restaurants, making the trek up toward the Karlštein Castle an experience in itself.

What to do: Plan to take the horse-drawn carriage up the steep grade road, from the only parking at the bottom, and enjoy the old-world feel of the village and castle to the sound of the horses’ clip-clop over cobblestones.

Křivoklát Castle
Approaching Křivoklát Castle from the surrounding hills creates a breathtaking experience, every time. Křivoklát looks like the castles born of fairy tales, built in the 12th century and washed a majestic white. Inside, find a Gothic chapel, an extensive library, and a memorable collection of Gothic-era art.

What to do: Take the tour, and see firsthand the notorious dungeons and prison torture instruments.

Loket Castle
This middle ages castle of the 12th century sits near the Czech-German border, and was once thought to be the key to the kingdom of Bohemia. Perched high above a dramatic promontory overlooking the Ohře River, the Loket Castle is a sight worth beholding, especially notable for its complete reconstruction by the townspeople of the village of Loket after its ruins during Communism.

What to do: Visit the charming town of Loket during one of their Festivals, and participate in the glimpse into medieval life.

Česky Krumlov Castle
One of the best preserved medieval towns in the world, ranked Number Two by the UNESCO World Heritage list, second only to Venice, Italy. Česky Krumlov, near the Czech-Austrian border, is the second largest castle in the Czech Republic, after the Prague Castle.

What to do: Tour the extensive gardens above the Castle, see a theater production hosted in the gardens amphitheater, or raft down the moat-like Vltava River below.

Czech Republic, home to hundreds of castles and palaces, is truly a fairy tale world to discover.

Jennifer Lyn King, a native of Texas, lives in the Czech Republic, where she writes from her home near Prague. She is the author of The One Year Mini for Busy Women. Read her blog on Red Room. All the photos above are copyright Jennifer Lyn King.

New UNESCO World Heritage Sites for Ireland?

by Sean McLachlan on

The Republic of Ireland has a well-deserved reputation for beautiful landscapes and ancient monuments, so you might be surprised to learn that it has only two UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They are the Archaeological Ensemble of the Bend of the Boyne, which includes megalithic sites such as Newgrange that boast the world’s largest collection of prehistoric megalithic art, and Skellig Michael, a 7th century monastery on an isolated island.

Impressive sites, both of them, but surely the Emerald Isle has more to offer?

The Irish have decided to remedy this poor showing and have proposed seven sites or groups of sites for the UNESCO tentative list. Here’s a brief rundown:

The Burren: both a geological and a cultural landscape, The Burren on the west coast presents an imposing terrain of exposed limestone carved into weird shapes by the wind and rain. Nowadays it attracts hikers and other outdoorsy types, but in early times it attracted a succession of cultures that grazed their animals there and left more than 2,700 monuments. Still used by locals for their flocks, a large body of myth and folklore has grown up around this unique landscape.

The Historic City of Dublin: Ireland’s capital has a well-preserved historic center full of Georgian-era buildings. These eighteenth and early nineteenth century buildings are some of the finest of their type. Add to this generations of writers (Swift, Sheridan, Wilde, Stoker, Yeats, Beckett, etc.) and the fact that it’s the setting for James Joyce’s Ulysses, and you have one of the cultural capitals of the world. Dublin is full of atmospheric views, like the one caught here by user patrodz from Gadling’s flickr pool. You can even go on a literary pub crawl of Dublin.

The Céide Fields and North West Mayo Boglands: It’s strange to think that an entire Neolithic landscape, complete with boundary walls, farm fields, and monuments could survive intact for almost 6,000 years, but that’s exactly what’s happened here. Much of the landscape is buried under a thick layer of peat that preserves organic materials such as pollen, leather, wooden tools, even human bodies. It’s been the playground of archaeologists for generations, and every year new discoveries are made.

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Western Stone Forts: a network of Early Medieval (700-1000 AD) ringforts, circular stone walls that defended the homes of the petty rulers whose lands made up a patchwork of kingdoms on the island. These were dangerous times of constant raiding and brigandage, and regular folk made ringforts too. These Western Stone Forts are on a more grandiose scale than those of the commoners and are often better preserved, such as the impressive stone fort at Dún Aonghasa.

