Scotland 2025: Edinburgh - Flight, Grassmarket, Apartment

The days leading up to our flight to Edinburgh to begin our 23-day visit to Scotland was filled with a bit of angst for my husband Rich and myself. About 2 weeks before our flight, there were reports of Storm Floris which brought unusually strong wind gusts of over 85 mph and heavy rainfall causing transportation delays and cancelations as well as closures of venues such as the Glasgow Cathedral.  Then with 10 days to go, we learned that the hike we planned to take in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh would need to be delayed or curtailed since a fire had spread in Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano in that area, closing off some of the paths leading to it.  And finally, mere days before we were to fly, we were bombarded with news from the Air Canada flight attendants’ strike which was affecting passengers booked with that airline.  Luckily, we had booked with West Jet, which flew out of Terminal 3 in Pearson Airport, away from the chaos that ensued in Terminal 1. 

Despite all these potential setbacks, we ended up with an issueless flight that started off with a breeze through a short Nexxus security line where we didn’t have to remove liquids or laptops.  This was followed by a visit to the Plaza Premium Lounge were we dined on meatballs with tomato sauce and rice, and stir-fried noodles with chicken before heading to our boarding gate.  We had pre-paid for aisle seats across from each other which made it easier to get up during the flight and to access our bags from the overhead bin at the end.  But it also meant less space under the seat in front of us to store personal items and for legroom.  At one point during our flight, the man in the centre seat next to Rich looked at me and started gesturing wildly.  I didn’t understand what he was trying to say until he pointed at my t-shirt then revealed the tattoo on his forearm.  I had forgotten that I was wearing my Rush T-shirt with the iconic Starman logo from the Canadian band’s album 2112.  The man had the same tattoo on his arm!  It’s funny that I get reactions to this t-shirt all over the world but the truth is that I bought it at a market sale because it was $5 and looked cool.  I am not actually familiar with any Rush music!  This has happened so often that I have decided I need to start listening to Rush music to justify wearing the shirt.

Our flight landed on schedule and we took the airport tram into central Edinburgh, getting off at Princes Street near The Mound.  This was about a 20-minute walk (approximately 1km) to our rental apartment on Grassmarket but it felt longer and farther because we were lugging our carry-on bags up and down steep inclines. Fortunately, it was a bright, sunny and pleasant day.  In fact, we were lucky throughout our 7-day stay in Edinburgh as we had sunshine with just a spitting of rain the entire time.  That luck would last through 4 days in Glasgow before running out on our 11-day drive through the east coast of the Scottish Highlands.

Grassmarket is a historic, cobblestoned street dating back to the 14th Century that was the location of the city’s oldest marketplaces and a site for public executions in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Today, Grassmarket is a lively street filled with pubs, restaurants and shops selling crafts, and unique gifts and is the location for live musical performances and festivals.  There are many interesting pubs on this street including Maggie Dickson’s at 92 Grassmarket, named after a woman who survived her execution by hanging in 1724, earning her the nickname “Half Hangit Maggie”.  Along a similar theme was The Last Drop, a 17th century pub whose name refers to the last drink given before a hanging.  The inn is decorated with dangling nooses, photos and inscriptions on the walls that refer to the area’s dark history.  We had a quick lunch there while waiting to be able to check into our apartment. In the centre of Grassmarket is a circular monument erected in 1937 marking the site where over 100 Covenanters were executed in the late 17th Century for their religious beliefs and refusals to pledge allegiance to the crown.  There were many other interesting shops and eateries on Grassmarket including Mary’s Milk Bar, an artisanal hand-crafted ice cream parlour that had lengthy lineups every day that wrapped around the store and up a flight of stairs.  We never got close enough to find out what all the fuss was about.

Because our plane landed at 10:05am and we arrived in the Old Town by noon, it was much too early for us to check into our rental apartment or even to drop off our bags.  We were hoping to spend the time before check-in to explore some of the area in the vicinity. Luckily, we were referred to Bounce Luggage Storage which has locations worldwide and especially in United States and United Kingdom.  We found a location just a half block away from the apartment inside the Kickass Café.  The location included a funky bar/café and hostel as well as a locked luggage storage area. It cost £13 to store two large bags and one smaller bag but the fee was worth it since it allowed us to start exploring Edinburgh without being laden by our luggage.  We had a pretty packed schedule for this leg of our trip so we needed every hour.  We downloaded the Bounce app, pre-booked and pre-paid for our storage time indicating number of bags and were able to drop them off.  The attendant that took our luggage did not give us a receipt so I took a photo of the number tags attached to our bags.  Good thing I did, since the next attendant who retrieved our bags asked to see a photo to prove which were our bags.  It all went smoothly and we will keep this service in mind for the future.

