Today I return to Scotland. It’s been seven long months since I returned home from my last trip, and yet those months have, paradoxically, gone by quite quickly. Still, now I’m in the air: Milwaukee-Newark-Edinburgh.

I’m excited.

I have three weeks to crawl up the navel of Scotland, from Edinburgh to Perthshire to Speyside to Easter Ross to Orkney, and I’m with my dad who just so happens to be a fellow Scotophile (Caledonophile?). The stops on this trip are some of my favorites in all of Scotland and I’m going at the best time of year (regarding light, weather, and tourists). There will be rain. There’s always rain. But I’m ready to see Scotland again. The three trips I took last year were so close to each other that I was gone for 11 of 27 weeks from March through mid-September. The winter break has rejuvenated me.

I’m nervous.

I become a ball of nerves leading up to a trip, especially Traveling Savage trips when I’m usually traveling solo. I don’t know if this comes through in my writing – maybe it shouldn’t – but it’s a part of the adventure. Too many other travel blogs I read seem like one big orgasm of hedonism, but my experience has never been that way. It’s always complicated with highs and lows and mental struggles. The nerves have been ratcheted down for this trip, though, since I won’t be traveling alone.

I’m melancholy.

Yes, despite the awesomeness of what I have planned, the beauty of Scotland, and the fact I’m not traveling alone, I still miss Sarah when I’m away. What can I say but that I found the right one and I don’t like leaving her behind. Additionally, at this point I don’t have another trip to Scotland planned for this year so I’m not sure when I will return.

I’m worried.

For my liver. By last count I have 15 distillery visits scheduled not including the five-day whisky festival of Bacchanalian debauchery up in Speyside. Then there are the breweries. I think there should be some kind of rebate program whereby you can submit all the corks from your empty bottles of Scotch to the Scotch Whisky Association and in return they send you a new liver. Or I could drink less, but…nah.

I’m grateful.

This will be the lasting feeling when I’m old and gray, though it’s quiet and easily missed in the hubbub of excitement and anxiety now. Scotland is my Elysium and this trip marks my eighth visit in nine years. I’m grateful for first world opportunities, for the chance to pursue a dream even though it might elude me, for Sarah’s endless love and support. It’s all very humbling and character changing.

So off we go to Caledonia. To Pictland. To Alba. To Scotland. Stick around, why don’t you?

Plans & Happenings

While I’m away in Scotland my posts will be less topic focused and more in-the-moment slices of life on the road, though I will continue to do Picture This on Fridays. Please become a fan of Traveling Savage on Facebook and follow along there as I will certainly post more frequent status updates and other Facebook-only content like photos of the day and notes.

What else is happening? Right now this trip is all I’m thinking about!

Parting Blow

If nothing else, travel removes us from our bubbles of comfort, familiarity, and safety. Though there are nerves and anxiety as that bubble pops, I’ve found that invigoration is always on the other side. I just have to make it through. And that always cheers me up.

State of the Savage: April 2012 is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that described five single malts that are perfect for the beginning Scotch drinker, the aspiring whisky aficionado. My impending return to Scotland  - I leave Wednesday – has me reminiscing over my personal favorite single malts, many of which will soon be available to me in the pubs of Scotland. The list was long and I agonized over the process of culling it down to only five malts. I’ve excluded some amazing drams I’ve had at distilleries because they’re so rare and my sample size is literally one drink – it’s just not enough to make it onto my list of all-time favorites.

So where do I begin? Oh yeah, Ardbeg.

Ardbeg Uigeadail

I’ve always had a positive impression of Ardbeg’s whiskies. Their standard 10 Year bottle has a monstrous reputation and it’s a dram the faint of heart should approach with care. However, Ardbeg’s juice, like most of Islay’s single malts, ages in ex-Bourbon barrels and I favor Sherried whiskies. Then I met Ardbeg Uigeadail at the Ardbeg distillery on my last trip to Scotland. Uigeadail spends some of its life aging in Sherry barrels, and the addition of this flavor profile turns the already unique and delicious Ardbeg into a national treasure. The whisky has a color like damp earth and black tea, and the nose is equivalent to descending into a root cellar to find a chocolate shop heated by a smokey peat fire.