The Monastic City of Clonmacnoise and its Cultural Landscape: This monastic city in central Ireland has yet to be swallowed by the juggernaut of modern “development.” Founded in 545, it became a major center of arts and learning and a royal burial site. There are many churches and a castle still standing.

Early Medieval Monastic Sites: Ireland is famous for its early medieval monasteries that helped keep the lamp of learning lit after the fall of the Roman Empire. While books such as Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization exaggerate the Irish role (the Byzantines and Arabs helped preserve and enhance Classical learning too) there’s no doubt that Irish monks were one of the bastions of culture during a low period in European history. Six monasteries have been chosen for the tentative list owing to their historical importance and degree of preservation.

The Royal Sites of Ireland: Ireland spent much of its medieval history as a group of small kingdoms whose borders constantly fluctuated due to the fortunes of war. The competing royal families gave rise to a rich body of literature and folklore. Five royal sites have been chosen for the tentative list. They are Cashel, Dún Ailinne, Hill of Uisneach, Rathcroghan Complex, and the Tara Complex. Each was a royal center for one of the great royal houses of medieval Ireland.

An impressive list. Here’s hoping UNESCO recognizes their global cultural value. There’s a downside to this, however, as was recently pointed out in the latest issue of Northern Earth magazine. which advised, “Go now–if they get listed, they will enter the tourism industry and become subject to inflation and packaging!”

Gondar: Ethiopia’s Camelot

by Sean McLachlan on

The road north from Lake Tana, Ethiopia, gradually ascends into the mountains. The landscape grows greener and the farms look richer here.

The combination of rough mountains and good farmland made it an obvious place for a capital city, and for many years it was. Gondar is nestled in a mountain-ringed valley at 2133 meters (6,998 ft.) altitude and is free from the malaria that plagues the Lake Tana region. It appeared so attractive that the Emperor Fasilidas moved from Lake Tana and made Gondar his capital in 1635. He built the impressive castle pictured to the right and gathered his court and supporters around him.

If the castle looks a bit European, that’s because Fasilidas took his inspiration from the Portuguese. A group of Portuguese adventurers had helped his father, Susneyos, defeat the Muslim conqueror Ahmed Gragn. Susneyos converted to Catholicism and tried to convert his subjects too, but the Ethiopian Orthodox faith was too strong for such a change. When Fasilidas came to the throne he quickly reconverted everyone back to the traditional church and ejected the Portuguese. This didn’t stop him from learning a thing or two from the Europeans, however, castle architecture being one of them.

Gondar makes a good rest stop after a few days of driving. The mountain breeze is cool and refreshing. The Italians liked it too, and during their brief occupation of the country from 1936-1941 they built an attractive European-style downtown that still retains some faded glory.

%Gallery-87470%Gondar is a place of song. The town’s many churches broadcast prayers and hymns over loudspeakers from the early morning until late at night. While this is common practice across Ethiopia, here the prayers bounce off the slopes and echo across the valley. They are especially audible at the palace complex, where Fasilidas built his castle and his successors vied with each other to make their own mark on history. There are a total of six castles by six different kings, built during Gondar’s 280 year run as the empire’s capital. The entire complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

While that of Fasilidas is the most imposing, each castle has its own distinctive style. A walk around the grounds is best done in a leisurely manner, and some castles offer fine views from the upper windows and battlements, although it takes some convincing to get the guards to let you up there!

Two related sights nearby should not be missed. One is the “Bath” of Fasilidas, actually a giant baptismal font for his famous mass reconversion. Usually it’s left empty, but for Timkat, the celebration of Epiphany, it’s filled with water and the faithful gather around, dressed in white and carrying candles.

The other sight is the Trinity Church built by the Emperor Iyasu in 1674. Of the 44 churches in Gondar, this is the only one to survive the attack of the Mahdi’s forces from the Sudan in 1888. It is said that the bees kept in the orchard on the church grounds swarmed against the Muslim looters and stung them so badly that they fled. The soldiers tried several times to burn the church, but each time they were driven off by angry bees.

However the church was saved, every visitor is grateful that it was. The interior is filled with elegant paintings of miracles and Bible scenes. Even the ceiling is covered in art. Winged angel heads are painted in neat rows along and between the roof beams. They look in every direction, a symbol of God being able to see everything at once.

