Striking out for Provence

Posted on March 24, 2010 by cathompson

Avignon, Wednesday, March 24, 8 a.m. — We’ve fallen a bit behind in our blogging, but it’s hard to blog when you’re going 300 kilometer per hour. We had a minor strike scare on Monday afternoon, when we realized that a major French rail strike was set to take place Tuesday, the very day we were hoping to take the TGV high-speed rail to Provence in the south of France. Thanks to Chrystele, a French radio journalist, we were able to find out that our train wasn’t going to be affected, but 1/3 of the other TGV were cancelled. We suspect Chrystele, a union boss herself, was behind an attempt to keep us in Paris, but she had her heavies relent at the last minute and free our train.

In the evening, we trudged to the Eiffel Tower. We tried to take the metro but someone had thrown themselves on the tracks, so we took two cabs to the heart of touristy Paris. Will begged to go up in the Tower, but the wait was far too long for the elevator to the top, so we bought tickets to take the stairs to the first level — that broad part you see partway up. We fought off some impudent Italian high school students and made our way up for the sunset and a great view of the city. As we left up the Trocadero, across the Seine with a view down on the tower and the Champs de Mars, the tower lit up. As a bride and groom had their wedding photos shot against that backdrop, we descended to the metro, where Rick deftly averted a pickpocketing with one of his steely glares. (The guy saw Rick’s backpack and darted off after him; I noticed, so did Rick, and the guy veered away. Phew.)

We had a lovely last dinner with the Papes in Paris at a charming, friendly restaurant near the Louvre and the Palais Royal. Luka and Will held out despite the late hour. We walked the Papes back to their bus through a lively neighborhood filled with busy cafes and restaurants. It was really sad saying goodbye to them; we hope to see them again soon and before Luka gets too much bigger. As you can see from the photos, he’s totally adorable.

We got off to a rough start Tuesday. We arrived at the Gare de Lyon more than an hour early, just in case there was strike-related travel chaos, but there wasn’t. Until we boarded the train. I found what I thought to be our seats, but there were people in three of the five seats. One man produced a ticket showing he, too, was in seat 21. The two women glared at me disinterestedy. Since Rick, Will, Mitchell and Alex stood behind me, lugging their suitcases and blocking the aisle, I retreated to try to find someone to help us find our real seats. Upstairs, downstairs, all around, I finally told everyone to sit down in an open seat and wait until I could figure it out. I found a very harried conductor, who told me, yes, my seats were down were I had originally been. By then the man occupying seat 21 found me and apologized, explaining he was mistaken (I think he was saving face for being such an ass) and the women were very, very angry as I showed them my tickets. They moved to other seats nearby. Whatever. I think they had figured I would give up and go away.

The train ride was otherwise uneventful. Just 2 1/2 hours all the way to the south of France, what would have been a 6 1/2 hour drive. And on the one leg of our journey I had not pre-planned to the nth degree — the ride from the train station to the hotel in Avignon — we of course were left standing at an empty taxi queue at the station with no taxis in sight — and some helpful person had scratched out part of the phone number to call a cab. The weather was beautiful, but we were all bundled up for cold, so we were HOT. A taxi swung around the corner in the glaring sun and Will leapt to his feet and shouted, “SOS!!” Well, needless to say we weren’t in danger of anything, and I managed to call a cab big enough to get us to our lovely old hotel just inside the medieval city walls of this city, home of the popes and the center of Christendom during the 14th century.

We dropped our luggage and headed out to catch the Palais des Papes, the 14th century fortress that rises above the winding streets of the city. It is a labyrinth of corridors and rooms used by the rogue popes who had moved here from Rome early in the 1300s. The first pope was austere, but the ones who followed were more like party-guys who built sumptuous chambers and beautifully arched feasting and meeting halls. (Don’t tell anyone, but Will and I think it doesn’t hold a candle to the castles in Scotland.)

We then climbed to the park behind the castle, where an unusual rock formation was the fortress of the original inhabitants of the area. Below, was the Pont St. Benezet, better known as the Pont d’Avignon of nursery-rhyme fame. It was built 200 or years before the palace and has withstood the ferocity of the Rhone river for centuries. It’s broken off half way, but it still made a magical spot to look back on the palace and the walls of Avignon in the fading sunlight.

