Sunday, September 28, 2008

Edinburgh - days 4 & 5

The following day started with another arrival: Joana, another colleague from our Biology course, who we hadn't seen for a few years, and who is now working in environmental education in Dublin.

We went back home to drop off her luggage, had a wonder round Edinburgh, lunch at the mosque,



and then João went off to Uni to do some work, while the three of us explored...


... the park, including the statue the French gave Edinburgh, and which according to the guide was placed in this spot because it would be covered by the trees most of the year...


... the grave of Bobby, the dog who stayed by his owner's tomb for years (I love the fact people leave him sticks!)...


the café that now stands in Haymarket commemorating Half-Hangit Maggie, the girl who was hanged for having had a baby out of wedlock (and trying to get rid of it), but survived... and went on to live a long life, as the law forbade hanging people twice!



...and the castle, which also had a canine attraction.

Of course, being who we are, we couldn't leave Edinburgh without visiting the local Zoo, so our last day was, inevitably, spent there...
If I remember my facts correctly, it has the largest penguin colony in Europe, including the wonderful Gentoo penguins:


We got slightly carried away at the Zoo, and had to rush back to get our stuff and get to the airport in time, but we made it... and loved the fact that Edinburgh airport is so small that you can stand in the duty-free shops and be literally no more than 2 metres from your boarding gate!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Edinburgh - day 2

As our host was arriving that evening after his Easter holiday in Lisbon, we checked out of our B&B, deposited our bags in a locker at Edinburgh station (if you ever try this, be warned: the locker machine only takes coins, but NO-ONE in the station will exchange a note for you - including the ticket offices!), and went off for our bus & boat tour (here's a map, if anyone's interested). The bus trip was fairly uneventful, in spite of the on-board commentary, as it was essentially just a means of getting to South Queensferry.



This was where the fun really begun: we were lead down to the pier, where we admired the Forth Bridges (the red iron railbridge and the silver roadbridge), while waiting for our boat to come and get us. We'd learned on the bus that the little hamlet we were in was called Queensferry precisely because it was where the Queen (don't ask which!) caught the ferry across the Firth.


Once the Forth Belle was safely moored, we half-walked, half-skidded over the somewhat slimy pier and stepped aboard. While the crew were smoking their fag and catching up on news prior to departure, we had shared the deck with a group of Thai tourists (Hugo decided they were Thai) and their cameras. Hugo even momentarily became their best friend when he took a group photo for them... 5 or 6 times! (It had to be on everyone's camera...) Once we started moving, however, everyone sat in the closed-in section, so we had the open deck almost to ourselves - our only company was a lonely photographer. The weather being similar to the previous day, it was quite nippy, but this time we'd come prepared: extra layers of clothing (including water- and windproof trousers), and hoods, as well as the mandatory scarves and gloves. We may have looked like we were wearing rather bad 'rebel hoodie' costumes, but we were warm!



One of the sights pointed out in the recorded commentary was an island at the mouth of the Firth, which was fortified during the Second World War: the fortifications were built specifically so that seen from a distance the island resembles a war-ship, in the hope that this would deter any would-be German attacks!



In fact, we only stepped inside to buy tickets to visit Incholm Island, with its medieval Abbey, built by monks who had to row all the building materials over from the mainland... I don't envy their task!



There are no longer any monks on the island, but a very special family lives in and around the island's harbour, and they were lying on the rocks as we arrived:



Having oohed and aaahed and clicked away with our cameras for 10 minutes, the crew finally persuaded us to get off and make use of our tickets by exploring the Abbey and the island. So we stepped ashore, spent another 10 minutes admiring the seals, and then set off for the Abbey itself.



The Abbey is now somewhat rundown, but the National Trust is taking care of it (our ticket money is supposed to go towards helping preserve it), and there are a few labels in some places, although most of them simply state the name of the room you're in or the feature they're attached to. Actually, this made it quite interesting, as we tried to come up with explanations for what exactly happened in those rooms or what the reason could have been behind particular names... We explored every nook and cranny, even squeezing into the narrow spiral staircase leading up the first half of the tower - only half of my foot fitted on each step, Hugo must have had to walk on tip-toe! - and the suspended wooden staircase leading up from there. The view from the top was worth it though, and granted us a novel look at the weather vane.