This is a big, creamy whisky with a palate that lives up to its nose. Wafts of sweet smoke roil over salted caramel, cocoa powder, dried fruits, cereal, and beef jerky. Inevitably, I have to swallow my sip before the flavors are done revealing themselves, and that just makes me want more. The finish is very long and warming, developing the flavors even further. This bottle usually retails for close to $100, but there are online retailers that sell it for considerably less.

Bruichladdich Black Arts 2

Bruichladdich is a black box, something of a conundrum in the industry. If you’re ordering a dram of Bruichladdich because you want to get a sense for their whisky’s style, your experience can be frustrating. Bringing a distillery back to life requires creativity, and Bruichladdich’s master blender used his ample gifts in that realm along with an incredible stock of aging whisky from all over Scotland to create a bewildering array of styles and bottlings. While this is changing with the introduction of the Laddie Ten, the scattershot nature of Bruichladdich’s offerings means there are some unexpected gems. Case in point: Black Arts 2.

If the satanic black bottle doesn’t scare you away then you’re in for a treat. The fact that it’s 21 years old isn’t really advertised, nor is anything else about this mysterious dram. The malt is red-black in the glass with a rich bouquet of red ripe fruits. The whisky is silky smooth and tastes like a magical combination of wine, strawberry jam, and a touch of oaky maltiness. To be fair, words are failing me as I try to describe Black Arts 2. The visceral sensation was one of intense pleasure. I’m dying to get a bottle of this, but at around $150 I’m hesitating on pulling the trigger.

Aberlour A’bunadh

When Aberlour distillery added stills in 1975, they discovered a recipe from 1898 in the wall behind the distillery’s name plate. Some say it was an actual bottle, others that it was a newspaper. Aberlour’s cask-strength non-chill-filtered A’bunadh, which means “of the origin,” is the modern replication of this old recipe. It’s a romantic story, but the whisky is so good I wouldn’t bat an eye if it was cooked up in Pernod-Ricard’s marketing department. A’bunadh spends all its time in Sherry barrels and is bottled in batches so the actual strength of the whisky varies.

In whisky parlance, A’bunadh is a “Sherry monster.” It bears all the markers of a heavily-Sherried whisky: spices like black pepper, cardamon, ginger, and cinnamon; dried fruits like figs, raisins, and currants; and the “body” elements like oak and polished leather. A’bunadh also gives orange and chocolate notes. What a deliciously sweet whisky and a steal for between $40-50. A’bunadh will always have a space on my whisky shelf.

Talisker 18

Talisker is one of those godly distilleries that simply can do no wrong in my eyes. Their 10 Year and Distiller’s Edition are malts the likes of which can’t be found elsewhere. In fact, Talisker’s reputation has been built on the back of the feisty 10 Year, its salty, peppery, smokey tang has been a crowd-pleaser for a long time. But few whiskies have the kind of zealous following that Talisker 10′s older brother, the 18 Year, has. I was an immediate convert, having tried it as part of a tasting at Talisker. I lumbered into the shop half-drunk and smiling like a lunatic and traded $80 for a bottle.

If the 10 Year is William Wallace, then the 18 Year is William Wallace meets James Bond. The heart and soul of the 10 Year is here but tempered and refined into something nearly  in a class of its own. Pepper and spices intertwine with peat smoke and honey on the billowing nose. The palate is tangy with oranges, saltwater, browned sugar, and black pepper. The brilliance of this whisky is in the delicate interplay of the flavors. This is a high-demand low-supply whisky; last time I visited Talisker they suggested I sell my bottle (three years now and still haven’t opened it). Potential buyers: I’m sorry, I’m not selling.

Highland Park 12

I included Highland Park 12 in my batch of five whiskies for aspiring Scotch drinkers, and I include it here because HP12 is easy to love and difficult to ever get over. It’s a real ace that fits any mood and there are few whiskies that provide better bang for your buck.

Now that you know what I’m drinking, tell me about your favorite drams. Think I should try a certain something? Let me know in the comments!

