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(We flew into Glasgow, spent 3
full days there, then spent a week in the southwest area, based in Port
William,
before going back to Glasgow for another 3 days. So this is not
entirely chronological:
I'm putting all of the Glasgow days together (at Scotland 2024: Glasgow) and all of the
southwestern days together here.
You can enlarge any picture in this narrative by
clicking on it - it
will open in a separate window and in many cases, show detail you can't
see in the smaller version. Many more pictures are here.)
Saturday May 4 -  After our usual yummy breakfast at the Ambassador Hotel
in Glasgow, we packed up, checked out and Ubered (only £10) to Glasgow
Central Railway Station. I had bought our tickets online a month
ago so we got there early just for me to verify that the "mobile
ticket" I had on my phone was all we needed (it was).  We had some snacks and sat around until our
Carlisle train was posted - we only went to Dumfries but the routes are
listed by the end of the line, as buses and subways typically are as
well. I love European trains - they are so easy and so
fast! We got to Dumfries around 1 PM and had a nice lunch at the
little cafe right there at the station. This is where John
discovered "Brown Sauce" in conversation with the cook and with another
customer who filled him in on various brands. (We couldn't find
anything like it at home so he ordered it from Amazon!) Katie
and George rented a car at Newcastle and picked us up around 2
PM. We stopped at Aldis in Newton-Stewart to do our shopping for
the week and then continued on to Salt Life Cottage in Port William
(left). It was a lovely, very old but refurbished duplex cottage
- all new appliances, lots of electronics. The only real
compromise we noticed (in trying to update a hundreds of years old
cottage) was the kitchen/dining area: it was quite small with a
table and benches in the middle. You couldn't do any cooking
while
the benches were in use so it made meals a little tricky, but we
acclimated pretty quickly and learned to work with that
limitation! To the right is a picture of the full cottage (the
center
one with the 3 trash bins front of it) taken from the hill a block away.Sunday May 5   Today was a
rainy day so we took advantage of that and just rested since we were
all pretty tired from our previous week's sightseeing. (Katie and
George had spent that week in London.) When the
active rain stopped, but it was still wet and foggy, we went out for a
walk around town. The picture at the left is our backyard taken
from upstairs at low tide (and obviously quite cloudy). To the
right is John and the "standing man" sculpture that's along the coastal
trail right behind our cottage. As we walked around to the front,
we encounter the roundabout as you come into town that features the
town's main industry (left below). We climbed the hill up to
Maxwell Park and their war memorial (center below), met some new
plants and saw lots of gorse (the ubiquitous yellow bushes at the right
below).      Monday May 6   Today was Rhins (aka Rhinns) of Galloway day - that is
the peninsula across Luce Bay from Port William. On a sunny day
(later in the week) you can see the Rhins from our backyard. We
started at Dunskey Castle (left) on the western side of the peninsula,
facing the Irish Sea. It dates back to 1290 - really hard to conceive
of how long ago that was and how much of the castle is actually still
standing after being destroyed in battle in 1500. You can't drive up to
the castle - I think it is privately owned but we didn't see any "No
Trespassing" signs and it's right on the coastal path that runs from
Port Patrick so it isn't hard to get to. We parked at a nearby
"holiday campground" and walked about half a mile. Even inside,
there are intact staircases and we could safely get up to the top floor
and look out. On the right is a picture I took out of one of the
"windows" upstairs - you can see that it sits up on a bluff over Castle
Bay (off of the Irish Sea) in a very strategic position. Stop #2 for the day, heading south on the peninsula, was at the Logan Subtropical Botanic Garden established in 1869 and now operated as part of the Royal Botanic Garden. The climate, warmed by the gulf stream, supports a very different type of flora than almost anywhere else in Scotland - many of the plants are from Central or South America. We spent a couple of hours wandering the grounds - here are only a few of the impressive residents. On the left is a view from the top of the Walled Garden, highlighting the Tree Ferns; we saw a few at the Glasgow Botanic Garden, too, but inside the Kibble Palace - these are growing outdoors. In the center is Chilean Rhubarb, which is not really a rhubarb but looks much like it - they grow to over 6 feet high! Finally on the right, a creative person has created this "Loganosaurus" from woven vines.      The
final destination for the day
was the Mull of Galloway - the last few miles was along a very narrow
(but two-way) road that also had to be shared with the sheep (left); at
least it did have some shoulder on each side! We started with
lunch at the Gallie
Craig Coffee
House.
This is an amazingly designed place with glass on 2 sides at the end of
a peninsula so lots of cliffs and water all around; the roof was
planted in grass so, when seen from the lighthouse, e.g., it is hard to
tell it is even there! This is hard to describe, so I borrowed a
picture from their web site (on the right) to illustrate!