After that cultural interlude, we reverted to our default positions and set off on a walk around the island, birdwatching and photographing as we went. Of course there were seagulls gallore - mostly lesser black-baked gulls and herring-gulls, as far as I could tell - and the occasional pigeon, but there were also a fair amount of cormorants and shanks and - avian highlight of the day - we spotted a pair of Great-crested grebes! These beautiful birds were almost hunted to extinction in the UK for their feathers, but population numbers seem to have recovered, and as the species is not currently considered threatened. They are still distinctive, though, and it was wonderful to be able to see them after months of reading about them!



When we were nearing the end of our round-island walk, we spotted the Forth Belle coming to collect us, so we scrambled down the hill to the harbour, where our Thai friends had been waiting for about an hour, having apparently become bored after snapping a few shots of the Abbey and its environs... We bid farewell to the seals, and on the way back we had a treat: the captain switched off the recorded commentary and gave us his own live commentary over the microphone, about the wildlife he's encountered in the Firth over the years - including orcas last year, apparently - and some of the conservation issues involved: mainly over-fishing, climate change and oil-rigs such as the one we'd seen on the way out to Incholm.



During this return trip we got a closer look at cormorant and shank colonies, as well as some more seals, so all in all we were happy people when we moored at Queensferry.


We (or should I say I?) were also hungry, lunch having so far consisted of a Cadbury's Cream Egg each, so we were quite pleased to see the bus arrive, as Queensferry, pretty little hamlet as it is, didn't seem to offer much by way of entertainment (a quilt/souvenir shop, a second-hand shop and a pub was about it). On the drive back to Edinburgh I spotted a curlew, but my mouthful of crisps meant I informed Hugo of it by making strangled noises and pointing excitedly at the window... by the time I'd swallowed enough to be more eloquent, the offending beastie was, of course, out of site, but Hugo's reaction was a non-plussed "Oh, a kiwi-bird..." (If you're unfamiliar with the story, the whole family spent days calling curlews "kiwi-birds" when we were in Finland, because we didn't know what they were but thought they looked like kiwis)

On arriving in Edinburgh, we decided to make use of the advice one of the friendly bus guides from the previous day had given us: "if you buy tickets for Our Dynamic Earth on the bus, you get a discount". As this was supposed to be a rather good science display showing the geological history of the Earth, we thought we'd give it a go. So we bought discount tickets for it off the bus driver, hopped on a bus, and hopped off at the Scottish Parliament building, as the same nice guide had told us it was one of the cheapest places to eat in the area (and we still hadn't had lunch!). Hugo got some interesting glances from the security staff at the door, when he started pulling down his trousers before walking through the metal-detector: his wallet and mobile phone were in his trouser pockets... underneath the water-proof trousers! So a third of the time we spent in the Scottish Parliament was actually Hugo undressing... We grabbed a sandwich and ate it as we walked over to the Our Dynamic Earth building next door. Upon entering, however, we found a closed ticket office and couldn't find any way into the exhibition. After some searching, we located a couple of members of staff who informed us that the exhibition was closed on Tuesdays... So we hopped onto the next bus to come by, and went straight back to the 'headquarters' to complain. There was some confusion, as the exhibition was now supposed to be open on Tuesdays, but they refunded our tickets and we left them ringing up the exhibition people while we went for a walk instead.

We had just decided on where to have supper (a pub with haggis on the menu) when we heard from João, our host-to-be: his flight had been delayed, and he was still in Stansted... While we enjoyed a nice supper - yes, we liked haggis - he phoned up his Maltese flat-mate and got back to us with directions to his place, so after we'd stuffed our faces with tasty Scottish food we picked up our luggage from the station and caught the bus to the other side of town - with some help from the man who was replacing the leaflets at the bus station, who cross-referenced our map with 2 different leaflets until he could tell us which bus we wanted and where to catch it from! So we appeared on this poor Maltese girl's doorstep, saying "Hi, we're João's friends", and she let us in, made us a cup of tea, and chatted to us for an hour or so, until our host finally arrived...

Monday, March 24, 2008

Edinburgh - day 1

We got up at some ungodly hour, but the up-side was that, having found a bed&breakfast, dumped our things, and grabbed some food, we were ready to start exploring Edinburgh by lunchtime! We decided to invest in a ticket for those hop-on, hop-off open-top bus tours, which allowed us to catch any of 3 different city tours plus one which included a ferry trip in the Firth of Forth (to the non-Scottish world, the river Forth's estuary) and was valid for 2 days. The tickets were well worth the price: the trips with live commentary had excellent guides, and the one pre-recorded one had a brilliant kids' version (as well as 9 different languages), written by one of the authors of the Horrible Histories books, which was wonderfully full of gory silly jokes!