My Five Favorite Whiskies is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

South of the town of Forres, off in the hilly woodlands between the Moray coast and Speyside, I stroll amidst the moody Tullochwood. The last fingers of daylight lance the path, and large, black slugs ooze in the soft mosses. The twilight becomes corporeal as it descends beneath the canopy, given shape by the infinitesimal floating pollens and insects. There is no breeze, no random gusts, just a humid bubble of green air like the breath of the forest before exhalation. Tree shadows splice the forest into bands of heat and chill. A rumpled meadow is shot through with ferns just breaking the surface.

Old forests are alien and welcome. I clamber over mounds and deeper into shadow thinking of Tullochwood like a sibling or parent separated from me at birth. Foreign yet familiar, the memory of a childhood melody playing on heart strings. We’ve gone so far away from this world. Too far from simple beautiful cycles toward the frenetic minutiae of meetings and bus schedules and alarm clocks. A waking life of flickering e-mails and commercials – the forest for the trees and all that. The desire I feel to return here is of a romantic persuasion, the kind curated in media that strips out all the stark realities. And yet that melody plays on. Can we never go home again?

Picture This: The Gloaming in Tullochwood is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

Trackpacking is a recurring series highlighting musicians that inspire me to travel.

A little over two years ago I wrote my first Trackpacking post, an ode to Thievery Corporation. In the 26 months that have elapsed since then, I have received tons of music recommendations from readers of Traveling Savage, including many that are exactly the type of music I gravitate toward. Today’s focus, Emancipator, is one of my favorites.

Dustin Main, the man behind Skinny Backpacker, recommended Emancipator to me and confidently stated that I’d love his music. I met Dustin amidst the internet swirl of travel bloggers, and we actually hung out in Buenos Aires back in December 2010 and again in Vancouver last June.

And you know what? He’s got excellent taste in music. Allow me to expound.

Emancipator is Doug Appling, a Virginia-bred one-man band who now hails from Portland. The music of Emancipator is beat-driven electronic music, but such a staid description doesn’t do justice to the beauty of his compositions. Strings, choirs, eerie voices, dusty samples, and global instruments inflect the songs, weaving in and out of house beats, and seem to always elicit an emotional response (at least from me). Emancipator’s songs are a windfall of haunting, soaring, and cinematic melodies.

I’m a total sucker for music of this caliber. The first time I listened to his album Soon It Will Be Cold Enough I had trouble wrapping my head around it because it sounded too perfect. The song structures and melodies and sounds fit together so effortlessly. Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised to learn Mr. Appling is a classically-trained violinist. As a body of work, Emancipator’s music fits into a class anchored by Bonobo and Thievery Corporation with its emotionally-invested rhythms and melodies, chilled out vibe, and use of world instrumentation.

Appling mentioned in an interview that much of his music is inspired by the natural world. I can feel that in the songs, and it resonates with me since much of my writing is also inspired by the natural world. It’s a small detail in Emancipator’s backstory that increases my appreciation for his music tenfold. I’m kicking myself for missing his show in Madison this past February.

Emancipator has two albums out and the tracks below provide a good overview of what you can expect to find on them. I leave on my next trip to Scotland in one week and you can bet there will be some Emancipator on my iPhone. Good call, Dustin!

Pack These Tracks

• First Snow, from Soon It Will Be Cold Enough.
• Lionheart, from Soon It Will Be Cold Enough.
• Maps, from Soon It Will Be Cold Enough.
• Anthem, from Soon It Will Be Cold Enough.
• Nevergreen, from Safe In The Steep Cliffs.

Create a Moment with Emancipator

• Tramp the countryside and appreciate nature.
• Stare out the window on an extended bus or train ride.
• Let it serenade you while working on creative pursuits – it’s like brain fertilizer.

Let’s keep the sharing going. Pop music suggestions in the comments!

Photos by Michael Holden via Flickr/Creative Commons

Trackpacking: Emancipator is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

A curious fact about Scotland is that the further you get from civilization the closer you get to artist colonies. This mirrors my belief that much of art stems from a close connection to the natural world. It could be a happy coincidence, but the preponderance of artsy folk in and among the rural hills of Scotland at least raises the eyebrow. The Scottish people are quick to tie similar institutions together to form a collective – a rising tide lifts all the boats, as the saying goes – and just as they’ve done with their parks, trails, and distilleries, so have independent artists and craftspeople come together to form “craft trails.”