Through Booking.com we rented a self-contained apartment at 1 Grassmarket within a historic 4-storey stone tenement building constructed in 1875 complete with baronial turrets typical of late 19th century Scottish architecture.  Alas my dream of staying in a turret was not fulfilled with this rental as our unit did not include one.  It was quite the complicated task to get into our apartment which included getting a code to retrieve the keys out of the assigned lockbox, figuring out which of two identical looking keys would open the heavy, big black wood front door, entering a 6-character code to enter the next door, climb a flight of stairs (luckily we were only one floor up), using the second identical key to enter the next door, walk down a long corridor, open another door onto a long outdoor balcony before finally reaching our apartment and opening it with the final key.  This was such a journey that we were sent an instruction video which we watched multiple times before our arrival.  After a couple of days, it became rote but the first few times were daunting.  I eventually put a piece of painter’s tape on one of the identical keys so that they were easily distinguishable.

The apartment itself contained a bed and sofa, full kitchen including a washing machine and a bathroom with a shower and heated towel rack, which unfortunately did not work.  We appreciated being able to wash our clothes but had to hang-dry them for several day.  There was no cell service in the stone building but luckily the WIFI signal was strong and encrypted with a secure password.  Our only complaint was that we never got hot water out of the bathroom or kitchen sinks but luckily the shower did have hot water so we made do.

For all its little quirks, we could not have found a better location to stay in terms of price and accessibility to the attractions that we wished to visit, especially during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when accommodations were difficult to come by and prices were jacked up.  We were within 10-25 minutes walk to National museums, castles and palaces, the Royal Mile, parks and kirkyards (cemeteries) and all the shows that we had selected for Fringe.  Grassmarket itself was bustling with bars and restaurants busy every day and night.  We had a perfect view of the Edinburgh Castle from the base of our apartment building and were even able to catch the tail end of the fireworks and drone show that marked the grand finale of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo show while standing across from our apartment.

A crafts and food market is held each Saturday on Grassmarket, offering artisan crafts, local products and street food.  We completed our Saturday itinerary in time to catch the tail end of the market and were able to pick up some items for dinner.  We had read about Lovely Paella and their offerings of seafood paella with jumbo prawns, mussels and squid, as well as chicken paella with green beans.  We bought one of each plus several sausage rolls to have for meals at “home” over the next few days.

Scotland 2025: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Highlands Drive

Continuing our goal to visit new countries in Western Europe that we haven’t been to before, this summer/fall, my husband Rich and I will be spending 23 days in Scotland.  We will fly into Edinburgh where we will stay for 7 days, take a train to Glasgow for a 4-day visit, then pick up a rental car to drive along the east coast of Scotland to tour the Highlands for 11 days. We considered driving further west to get to more popular scenic locations recommended by all of our friends including Isle of Skye, Loch Lomond and Loch Ness.  But this would involve much longer driving times and while we like outdoors and scenery, our preference is to spend more time exploring cities.  We will still get our fill of hikes, cliff walks and ocean views on Scotland’s east coast and it would hopefully be less crowded and a bit more off the beaten path, relatively speaking.

 Usually, we would not travel during the summer months because of heat and crowds, but being a lover of live theatre, I have always wanted to attend the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which runs through most of August.  We decided to arrive in Edinburgh during the last week of the theatre festival and will watch 8 shows mostly in the evenings after touring museums, art galleries and other tourist attractions during the day.  Most of the national museums are free in Edinburgh including the Scottish National Museum, Scottish National (Art) Gallery, Modern (Art) Museum and Portrait Gallery.  We also have tickets to visit Edinburgh Castle and Mary King’s Close and will check out the Greyfriar’s Cemetery (Kirkyard) and walk the ”Royal Mile” ending up in an area around Holyrood Palace.

Our stay in Glasgow will mostly involve looking at the designs and architecture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh including having high tea in the Mackintosh Willows tearooms.  We will also visit the Hunterian Art Gallery and Kelvingrove Museum.  Hopefully, this will be a more relaxing four days since we will have gone full tilt during our time in Edinburgh.