From the top of the bus we got our first glimpses of Edinburgh castle, which, if I remember correctly, is reputed never to have been breached - and if you look at it, you can see why!



All tours start at the Scott monument - not a nationalist symbol but an homage to the 18th-century poet and novelist Walter Scott, so we went from virtually never having heard of him to not bearing to hear his name in one afternoon... Truth be said, however, the tours were very good in the sense that they made a point of telling different stories about the sights that were covered by more than one tour, and pointing out different things along coinciding routes.



All routes afforded glimpses of some of the city's churches. There are said to be hundreds of them, but most no longer function as places of worship. Notable amongst these is the one that now houses the Edinburgh Festival information centre and ticket office (pictured below), but there are many others serving all sorts of different uses, including, in true Scottish style, a pub!



Curiously, one of the churches that does still function as a church has a mural on which there is always a painting relating to the time of year. On the face of it, this may not seem all that curious, but the curiosity factor lies in the fact that, apparently, more often than not the paintings are quite controversial. We thought the one that was up when we were there was quite simply brilliant:



We got a brief peep at the haymarket in amongst the building-work, and I learned its name arises from the fact that it was where grazing animals (i.e. cows, sheep, horses) were sold in the olden days.



Of course, we insisted on sitting in the open part of the top decker of the bus, so that we could enjoy the journey properly and take photos... and there was the occasional short flurry of snow, much to my delight... but this means the temperature was not exactly high... Let's just say that when we got off the last bus, we walked around for a quarter of an hour with no feeling from the knees down - never mind details such as toes and fingers!

We (literally) tripped off in search of a nice warm place serving warm food, and ended up at a pub which promised a live jazz band that evening. It was lovely and cozy, the food was delicious, the desserts were divine, and the music was brilliant - all in all a nice end to a nice day. Until we had to step out into the bitter wind and walk back to our B&B!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Easter Sunday | Domingo de Páscoa

We woke up and saw... | Acordámos, e vimos...



Although I was ecstatic at the first proper snow since I'd been here, when we reached Hyde Park we discovered a downside to it... the bunnies on rollerskates parade we had been planning to watch (and photograph) was postponed!

Embora eu estivesse eufórica com a primeira neve a sério desde que cá estou, quando chegámos a Hyde Park descobrimos-lhe uma desvantagem... o desfile de coelhos em patins a que tínhamos planeado assistir (e fotografar) foi adiado!



So we had a walk around the park, and went on to the only other Easter event we could find in London: a ukulele workshop at the Southbank Centre. What Hawaiian shirts and ukuleles have to do with Easter we have yet to find out, but there was a giant Lyndt bunny near the London Eye... at least the publicity said it was giant...

Portanto demos um passeio pelo jardim e seguimos para o único outro festejo de Páscoa que descobrimos em Londres: um workshop de ukulele no Southbank Centre. Ainda estamos para descobrir a ligação entre camisas havaianas e ukuleles e a Páscoa, mas ao pé do London Eye havia um coelho gigante da Lyndt... pelo menos segundo a publicidade...

Saturday, March 22, 2008

People, people everywhere!

Saturday we figured it might be time for a more cultural, non-animal related outing. However, the queues at the entrance to Madame Tussaud's led us to consider the value of a few hours of our lives, and we therefore made do with Sherlock Holmes' metal sculpture and headed off to the British Museum instead.

The ticket office is circled in the distance... and yes, the queue was 3-4 people wide!


"Elementary, my dear Watson!"

Even there, the crowds took us by surprise! We knew it was Easter Saturday, and everyone was on holiday, but even so... the British Museum is huge, and it still managed to feel packed! The Egyptian and Greek galleries on the ground floor were the busiest. After a look at some Abissinian murals, we squeezed a peep at the rosetta stone between the camera-pointing throngs, explored one of the larger Egyptian rooms, and then found ourselves in a room with sarcophagi and mummys, but almost no breathable air! We escaped the pressing crowds via the first door that presented itself, and after briefly consulting the map decided to head upstairs to an exhibition of Japanese artifacts. This was finally quiet enough for us to be able to fully appreciate its contents, and we spent a happy hour wandering around statues of dragons, miniature good-luck gods, samurai armour, swords and Japanese paintings...


"No, Hugo, you can't take a sword home with you!"