Skye is the perfect example. The Skye and Lochalsh Arts & Crafts Association (SLACA) have put together a trio of craft trails around the Isle of Skye and nearby Lochalsh that make it easy for visitors to browse the wares of local artists. Perhaps equally nice is that the craft trail provides a structure for taking in the island’s gorgeous scenery – you will find yourself driving to the reaches of distant peninsulas and down tiny roads hidden in the hills to find specific studios. Sarah and I spent a week on Skye last May and took the opportunity to cruise around the northern craft trail. Check out the map below from SLACA’s free booklet.

When the sun is shining above Skye, you need to seize the moment. It rained for most of our week, but when the sun peeked out we hit the road with our trusty craft trail map replete with targeted studios circled. We started in the far west since our base was south of Dunvegan and visited the Red Roof Café Gallery. The Red Roof is a small white-washed croft with a bright red roof that’s been refurbished into a tidy café with art on the walls. What a find! It hadn’t been open very long when we visited, but they were already a favorite in the area serving excellent light lunches. We split a ploughman’s lunch and a chocolate fudge bun that was one of the best things I ate on the whole trip.

After the Red Roof, we headed east and stopped at Skye Silver, a local silversmith and jewelry-maker. Skye Silver isn’t on the official craft trail, but that’s not an indication of respectability or quality. There are plenty of shops hidden among the hills that aren’t on the “craft trail” and yet do business. I assume there’s some kind of fee or membership process required for placement on SLACA’s trail. Nevertheless, the craft trail led us to many serendipitous finds like Skye Silver.

Skye Silver’s shop is lined with glass cases loaded with beautiful silver necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and pendants. As a jewelry-maker herself, Sarah was in heaven poring over the designs. We wound up getting a birthday gift for my sister before hitting the road.

The weather held up its end of the bargain and we were gifted with glittering lochs and gauzy views of distant hills. On the way to our next stop I spotted The Stein Inn, an ancient pub from 1790 down by the water in the minuscule town of Stein (pronounced STEEN). I took a detour to investigate and found a cozy pub with a maritime feel and excellent real ale and whisky. An open peat fire was smoldering in the grate, filling the old pub with a pleasantly earthy smell.

Suitably fortified, we drove up the road from Stein to Skye Skyns, a traditional tannery. The A-frame building has a showroom upstairs where all manner of sheepskin rugs and products are on display. Every so often they offer quick tours of their production area. I’m always fascinated by processes like tanning that we modern consumers take for granted, and the amount of work and care that goes into making just one rug is worthy of respect and admiration. We left with a white sheepskin throw (from one of the old sheep, they assured Sarah), and our collection of goods continued to grow.

The day was wearing thin so we trucked to our final stop at the very tip of the Trotternish Peninsula north of Portree – the Trotternish Artist & Studio Gallery. The gallery is just a simple house on a wide and windy plain. We walked in to find an octogenarian behind a drawing desk working on one of his landscape pencil sketches. His artwork was impeccable. Imagine taking a photo and transforming it into a pencil drawing in a program like Photoshop – that’s what his drawings looked like. He won us over with his charm and zest for doing work that he loves. His artwork spoke for itself, and we took home a romantic sketch of an old croft with a thatched roof.

We managed to visit a few other shops from the craft trail during our week on Skye, places like Skye’s Little Gems and the Skye Shilasdair Shop. Many of these artists and craftspeople are keeping alive traditions that have all but died out in the rest of Scotland.

The trail is a great success. It’s unlikely that we would have heard about any of these shops – much less found them – without the aid of SLACA’s brochure, and the journey provided cultural enrichment, incredible scenery, serendipitous finds, and souvenirs. Lots of souvenirs.

Tooling Around Skye’s Craft Trail is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

A half-moon of silvery silt cups the Sound of Raasay, the little beach glittering with nomadic trails of seawater wending their way back to the bay. But I stand before calcified rubble strewn with reeking seaweed, the sloping mass of Ben Tianavaig ramping into the spheres. Sunlight slashes through the cracked sky, the bodies and faces of clouds and cliffs flicker over the landscape in the semblance of a rave. The wind is the only constant in Scotland, and it is a joy for the senses: It crafts light shows and carries woodsmoke and brine from afar, whistles through sea caves and over swards underlain with rabbit warrens, chills the sweat on my brow and flows like airy ice across my palate.