We had a great dinner at La Fourchette, a cozy and extremely friendly restaurant near our hotel. We had an excellent Provencale meal; Mitchell ordered the escargot but declared they tasted like dirt. Will and Rick pitched in to eat a few. I had perfect salmon and a raw artichoke and parmesan salad (must try this at home); Rick and Will loved their Daube de Boeuf Provencale and mashed potatoes. Then home to bed.

King Darius Rocks the Louvre

Posted on March 22, 2010 by cathompson

Paris, Lundi, le 22 mars — Today, we tackled the Louvre. Everyone slept well last night because all the rugby fans had gone home, and it was blissfully quiet outside the hotel. We had our usual croissant from Gerard Mulot around the corner and then headed off on foot for the Louvre, a short walk away across the Seine. It was an unexpectedly clear and fresh morning, no clouds in sight, as we walked along the Seine toward the enormous palace that now houses the Musee du Louvre. Will exclaimed that if stood on its end, it would be as tall as the Empire State Building.

We had purchased tickets yesterday so were thankfully spared the freakishly long line leading to ticket sales in I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid entrance. Mitchell and Alex went their own way to explore, and the rest of us headed straight for the ancient Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian antiquities. For anyone who hasn’t been to the Louvre, it’s like a labyrinth in there, very hard to navigate all the stairs and levels and twists and turns. It puts poor ‘lil Mrs. Winchester to shame. The biggest (and really only) bummer was that much of the archaic Greek art, along with ALL THE POTTERY, were closed from view for renovations, which was a heartbreak to me. But there was plenty else to see in the three-hours we alloted ourselves. It was pleasant at first, not crowded, but by noon it was a sweltering mass of humanity and tour groups and totally despicable people fondling the statues. What is wrong with people?

Anyway, back to the good stuff. We saw the Mona Lisa — on Will’s insistence. The whole experience was summed up by a Japanese man, who pushed past us through the crowd surrounding the painting and declared, “Mimashita!” Which is the one-word Japanese sentence, “I saw (it).” So we mimashita’d and vamoosed past the Botticellis and DaVincis and Titians at breakneck speed to get back to our beloved antiquities. None of this Renaissance modern art for us.

We particularly enjoyed the statues of the Roman emperors, especially Will. As Rick and I blazed ahead, Will said critically, “You’re going a bit fast.” Oh, joy to a mother’s ears, he’s becoming a museum lover. We especially loved the art from Persian King Darius in the late 6th century B.C., these amazing wall murals made of green stone that were completely spectacular. There were the double-bull capitals of these enormous columns, the size of which was hard to imagine. I was completely blown away by the 3rd to 2nd millenium B.C. Near Eastern/Iranian pottery that sported the geometric patterns that reappeared on Greek pottery after the Dark Ages around the turn of the 1st millenium B.C. I think if I could reinvent myself I’d come back as an art historian of the Middle East.

At noon, with the crowds getting stifling, we headed for a local restaurant filled with French businessmen and had a lunch (burgers for Mitchell and Alex, the charcuterie plate for Will) and then took the metro to the catacombs — underground passages literally decorated with the bones of thousands of people from the 17th and earlier centuries. I was creeped out and didn’t want to go, but was outvoted. Much to my delight and the rest’s dismay, they were closed on Monday. So we trekked back to our hotel, where we are resting and preparing for the night out with Eric and Chrystele and the Tour Eiffel, which we were too tired to see last night.

Roman Ruins and Talking Toilets

Posted on March 22, 2010 by cathompson

Paris, Day 1 1/2. We survived the night, just barely, but it appears all the rugby fans are still hungover, so hopefully tonight will be quiet. We had an amazing day in Paris. We slept til 9:15 a.m. (Mitchell and Alex were up by 7 and out for croissant and coffee with the non-rugby- fan-Parisians carrying baguettes under their arms for breakfast) and then regrouped to go to Eric and Crystele’s new apartment for brunch. We took the metro, and passed by an amazing Sunday farmer’s market — fresh fish on ice, cheese spread, baguettes — on our way to their place. They live in a lovely neighborhood and have this super-cool 5th floor apartment with a loft and a 2-person elevator lift. They fed us an amazing breakfast of croissant (and everyone converted to the religion of The Almond Croissant, as in it’s what they eat on Mount Olympus), ham, cheese, pan au chocolat, lox, strong coffee, cherry chocolate cake — the list goes on and on. Will was basically in a diabetic coma by the time we left to go to Notre Dame, the Roman Ruins beneath and the Pompidou.