If he has an eye for beauty, he must be looking at Gondar a lot.

Coming up next: Ethiopia’s wonderful children!

You can read the rest of the Ethiopia series here.

Lon-done? Try Windsor and Eton

by Sean McLachlan on

If London has whet your appetite for all things English, hop on a train and visit Windsor. Less than an hour from central London, this historic city is one of the easiest and most popular day trips for foreign visitors. You can also enjoy a nice stroll to nearby Eton and visit the famous boarding school.

The main attraction is, of course, Windsor Castle. It’s one of the official residences of the Queen and she often spends her weekends here (tough life!). It’s the oldest and largest continually inhabited castle in the world. While there was a castle here as early as 1070, the oldest surviving parts date from the reign of Henry II (reigned 1154-1189). In 1189, Prince (later King) John was besieged here by angry barons who eventually forced him to sign the Magna Carta, the first official limitation on the monarch’s power. King Edward III (reigned 1327-1377) built much of the present structure.

The tours are lots of fun. One of the highlights is St. George’s Chapel, and elaborately Gothic 15th century house of worship that’s the place of rest for ten monarchs. Other stops include Queen Mary’s dollhouse, a lavish art collection with pieces by Holbein and Rubens, the armory, and fine views from atop the battlements. Windsor Castle is one of those rare sights that’s actually better to visit in winter, because that’s when the semi-state rooms are open. Built by George IV in the 1820s as living and social quarters for the royal family, they include elegant furniture and giant oil paintings under elaborately molded plaster ceilings.

Interesting trivia: Windsor Castle is not named after the House of Windsor (the royal family), but in fact the royal family is named after the castle. During World War Two the royals decided their actual name, the House of Saxe Coburg-Gotha, sounded too German and changed it!

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After visiting the castle, enjoy a pleasant amble through Windsor Great Park and The Long Walk. This 4,800 acre park used to be hunting grounds for the Saxon kings. The Long Walk runs nearly half a mile from the southern gate of the castle. It used to be a promenade for the aristocratic set. Don’t go here after dark, though, because Herne the Hunter–a mysterious phantom rider who has antlers on his head and leads a pack of spectral hounds–has been known to ride by giving ominous predictions of doom to anyone who sees him.

If you have the time you should also check out Eton, the most elite public (i.e.–private) school in the UK. Eton has been educating future power brokers since it was founded by Henry VI in 1440. A tour gives a glimpse of what it’s like to live the privileged life, with a small teacher/student ratio and more extracurricular activities than you can count. The school is historic and beautiful, with a 15th century chapel and classrooms and serene grounds perfect for lazing about and spending daddy’s money learning. The Museum of Eton life explains what the kids get up to in all these ornate buildings–and one thing they get up to is carving their names everywhere. You’ll see graffiti on some of the walls that’s older than many nations.

While most visitors will only see the castle and Eton, Windsor has a lot more to offer. If the weather is fine, take a boat trip along the River Thames, which flows between Windsor and Eton. You can get some great shots of Windsor Castle from the water. A picnic at Windsor Great Park is also a good way to while away an afternoon. You can also hop on a bus near the castle that takes you to Legoland Windsor with lots of rides and attractions and Miniland, a reproduction of some of the greatest landmarks of the world. You can see Kennedy Space Center, London’s Millennium Bridge, and more. Building all this took nearly 40 million bricks of Lego. That’s some serious dedication!

Windsor and Eton are compact enough that you can easily walk around and see all the highlights in a single long day. If you decide to stay overnight, the Mercure Windsor Castle Hotel on 18 High Street offers sweeping views of the castle. This 16th century coaching inn has lots of historic flair and if you have deep pockets, there’s a good but pricey restaurant that serves English cuisine and high tea. More affordable dining can be had at the Castello Restaurant and Wine Bar at 4 Church Lane. The building dates to 1423. Original oak beams crisscross the walls and ceiling and there doesn’t seem to be a straight line anywhere. For al fresco dining, step out onto the medieval cobblestone lane. Simple, reasonably priced food, big servings, and a medieval setting-you might have to go to Italy to find this combination again.

If you want to do more day trips from London, try Bath, St. Albans, and Canterbury.