I stand here awhile and then kick across the rocks while dodging pellets of sheep dung. I spend a lot of time in Scotland in solitude, in the shadow of greatness like Ben Tianavaig. There’s a tangible enlivening in this setting, something vital to the mind’s desire to reach beyond or across whatever holds us back. Maybe the beauty will rub off, or at least calibrate my understanding of it, so that my creations might be made in its image. These feel like the first steps of spirituality.

Picture This: Skye’s Ben Tianavaig is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

Craigellachie. The heart of Speyside. This tiny town straddles the River Spey in the center of the whisky Bermuda triangle. Macallan and Dewar’s are a stones-throw away. Aberlour is a short jaunt to the west. Go north and you’ll find Glen Grant and Glenrothes. Choose the southern path and there, in Dufftown, stand Balvenie, Glenfiddich, and Mortlach. I could go on.

It makes sense, then, that one of the best whisky selections in the world hides here in the center, in Craigellachie (pron. creg-EL-ah-key): The Quaich Bar. It’s the kind of place that inspires one to create a series of blog posts dedicated to Scotland’s greatest whisky bars. Thus is born Malt Mansions. I’m excited to share these places with you not only because of their inspirational dedication to Scotland’s national drink, but because this kind of bar is the perfect place to develop an appreciation for single malts. It certainly doesn’t hurt that in such places you’re also surrounded by extremely happy and helpful people. The camaraderie overflows.

The Quaich Bar is a stunner. Housed in the practical Craigellachie Hotel with the River Spey just below its grounds, the Quaich Bar is a cross between Thurston Howell’s study and Robert Burns’s vision of heaven. Bottles line shelves along the upper half of the room while rich, shining woodwork and leather furniture grace the bottom half. Forest green walls add a brooding, cozy feel that I imagine must be perfect for sipping whisky on those cold rainy days.

There’s little typical about the Quaich Bar. In fact, it’s more like your legendarily rich uncle’s sitting room than a bar. There’s no music, no leisure games, nobody sane drinking anything but fine single malt, and no room! The Quaich Bar can probably hold 20 people comfortably, but anymore than that and you’ll be taking your dram somewhere else in the hotel. I expect this to be a problem when I return to Speyside in a few weeks during the Spirit of Speyside festival.

Let’s get down to the goods, shall we? The Quaich bar offers more than 700 different single malt Scotch whiskies. Hmm, I’ve tried maybe 100 in my lifetime. Obviously I’ve got work to do. You can browse the bottles on the wall or look at a whisky menu which could be used as a booster seat in a time of need. Prices are a bit higher than usual, but then you’re paying for the ambience and selection. A dram of Black Bowmore goes for a cool £275 – let me know how it is! Regulars can leave their bottles at the bar where they are kept behind lock and key for when they return. That’s just insanely awesome.

The Quaich Bar is a fantastic place to spend an afternoon or night trying those whiskies you’ve always wanted to but didn’t want to shell out the cash for a bottle. It’s a comfortable, cozy, and very Scottish place. On my last visit here I tasted a selection of the Flora & Fauna bottles because I knew I would buy a couple later in the trip. The F&F series contains single malts from distilleries that generally use all of their spirit in blends. We can’t buy these bottles in the States and they’re fairly rare in the UK. I wound up taking home bottles of Mortlach and Dailuaine, but the Linkwood was also quite good.

If a stop in Speyside is part of your itinerary (and it should be), make sure you stop at the Quaich Bar in the Craigellachie Hotel. Say hello to Lucas for me if you see him behind the bar. Sláinte!

Malt Mansions: The Quaich Bar in Craigellachie is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

There are places in Scotland that have defied the ravages of time. The wild winds and weather of the north Atlantic work to mummify these sites, embalming them in thick layers of silt and sand and dirt covered over with coastal grasses. They remain hidden from the eye and outside the reckoning of men until that capricious weather once more works its magic to reveal something ancient to the modern world.

In 1897, such a storm tore through Shetland’s southern mainland, riling up the sea and eroding earth along the coast to reveal a curiously ancient wall. Formal excavations began nearly 30 years later on the site known as Jarlshof and the rest is literally history. Lots of it.