Will loved the ruins — we saw 1st century B.C. ramparts, which had 3rd century buildings built on top, including some public lavatories and communal hot baths, which had 6th century buildings built on top, then 16th century buildings built on top — you get the picture.
Notre Dame has incredible stained glass, soaring ceilings, of course, and beautiful architecture.

Other highlights of our walk: Passing the front window of the rodent control store, with the several dozen rats hanging from traps inside the store window, featured in the movie “Ratatouille.” As we were walking, we were passed by a group of a thousand or more roller skaters, led by Paris police and trailed by two Paris ambulances. Turns out it’s a Friday evening and Sunday afternoon ritual, this skate around the streets of Paris. We also joined Chrystele and Luka for Luka’s first ride on a streetside carousel in front of the ornate Paris City Hall, or Hotel de Ville.

It was late afternoon by the time we got to the crazy steamship like sculptures outside the Pompidou. We weren’t quite in the mood for the prevailing sense of sarcasm and anger of most of the modern art exhibits in the Pompidou museum. For instance, the naked woman doing the hula with a hoop made of barbed wire seemed to leave Will rather unimpressed. But we had a great whirlwind tour of early 20th century art with the museum’s amazing collection of artists such as Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Matisse, Man Ray, Kandinsky and on and on. Will puzzled over a rendition of Duchamp’s famous found object, the urinal — “Is is art?” To his credit, he noted the clean lines and geometric vent holes, before moving on. Will did, however, have a strangely harrowing experience — I guess all par for the course at a modern art museum. After he used the toilet — not a Duchamp — the toilet began speaking loudly and angrily in French. We’re not sure what it said — Rick tried to go back to investigate — but it left Will in an apoplexy. “It talked, it really did,” he said. “It sounded like a radio.” Creepy, if you ask me.

So after taking in the view of the city — it had cleared up and was gorgeous, we had a snack of streetside crepes and waffles, then we took the Metro to the Tuileries, an amazing garden and plaza stretching several miles from the Louvre past the Place de la Concorde to the Avenue des Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. It was our favorite sight of the day, a slowly arriving sunset casting beautiful light on the statues, fountains and ponds of the Tuileries, with children pushing sailboats around the water with long sticks, people reclining in chairs in the nice early spring weather, and the lights coming on, steadily, across the Paris skyline.

We crowded into a cab (“I don’t take five,” the cabbie said, before relenting) past the beautifully lit Eiffel Tower back to our neighborhood, where we sat down for dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant recommended by Courtenay’s classics professor at Stanford, who had spent a year in Paris. We met the proprietor, who is planning to come to Oregon to pick up a large sailboat in the next few weeks, had a great dinner, shared several bottles of red wine, emerged from the restaurant and promptly got good and lost trying to find our way back to the hotel After 30 minutes of wandering a maze of back streets, squinting at a partial map in the dim light, asking a cabbie, a fish monger and several others for directions, we walked past the same Gap store at least twice, we finally emerged safely and happily back on the Boulevard Saint Germain, where we found our bearings and arrived at the hotel. Or at least until Mitchell found his bearings and got us home.

Now after a good night’s sleep (Will is still snoring gently) we are gearing up for a big morning at the Louvre, an underground tour of the crypts, a going-away dinner with Eric, Crystele and Luka, and a late-night visit to the Tour Eiffel.

There’s a Reason Rugby almost rhymes with Ugly

Posted on March 21, 2010 by cathompson

After a short nap, we met our friends here in Paris for a walk through St. Germaine-des-Pres and by the Sorbonne on our way to a nice little restaurant nearby. We had a lovely meal and got to catch up with Eric and Chrystele and their totally adorable 1-year-old Luka. He grinned nonstop, only pausing to graw on the heel of a baguette, apparently his favorite indulgence. Such a good little Parisian. When we came out of the restaurant into the drizzling Paris night, the narrow street was swarming with people, with an ominous, drunken roaring at one end. Eric at first hesitated wheeling the stroller that way, and explained that France was playing England for the championship. We past the bars spilling out rugby fans, and got some AMAZING gelato nearby — sorry Mio Gelato, but this far surpasses anything we’ve had in Portland. Sort of like comparing Nescafe to the real cafe.