Finally, we will pick up a rental car near the Glasgow train station and drive out into the Highlands.  Our first stops will be to inspect the Falkirk Wheel and Kelpie Horses before ending up in Stirling where we will spend our first night after exploring the town.  The next morning, we will tour Stirling Castle before heading out to wander the gardens of Glamis Castle where there is a sculpture path called the “Macbeth Loop” featuring seven intricate wood carvings representing scenes from Shakespeare’s play Macbeth.  We will spend that night in Arbroath and hike the Arbroath Cliffs the next morning before continuing along the coast to Gourdon/Inverberbie, passing the Scurdie Ness Trail and Lighthouse along the way.

We will stay 2 nights in Inverberbie at Hallgreen Castle, a historic 3-storey mansion dating back to 14th Century that is set on 4 acres of land and still has gun loops or firing holes imbedded in the walls. We are hoping that our hosts will give us a tour of the castle during our stay.  From this town, we will take some more cliff walks in the area before heading to Stonehaven for 3 nights.  Using Stonehaven as a base, we will visit Dunnottar Castle, Cliffs and Woods as well as taking a day trip to Aberdeen.  That is as far north as we will traverse along the east coast of Scotland.  After that, we will head inland towards Balmoral, Braemar and Ballater, UK.  We had hoped to visit Balmoral Castle which has been the Scottish vacation property of the British monarchy since Queen Victoria's days, but unfortunately, it is closed for the season by September.  Instead, we will tour Crathes Castle and Braemar Castle as well as ride on the vintage Royal Deeside Railway train.  Our last two days will be spent around Blairgowie where we will go on a couple more hikes and admire more scenic views, Scone for one last castle, and finally Perth where we will do a sculpture walk along the River Tay.  From there, we will head back to Edinburgh, staying near the airport before our flight home the next morning.

This is not the typical itinerary for travelers to Scotland, but we are not the typical travelers.  This trip will give us plenty of the experiences that interest us including theatre, art, architecture, history, castles and natural beauty.

2025: Outdoor Sculpture Galleries in Ontario - Bloomfield, Singhampton

I have always loved viewing large-scaled sculptures and especially outdoor sculpture gardens where works are blended in with their natural surroundings.  My husband Rich and I always look for sculpture collections on our travels.

In the past, we visited the Haliburton Sculpture Forest, which is a unique outdoor sculpture gallery set in 1.5km of wooded trails near the village of Haliburton.  It features 40+ sculptures by Canadian, Indigenous and International artists plus 6 benches and 3 huts.  The works are made from a wide range of materials including granite, bronze, steel, cement, wood, and glass.  Some highlights included a colourful feather made of acrylic panels supported by a steel spine titled Redwing Frond by Darlene Bolahood, a red and white beaded stiletto called Fire and Ice: A Really Big Shoe by Charles O’Neil and the seed head of a mature dandelion plant titled “I See a Wish”, created by art students of Innisdale Secondary School in Barrie.

About an hour and a half north-west of Haliburton in Burk’s Falls is a weird and wonderful collection of gigantic concrete “Screaming Heads” created by retired high school art teacher Peter Camani. Consisting mostly of face-like sculptures with wide open mouths, but also dragons, dinosaurs, towers and other structures made of stone, the works are spread across 310 acres of rolling terrain with ponds and forest trails. The screaming heads symbolize nature’s protest against environmental destruction. 

As part of our trip to Detroit in 2024, we spent a few days in Windsor, Ontario and followed the Riverside Trail to view the works in Windsor Sculpture Park. Between 30-35 sculptures are positioned along the south shore of the Detroit River (in one of the few areas where Canada is south of the United States), with the scenic views of the water and the Detroit skyline as a stunning backdrop.

We have also toured the sculpture garden at 13th Street Winery in St. Catherines where large-scaled sculptures are scattered across an expansive grassy field next to the winery.  There was much thought put into the placement of some of the works including the metal wolves running through tall grass which is titled “The Hunt” by Ken Hall, and multiple of works by Floyd Elzinga who is known for his nature-inspired metalwork sculptures.  My favourites were “Prayer Seed”, an enormous thistle seed made from farming equipment parts and “Unzip the Earth” where clever placement of concrete teeth with a metal handle to create the image of a giant zipper that seems to be opening up the ground that it is laid upon.

