Welcome to my homepage of Scotland. I
visited Scotland this summer as part of my honeymoon and found it to be
a very interesting place to be. We spent 18 days in Great Britain
and 8 days in Scotland alone. Our trip was very enjoyable and there was
so much to see. If you are interested in learning about Scotland,
Scotland:
Gateway to Scotland is a great place to begin your journey. Scotland
is 31,510 square miles in area. It is 274 miles long from North to South
and varies in width from 24 and 154 miles long. Edinburgh is the capital
city and Glascow is its largest city.
There are many maps of Scotland that show
where its cities and towns are located as well as its topigraphical terrain.
Scotland:
Location Map & Major Cities is a great place to go if you are interested
in learning more about individual cities and towns as well as showing remarkable
pictures of the Scottish Highlands.
www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland/scotmap.html
Over the course of our tour, we visited many
museums. One of the more interesting museums we visited was the Royal Museum
in Edinburgh. There is something for everyone here. There are sections
of Geology, Natural History, Applied Art, Technological History, Wildlife,
and more. There are many National
Museums of Scotland that are located throughout the country. Since
Scotland is rich in history, they take pride in the preservation of their
country and one of the ways they share this with the world is with their
museums.
The capital city of Edinburgh will be where
the new Scottish elections will take place. As we walked around Edinburgh,
there were newly appointed governmental officials walking around the city
searching for apartments so they would not need to travel extensively for
their new positions. Previously, Scotland's laws were decided by parliament
in London to cover Great Britain together. Scotland has not had its own
set of laws in over 300 years. At the Scottish
Parliamentary Election Website - The Scotsman - Devolution May 1999 - Holyrood
- Edinburgh
there is more information on this.
The Edinburgh Military Tattoo is the biggest
event of the year in Scotland. It begins in late July and runs through
late August. The Tattoo as you see pictured, is held at the entrance to
the castle. The Edinburgh Castle sits on top of an enormous rock ledge
that overlooks the city. I would like to point out that the entrance you
see in the picture is the seventh and final gate you must cross through
to enter the castle. This would have made it nearly impossible to break
into and take over the castle.
The city of Edinburgh was in the process of setting up the bleachers
for this event as we were visiting the castle. Seating capacity for this
event is approximately 9,000 in which it sells out everytime.
The
Edinburgh Military Tattoo 1999 - Main Menu will tell you more about
this event.
Music and dance can be found everywhere you
go in Scotland from the large cities to the small farming communities.
Scotland:
Music and Dance will show you how much this is part of the Scottish
culture. What would Scotland be without the bagpipes and kilts? The kilts
are worn mostly for special occasions or for guides in the larger cities
to keep the tourists happy. You can hear people playing bagpipes all over
the country. People play them at most rest areas for tourists and on many
street corners. The locals seem to get tired of hearing them but they realize
that its for the tourists and it drives their economy so they learn to
deal with it.
The Scottish people are into their sporting
events, especially football. Remember, their football is not the same as
ours is. We call it soccer. Scotland:
Sports and Interests will help you understand the popularity football
has in this country. Soccer in the U.S. is starting to catch on but its
not nearly on the same level as it is in Scotland. While in Scotland, I
had the oppertunity to attend a soccer game. It is very intense. The players
and fans can become very rowdy. The Celtics and Rangers are two of the
more famous football teams in Scotland. Criquet, Rugby, and Golf are the
other major sports of Scotland. More onformation on these sports can also
be found on the link above.
Scotland has a very rich history. Some of
which has been joyous and some plagued by numerous wars and battles. Scottish
History from Scotweb will give you essays on the highland history and
in-depth descriptions of what events took place many hundreds of years
ago. Interactive maps reveal the changing fortunes of the various clans
overtime.
On our trip, we had spare time to explore Scotland
on our own. We decided to join a group and hike into the highlands. The
higher mountains in the north of Scotland are approximately 4,000 feet
high. The strange part is that many of these mountains are bare. No trees
to be found. There were very few deer and rabbits but other than that,
there aren't many animals this high into the country. The reason being
that in the dead of winter, daylight usually lasts for about 5 hours and
I've heard that its blistering cold. However, when we were there it didn't
start to get dark until 11pm. That made for very long days! Anyways, everywhere
we went there were hikers backpacking across the country. It seemed like
lots of fun. Walking
in Scotland will familiarize you with some of the better hiking trails
around.
And finally, what would our trip have been
without a trip to the famous Loch Ness. Unfortunately, we did not see the
monster but we were able to speak with many of the locals and many of them
swear they have seen Nessie at one time. Lochs are large bodies of water.
There are many lochs throughout Scotland. The Ness means dark and dreary
which is where the name comes from. Sure enough when we were there it was
dark and dreary. It was strange because about a half hour before arriving
at Loch Ness it was a beautiful day. It also cleared up about half hour
after leaving the area. Official
Loch Ness Monster Exhibition / Nessie on the Net in Scotland!
will give you all the up-to-date information on the latest searchs
and sightings.
Carl Bisson
EDU 553 Homepage
Dr. David L. Stoloff