Well, all was good until we tucked into bed — and realized our cute little hotel on a “quiet sidestreet” was just down the street from a bar, or some such. Or perhaps the whole city was on fire with drunken, rowdy Marseillese-singing rugby fans who had just witnessed their team win. It was a long night, let’s just say. The last revelers finally shut up about 3:15 a.m. or so. So no wonder we just got up at 9:15 a.m.
We are off to Eric and Chrystele’s for brunch, then maybe Notre Dame, the Roman ruins nearby and the Pompidou, a mecca for modern art and a word Rick just loves saying.

Paris Touchdown

Posted on March 20, 2010 by cathompson

Bonjour mes amis! Nous sommes arrives!! What was it Toot and Puddle said when they found each other in France? I whispered in French to Will as we pulled into Charles De Gaul airport, and he said, “Whatever. Sounds good!” Anyhow, we made it safely after a very smooth flight, which was only marred by Rick busting into his seatmate, some poor woman from Laurelhurst in Portland, while she was perched in the lavatory. They didn’t speak for hours afterwards.

Other than that, it was a smooth flight. Will slept a few hours en route. Alex did great despite misgivings about motion sickness and having been up until 3 a.m. the night before finishing a last-minute project. And Mitchell is his usual cheerful travel self, sampling first the pain au chocolat and then the very French Club Sandwich, pronounced “Sand-weech.”

While we waited to check-in, we wandered the literary area of St. Germaine-des-Pres, the former haunt of Hemingway, Sartre, Camus, Picasso and even our old buddy Ben Franklin. We walked through the Luxemburg Gardens, saw the gothic St. Surplice church featured in the “Da Vinci Code,” and saw the building where the treaty ending the U.S. Revolutionary War was signed by Franklin, John Jay and John Adams. That was all before lunch — and a nap. We dined at the Cafe Deux Magot, where Hemingway liked to drink coffee, and then staggered back to the hotel for a nap. Croques Madames and Croque Provencales all around, except for Will’s salami and baguette sandwich, plain the way he likes it and can’t get it in the U.S., along with cornichons. Will declared, “I like the French,” as he tucked into his sandwich.
We then staggered back to our hotel for a rest. Our dear friend Eric insisted we only nap 2.5 hours, no more, much to Rick’s chagrin, but we are trusting Eric’s knowledge of Parisian jet lag, so we’re up and at em again. He, his wife Chrystele and their baby boy Luka are headed over to meet us in a few minutes. We send amour to tout le monde and we’ll post some photos later. Bisous!

Thompsons, trains and whiskey

Posted on March 8, 2010 by cathompson

Haggis McBaggis in the Roman Camp

Posted on July 23, 2009 by cathompson

CALLANDER, SCOTLAND, Thusday, July 23, 2009 – So sad to wake up on our last day in Scotland. Actually, wonderful waking up, but sad to be leaving tomorrow. Our last real night (tonight we stay at the Glasgow airport and get up at like 3 a.m. to catch our flight to Amsterdam) was very special.

We are staying in a lodge dating back to 1630 – there’s a gorgeous oak-paneled library whose wood goes back to the 15th century – not sure if the wood had just been lying around for 100 years before going into the library, but nobody seems to know the answer.
Anyhow, it’s a lovely place set on a number of acres along the Teith River – you can borrow a rod and catch trout and salmon within viewing distance of the library. The place has beautiful gardens (hard to keep up with the weeds) that have an elegant, slightly unkempt air.

Will ran through them yesterday afternoon in the sunshine, delighted by their maze-like corridors. The flowers were all in bloom, so it was a riot of reds, oranges, purples and greens. They also raise herbs and fruits and vegetables for the restaurant at the hotel, which is called the Roman Camp.

It is so named because a Roman fort once stood on the grounds – no one can tell us where, but Dad, grandfather of a soon-to-be-famous archeologist named Will – identified a large mound near the entrance that looks suspiciously like the mounds we saw at the Antonine Wall early in our trip. I’d originally booked the hotel on the romantic sound of its name, and it’s turned out to be a great way to end the trip.
The rooms are huge, with a separate sitting area, which is great for me so I can get up and type and make coffee while Will still sleeps. The furniture is old and antiquey and the walls wallpapered with flowers.