Besides having a nice variety of sandwiches, panini, wraps and meals,
they also carry lots of cards, photos and other souvenirs.  After
lunch we walked up to the lighthouse and climbed the 115 steps to the
top for some interesting views. It is still operational, using
LED lights, but now is controlled remotely from Edinburgh. The
keeper on duty was full of information and told us about the history
(it was first lit in 1830), the science and the environment. In
the left picture below, taken from the top of the lighthouse, you can
see the RSPB (Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds) Reserve at Lagvag point on
the extreme southern edge of Scotland. For obvious reasons, this
reserve is focused on cliff and shore birds. We
saw a lot of
guillmots but also others that we couldn't readily identify. In
the center, you can tell how windy it was on the edge - Katie and
George
walked as far down as felt safe! Notice that there was actually
some blue sky by then! At the right, it's hard to believe this
was the first
"real" sunset of our trip - but we were not on the coast before and
then we had a couple days of too many clouds!   Tuesday May 7   Today's field trip was not so far: to Wigtown. We
started at the Bladnoch
Distillery
which was quite interesting. I didn't participate in the
"tasting" but the tour was fun and I enjoyed our guide! At the
left are surfboards made from recycled Bladnoch Whisky casks! And
on the right is a cask signed by the King (Charles) and Queen (Camilla)
when they were here for the 200th anniversary celebration of the
distillery. We learned, among other things, that whisky must be
in the cask for at least 3 years plus one day before it can be
considered "whisky." Which explains the huge number of casks
sitting around!  In Wigtown we had lunch at the ReadingLasses
bookshop - it is woman-owned and emphasizes books for, by and about
women. They also have great lunches and to-die-for
desserts! After lunch we wandered the town a bit. On the
left you can see the main street and the New Market Cross (aka Mercat
Cross) in the center - it was erected in 1816 at the site of the
ancient marketplace. The right is just a bench that "spoke" to
me! There were loads of bookstores (Wigtown is the "National
booktown of Scotland") and other little shops to entertain us.When we got back to Port William, we realized that there weren't any clouds and we could see all the way across Luce Bay to the Lighthouse! This is zoomed quite a bit, but it is not obscured by clouds! Later on there was an awesome sunset and, after I took my sunset pictures out in the yard, I turned back and discovered George, Katie and John watching the sunset from the upstairs windows!    Wednesday May 8 We headed for Galloway Forest Park
(largest in the UK) for
hiking today. This area is sometimes referred to as "the highland
of the lowlands." We had a hard time deciding where to go since
there are so many lochs and trails. But eventually we decided to
try Loch Trool and so started at the Glentrool Visitor Center, which is
really mostly a little cafe but they did have maps and the greeter had
been there before and could give us some information. We already
knew we weren't up to the whole Loch Trool Loop (5.5 miles) but she
suggested doing a portion of that trail that passed several falls and
burns and then return after we came to the viewpoint at the east end of
the loch. She suggested it would take about an hour, but it ended
up being about 4 miles and took us 2 hours (stopping a lot for picture
taking)! It was a good choice, though, because we saw quite a
variety of scenery. The first picture is near the trailhead
where we started; also close to one of the Bruce Stones that
commemorates Robert the Bruce's victory nearby in 1307. Then one
of the cascading burns (I am guessing Buchan Burn) we passed and an
interesting split tree - we are guessing a lightning strike.
      We felt we had earned our lunch after we climbed up the very long steep hill at the end! It was a good day. Thursday May 9  Today was a stay at home lazy day for me. We all slept in a bit; at 1 pm the other 3 went to to the Crafty Distillery for a gin tour. They liked it and were interested in the differences between the whisky and gin processes. I can't say more about it since I wasn't there! I did laundry (which was an adventure with the "all in one" washer/dryer that we aren't used to) and took another walk around town, then crashed in the living room to finish my book. The picture to the left is my favorite "house plaque" from my walk today! Below are a wall mural on the public restrooms in Port William, the coastal path from our backyard on a sunny day, and a painting of a "highland coo" on the stairwell in our cottage.    Friday, May 10
  Today's destination was Kirkcudbright (pronounced kur-coo-bree). It's known as an "artsy" town and we did indeed
find many galleries. We started at Broughton House - former home of artist Edward A
Hornel. It was restored to approximately its state in the early
1900's (when Hornel purchased it and lived there) and includes numerous
paintings by him and his contemporaries, known as the Glasgow
Boys. He travelled extensively in the far east, including
Mandalay, Japan and Burma, and the influence of that area is frequently
seen in his work. The two paintings (one unfinished) at the left are on
display in Broughton House, shown at the right.For us, the real attraction at Broughton House, however, was its garden! We could have spent all afternoon there. Here are a few of our many pictures (don't miss the bee on the batchelor button; and Katie took the photo of John and me enjoying it all) - find more in the picture collection if you want to!    For lunch we went to the Selkirk Arms and it was not only conveniently just around the corner (so we didn't have to move the car), but the service and food were great! Then we split up and wandered the town to explore for another couple of hours before heading back to Port William. We stopped briefly in the Stewartry Museum (nice but very small), the Harbour Cottage Gallery, The Shed Studio and the White House Gallery. Outdoors, we admired MacLellan's Castle ruins (1582 but under repair so we couldn't go in) with the Kirkcudbright War Memorial by George Henry Paulin, erected in 1921, in front of it; the harbor and bridge over the River Dee and Odin's Throne outside the Stewartry Museum, crafted by Ian Cameron-Smith and Ian Gillan, with Callum King creating the metal birds on top. 
 Saturday May 11
  Sadly, our week is up and we have to leave! The
last sunset was a memorable one, though. We got to Dumfries early
enough to visit the Robert Burns Centre. It is very small, but
was interesting to stop in and learn more about his life - and it sits
right on the banks of the River Nith, giving us a postcard-type view
for our farewell! The train ride back to Glasgow was
uneventful - the scenery for most of it looked a lot like Iowa,
actually: green hills, farmhouses and windmills! Our trip log
picks up when we arrive at the station - if you haven't seen the
Glasgow page yet, click the first link below to read our adventures
before and after the Port William week. (Katie and George
continued on to one more castle ruin (Caerlaverock Castle) and stopped
to pay their respect at the Lockerbie Garden of Remembrance, then they
spent their last night in Newcastle Upon Tyne before flying home the
next day.)Click here to
see the Glasgow part of our Scotland Trip |