As we were being ushered out of the Museum at closing time, we passed an Easter island statue in a strange room we couldn't quite work out the theme of: hanging above the Easter island statue, for instance, were flying machines... I'll report further on this room once I've gone back and looked at it properly.

Notice the people actually have space to move...

Before we left, we spotted a mini terracota army, made by schoolchildren who had visited the exhibition before Christmas:
Aren't they cute... errr, menacing, I mean, menacing!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Ducks and water...

Friday morning was bright and sunny, so we headed off to the London Wetlands Centre, where we spent a happy day birdwatching and where Hugo got in plenty of photography practice... with moving targets!

I love the sculptures at the entrance!


A fast-moving Coot, and a still one

The ever-present Moorhen and a flesh-and-bone Wood Duck, in spite of its name


A resting Smew and a talkative Mallard


Mr. & Mrs. Shoveler demonstrating their namesake, and a flying Shoveler


A view of the main lake, with a Lapwing on a sandbank and Ravens on the lawn


A Cormorant flying over the main lake


And the goose that tried to attack me!

At the end of the day, we discovered the Centre's tactic for ensuring all the visitors leave promptly at closing time: they cause a thunderstorm with heavy rain! At least we assumed that must be the case, as said storm, though heavy, coincided exactly with closing time, and lasted only about 20 minutes - just long enough for everyone to run back to the exit for shelter!
We dried off on the train home...

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Inevitably...

The weather appeared to be keeping ok next day, so we decided to go for another outdoor trip. One which might be considered an occupational hazard, but considering how much we enjoy it, such a description would probably be missing the point. Our destination was, of course, London Zoo, where our letters from Lisbon Zoo granted us free entrance. The nice boys at the ticket office did try to extend their hospitality and get us into the official (VIP) opening of the restored Blackburn Pavillion (containing the only hummingbirds in the UK), but unfortunately they didn't quite manage to convince the big bosses... well, it was worth a try!

In the meantime, our weather prediction abilities had failed us somewhat, and the day turned out to be rainy, so our route was defined according to two criteria: what haven't we seen yet, and does it have a roof over it?

With these considerations in mind, we deemed fit to start off at the reptile house, where we spotted a real-live Gaboon Viper (as opposed the skeleton we knew from Lisbon Zoo) and a Black Mamba.

A live Gaboon Viper

And, of course, we played the traditional game in these places: find the animal! This was especially complicated in the frog section - yes, I know it was supposed to be a Reptile house, and I know frogs are amphibians, but they need similar care and conditions and are therefore housed together - finding tiny frogs through misty glass in the middle of dense foliage is not easy... even when they're bright-coloured! A few, however, such as the Yellow Poison-Dart Frog, we had no trouble finding! Unlike this gecko, hiding in the most inaccessible corner of its enclosure, above the glass... and therefore "spottable" only by shorties such as myself... being 1.5m tall has to have some advantages!

The spotting game: the conspicuous yellow poison-dart frog, and the hidden Madagascar gecko


After a brief detour via the Komodo Dragon enclosure, currently on loan to Matilda, the Aldabran Giant Tortoise, we visited the Pigmy Hippopotamuses in their heated winter pool. They seemed to be enjoying their jacuzzi, I must say!

The shy Matilda, and the warm hippos

Next, following advice from our friends at the ticket office, we went to watch the clock outside the Blackburn Pavillion strike the hour. It is a wonderful tin contraption honouring the Victorians and their love of birds, with two toucans making the pendulum swing between them by pecking it, and a Victorian couple holding cages. On the hour, metal birds fly out of the cages and around the couple, while others appear on the roof of the building, amongst the lettering. It is glorious to watch, but as we had to do so from the shelter of my umbrella, I have no photos to illustrate it... yet!

We did have a wander around the walk-through Squirrel Monkey enclosure next door while waiting for the clock to spring into action, but the monkeys were obviously more intelligent than us, and were all huddled up inside their house!

Next stop, Africa! First, the African bird safari, where we were made to realize just how big the Hammerkop's 1.8m tall and wide nest actually is:

The Hammerkop, and its nest


Next, the African mammal area, with its Giraffes, Okapis, Zebras, African Wild Dogs and Warthogs, plus an antelope whose name I'm affraid I can't remember...

Finally, we visited the aviary and the owls, including the Burrowing owls, which must have a personality disorder - they all appear to think they're flamingos!


Even the photo on the information board showed the Burrowing Owl standing on one leg!