I usually don’t like wallpaper, but it’s so perfect here. And for the foodies out there, we had an amazing meal last night, so much so that I put aside my attempt to not gain weight on this trip and ate everything!
We started with haggis on a stick for an appetizer, which everyone, including Will, ate and declared delicious.

View of the Teith River from Drawing Room

They were made “yakitori” style, with a crunchy crust on the outside and creamy black in the middle. So there, we did it! It tasted suspiciously like black pudding to me, so perhaps I’ve been eating it all along and didn’t know it. We had perfectly browned halibut on some Indian-spiced squash puree, sprinkled with garbanzo beans. That was followed by a cauliflower soup, which Will declared “fantastic.” Finally, and I was full by then, we had seared (nearly raw) steak with a few chanterelles and some lovely mashed turnip and herbs. OK, I won’t go on and on, but you get the picture.
Today, we’re going to the Rob Roy visitor center, lodged in what used to be the central church in this adorable town.

It’s basically a 19th century tourist town, as city folks from Glasgow and Edinburgh flooded into the Trossachs on the word of Wordsworth, the romantic poet, and others about the loveliness of the scenery. We walked its narrow main street lined with charming stone buildings yesterday evening in a rare moment of sunshine. It’s raining again today, but we plan to learn about the Scottish Robin Hood, Rob Roy, and then drive through the Trossachs before checking into our respective hotels in Glasgow and saying goodbye to my parents. It will be sad; we’ve had such a great time. But we do miss the Rickster and friends.
I think I’ll do a little more genealogy as an excuse to come back. And I know Rick and the DramaMamas stand ready to find an excuse as well!

Rain Up Your Nose and Soaked to the Underwear

Posted on July 23, 2009 by cathompson

CALLANDER, Tuesday, July 22, 2009, 4 p.m. – Our dear friend and Glasgow native Rehan Ahmad told us we hadn’t experienced a true Scottish summer until we had “rain up our noses and were soaked to the underwear.”

Well, Rehan, I’m happy to say we now have the authentic experience.

Today, we left our lovely little hotel in the south of Skye (after another massive Scottish breakfast, of course, see above/below) to drive to the ferry in Armadale, a 20-minute drive away.

There we boarded a small ferry for the half-hour trip over the Sound of Sleat to Mallaig, the terminus of the Harry Potter Express we’d ridden on a few days ago and where we’d had a great seafood chowder. This time, we followed the railroad route on a fairly good road back over the waterfall-streaked hills into Fort William.

From there, we drove east into the spectacular scenery of Glencoe, best known for an infamous 1692 slaughter by the army of the Clan MacDougal engineered by a treacherous government official bent on destroying the Highland clan.

Soldiers murdered at least 38 people who had been hosting the soldiers during a snowstorm. Others were driven out into the snowstorm and perished there. The massacre, which made it into a pamphlet complete with the government’s complicity, gained sympathy among the public for the Highlanders and the Jacobite cause.

We ate a picnic lunch in the café at the Visitor’s Center there (the rain was falling too hard outside), but we were able to see the massive mountains before they started to disappear in the midst.

I’ve never seen anything quite like them, but they evoked the same feeling of awe that you get in the Yosemite Valley when you look up at the impossibly steep mountains. We learned of an interesting American connection with the massacre: a 12-year-old son of the MacDougal’s who survived the massacre had a direct descendent who emigrated to the United States in the 19^th century, I believe. His son then married a Nez Perce woman, and after the massacre at Big Hole in Montana, always spoke of the two massacres as very similar. Sorry I don’t have better details, but you know how it is to go through a museum with a 7-year-old.

We then drove up over the mountains of Glencoe, which were impossibly gorgeous, with lacy waterfalls, misted hanging valleys, and the wide U-shape of a glaciated valley.

It really was breathtaking and would be a fabulous place to go hiking. There were actually quite a few people in rain ponchos slogging along the hillsides. Brave souls.

We then leveled out on the wide open spaces of the Rannoch Moor, which was dotted with huge rocks I believe were left behind after the glaciers melted. Then the rain really began to get interesting. We had been warned coming out of Fort William by huge flashing signs reading “Heavy rains ahead. Watch for flooding roads.” Well, for the next hour or so we would be hit by rainstorm after rainstorm, dumping so much rain that the roads indeed had standing water and the windshield wipers couldn’t clear the rain fast enough. One minute it would be sprinkling, the next you’d have to slam on your brakes to keep from hydroplaning into the oncoming tour buses. We couldn’t get here fast enough.

