Scotland VII: The rest

Thursday I drove down from Stirling towards Prestwick, whence I would fly out Saturday. On the way I made a stop at Dundonald Castle, which is mostly a ruin today. There have been fortified settlements on this hillside for thousands of years, including several castles belonging to local kings and later the Stewarts and then local notables again. The most interesting thing about it is actually the very well made display in the visitor centre. Highly informative with good visuals, while the structure itself is really just one big room, and some rubble. Yawn.

Dundonald castle


I like this pic...


After Dundonald I drove north to Largs, intending to see a Viking centre I'd been told about at Dundonald. However I was immediately put off by the fact that the centre was located in some kind of mall-like training and health resort thingy, also they only let people in in batches every hour, and it was now 45 mins till the next show started. I left quietly and on the way out of town I now noticed several shops and eating places selling horned plastic helmets and advertising junk food with huge, glossy viking-related promotion materials of various kinds. It was all tacky in the extreme, and completely put me off having lunch there (which I'd originally planned).

Friday was another lazy day. I drove about an hour south of Ayr, to the little town of Girvan, where I had a very, very good lunch at a restaurant called The Kings. I highly recommend their 21-day primed fillet, it's yummy. I also got in a few pics of the surroundings, it's quite a nice stretch of land south from Girvan. In the evening I had an exquisite dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Ayr called Ruby.

Ailsa Craig, the effin huge rock that sits about ten miles out at sea outside Girvan. In the background you can barely make out the Island of Arran to the right and Mull of Kintyre to the left.


That faint outline of land way out there is Ireland (my cam is crap, it was much easier to spot with my bare eyes).


Soooo... it's Saturday morning and I'm checking out of my hotel in ten minutes. I don't want to go home. I don't want to go back to Norway and to the class room. I texted some colleagues yesterday that I was planning on fleeing up into the Highlands to live on berries and tourists, but for some reason they found this highly unlikely. Still, I've come to enjoy Scotland the more every time I'm here and I find I can't wait to come back.

I'm no awa ta bide awa; Alba, cruit mo chridhe.