This year, we took two short road trips that included visits to two more magnificent outdoor sculpture galleries.  The first was a visit to Prince Edward County where we stopped in Picton and Bloomfield.  The Oneo Gallery in Bloomfield, located on the property of Huff Estates Winery, has a large outdoor gallery that is quite similar to 13th Gallery.  It even has versions of Elzinga’s Prayer Seed and Unzip the Earth, and Ken Hall’s The Hunt.  While the sculpture gallery in St. Catherines is mostly an open field, the space in Bloomfield is much more landscaped with trees and shrubs, wild grasses, sage and lavender fields, flower beds and even a pond area.  The outdoor sculptures are rotated regularly with new works installed every spring.

The 3-acre sculpture garden opened in 2011 and displays over 60 large-scaled sculptures by Canadian and American artists, made from materials including glass, bronze, steel, granite, wood, fiberglass and resin.  While the Oneo Art Gallery and Huff Estates Winery have opening hours of 10am-5pm in the summer, the outdoor sculpture garden is available to visit daily from dawn to dusk.  We came to visit early in the morning before the buildings opened and managed to beat both the crowds and the heat, having the entire area to ourselves.

The Oneo Gallery was founded in 2003 and has a reputation for exhibiting and selling both contemporary and historical works of art. A smaller room displays paintings by The Group of Seven, Emily Carr, David Milne and more while the main space offers contemporary paintings, sculptures and other pieces.  The contemporary works rotate regularly and include artists such as Gilles and Marc, whose iconic Dogman and Rabbitwoman sculptures are found around the world including Toronto.  Rotating art exhibitions and other art events are also held regularly at the gallery as well as at pop-up locations in the area.

After touring the art gallery and sculpture garden, we went to walked across to Huff Estates Winery for a quick wine tasting and a pizza lunch El fresco on their covered outdoor patio.  Huff Estates has won multiple awards over the year including a 2021 Gold medal for the “Cuvée Peter Huff”, a sparkling white wine named after in honour of the deceased son of estate owners Lanny and Catherine Huff.  Surrounding the grounds of the winery are more sculptures including a tuktuk from Thailand and more outdoor pieces from Oneo Gallery.

The second outdoor sculpture gallery came during our stay in the Blue Mountain/Collingwood area.  We visited the Singhampton Sculpture Forest which is located on the large, forested property that is the home and art studio of the artists Marion Bartlett and her husband Rick Bino.  Marion creates large and small-scaled whimsical sculptures out of wood, concrete, clay and metal while Rich is a carver who makes functional wood pieces such as bowls and charcuterie boards. Based on that description, it seems like most if not all the works in the sculpture garden probably are Marion’s works.  Walking up the driveway towards their house and the start of the sculpture walk, we encountered a row of wooden posts, each with a different carved face and sporting a different hat.  One of the posts was positioned between two tree branches that seemed like arms from far away.  Closer to the house, we saw painted chairs with rubber rain boots covering the legs, painted walking sticks and various sculptures and installations including one where a dog is chasing a boy up a ladder.

Traversing deeper into the forest, we came across benches with sculptures on them, more faces carved into tree trunks, figures made from wire hanging from trees, and larger, more complex sculptures and installations.  Many of the works were named and had thoughtful quotes and poems associated with them.  Posted on a tree next to a metallic businessman holding a brief case is the text “Everyone has baggage.  Sometimes we need to help others carry theirs”.  An intricate installation titled “The Room” consists of a painted door depicting two women that leads to an open-air tearoom loosely delineated by the frames of walls.  Inside is a table covered with a lace tablecloth with a tea set on top, two chairs, an open frame with curtains representing a window and a stained-glass work hanging from a beam.  Interestingly, when you look at the back of the door, the two women are painted from behind.  We followed the main path and then took each of 3 “side paths” in order to view all the unique and quirky sculptures.

At the end of the outdoor tour, we were invited to enter the artist studio to see the works there.  We saw examples of Rick’s carvings including a beautiful chess board, on which he had individually crafted all the men.  There were many charming pieces on display including items for sale.  It was interesting to see some clay figures that had not been painted yet so that we could take in the entire process of creation.  In one corner were several porcelain representations of the artists’ family members.  This was a wonderful discovery so close to Collingwood that we had not known about before this year.

There are so many fun and eclectic locations to view sculptures around Ontario.  I would love to find more!