We did pass through some lovely hills, however, places that would be fun to return to – like a tiny town called (mother wrote it down) with a sweet-looking hotel, and a bike path built on a reclaimed railroad line outside Callander, where we are right now. We saw people riding over a stone viaduct that looked like the one in the Harry Potter movie.

Definitely a place to come back to. Now off for a walk and dinner with the folks!

Why Did We Do That? Or, Sightseeing with a 7-year-old

Posted on July 21, 2009 by cathompson

ISLEORNSAY, ISLE OF SKYE, Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 4:45 p.m. — We had a delightful morning in the sunshine, glorious sunshine.

We all slept in then went downstairs for a leisurely breakfast in our hotel. I tried out the Brose (rhymes with prose), which is a very thick, coarse porridge served with cream. It was very hearty. Pa had his usual bacon and eggs, Grandma her roasted tomatoes and mushrooms, and Will ate a whopping two bowls of corn flakes, toast with jam, a hard-boiled egg and bacon. Whew!

We then enjoyed the morning sun outside,

and Mom and I found a wonderful wool and tweed shop next door where I actually bought something! (I never shop on vacation.) They had beautiful scarves and funky hats and tweedy men’s jackets, all made in Scotland. We then ventured out on our driving tour of Skye, a 4 1/2 hour venture to the tip of the island and back, past some of the most rugged and gorgeous scenery we’ve seen on the trip. I had to get into my “single-track mind” again, as we wove up the coast past the quaint harbour town of Portree. At 2,000 residents, it’s the islands largest city and capital. We then cruised up the coast, past innumerable sheep, which threatened to jump out in front of our car and become lamb burger at any moment, past innumerable white-washed houses with dormers peaking out, past lovely rock formation after rock formation. The Old Man of Storr is the most famous, and it was striking.

We took a steep, single-track road up to see the Quairaing, a series of weird rock formations on the sweeping green hillsides. The drive was a bit hairy, because you couldn’t see far ahead of you and it was NARROW and STEEP and quite dramatic. Even more dramatic was turning around at the top! We then headed back down and talked Dad into driving the whole way around the Trottenish Peninsula — we were all a bit (OK, a lot) tired of driving, but we’d come so far we couldn’t turn around now.

We enjoyed the rest of the drive, in which we encountered many many sheep, many many beautiful views out across the water to the surrounding islands, and a few small white houses set against a dramatic vast green backdrop. We also passed the Flodigarry House Hotel, where our friends the Ahmads stayed — unbelievably gorgeous setting!

As we rounded the island and headed for home, Will asked, “Where are we going?” We said, “The Hotel.” “Why did we do that?” he asked about the drive, since his face had been buried in his DVD movies most of the time, though we prodded him to enjoy the view all the way along.

And as we approached the hotel, the skies — which had been graciously kind to us for our day of sightseeing — began to darken, and yes, rain began to fall. It’s now raining quite hard, but that doesn’t matter because we are safe and cozy in our hotel. The weather forecast for the last three days of our vacation? Heavy rain.

A Room with a View, and Are We Sure We’re Still in a Scottish Summer?

Posted on July 21, 2009 by cathompson

ISLEORNSAY, ISLE OF SKYE, Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 8:45 a.m. — We woke to a glorious sunny morning. Will and I are feeling so optimistic we’re wearing shorts! (And we’re getting low on clean laundry, so any temps above 60 is shorts-weather.) I wanted to share our sunshine with you all before it disappears.

We just wanted all of you to know we are doing great — Rick thought we sounded tired and rode-hard, and maybe we are, but we’re having a blast. This is the most beautiful and charming inn on the most beautiful coast, and our antique-filled room is beyond charming.

I’m not sure what we will do today; Dad wants to relax and watch the boats in the harbour; Mom wants to drive north and see the landscapes Asma raved so much about; I’m not sure what I want to do; Will is, as usual, open to anything. We’ve decided to take a ferry tomorrow from Armandale to Mallaig and drive along the Harry Potter Express line to shorten our return trip. A ferry ride should be fun.

So here’s to the elusive Scottish sun. Here’s one more picture from our room — I can’t wait to get out an explore — after a massive Scottish breakfast, of course.

The Thompson Attigs

The Adventures of Rick, Courtenay, Mitchell and Will

Author Archives: cathompson