Jarlshof occupies a coastal nub of land at the very southern tip of Shetland’s mainland known as Sumburgh. It has easy access to the sea, loads of building materials along the beach, a nearby freshwater spring, and arable land and pasture all around. Sounds like the perfect place to settle down, and that’s exactly what people have thought for the last 5,000+ years. Let that sink in a for a minute. Jarlshof has been home to people for 5,000 years. That means people were building houses here centuries before the Great Pyramid at Giza was a twinkle in the pharaoh’s eye.

Jarlshof was somewhat famous even before the storm of 1897 pulled the turf lid off the place. Sir Walter Scott visited the site in 1814, which at that time appeared to hold only a ruined castle, and he dubbed the place Jarlshof, or “Earl’s Mansion.” The name stuck. Scott went on to set part of his novel The Pirate at Jarlshof.

Jarlshof is one of the biggest draws to the Shetland Islands, and I visited the site on a bright morning at the end of April. For as popular as the place might be, it still has relatively little infrastructure around it – I parked the car at the Sumburgh Hotel and then walked over a wide field along a dirt track before reaching the small museum curated by Historic Scotland. This helpful map provides an overview of Jarlshof.

I was one of just a handful of people tramping around the site silently. My first stop was the oldest part: Bronze Age homes and midden heaps. The Bronze Age began around 2,000 BC and there is evidence of a smithy here dating from that period. The houses are oval in shape with thick stone walls. I can imagine people hauling these huge stones up to this sturdier land from the beach. The midden heaps hold the remnants of shellfish and clams that must have filled a large part of the settlers’ diet. There’s even evidence of Neolithic pottery though no Stone Age structures.

I circled south along the sea fence beneath the shadow of the Stewart Mansion and toward the Iron Age settlement. According to archaeological reports, it appears there was a gap in settlement between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Who knows, maybe the weather hid the Bronze Age buildings from the incoming Pictish settlers. The Iron Age wheelhouses are amazing structures that appear to be built using drystone techniques – in other words, no mortar. While they appear sunken in the earth now, they would have been freestanding structures above ground back then. These wheelhouses give Jarlshof its distinct image, and inside them I found separate rooms, a hearth, and a cistern. The remains of an impressive broch stood nearby.

The Iron Age lasted for a long time in far-flung northern Scotland, and it’s probable that Picts lived here at Jarlshof until the next wave of inhabitants arrived: the Norse. The Norse provided to be a real pain for many in the British Isles. Here at Jarlshof they built a series of longhouses – the largest section of the site and the first longhouses in the British Isles – to the north. In many ways to this day Shetland feels more Norwegian than Scottish. After all, it wasn’t until 1472 that Norway relinquished control of the islands.

The Norse occupied the site for many hundreds of years, adding more buildings and expanding their influence. A medieval farm was built next to the longhouses and its remains are just as visible as those from the other periods. Eventually the Norse abandoned the settlement toward the end of the 13th century.

In the 16th century, Robert Stewart, the 1st Earl of Orkney, built his mansion on the highest point here. Today its ruin is the most eye-catching feature upon arrival, though it’s probably the least amazing aspect of Jarlshof. Robert’s son Patrick modernized the building in the early 17th century and renamed it the Old House of Sumburgh. It was abandoned later that century.

Getting the right angles for good photos is tough at Jarlshof because as a visitor you’re down in the site. Thankfully, there’s a skeletal metal staircase at one end of the crumbling Stewart Mansion that you can climb for excellent views of Jarlshof. My attempts at photography were not helped by the strong morning sunlight.

After thousands of years of settlement that run from the hint of Neolithic peoples through the Bronze and Iron Ages to the Pictish, Norse, and Scottish periods, Jarlshof now serves as a UNESCO world heritage site under the care of Historic Scotland. Crouched in the darkness of one of those Iron Age wheelhouses, with the sea wind whistling through the mossy rocks, if you listen carefully you can just make out the echoes of something ancient and almost lost to memory.

A Catalog in Stone: Shetland’s Jarlshof is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

Loch Morlich holds the sky at Cairn Gorm’s feet. The lake surface is a sheet of frozen glass thawing at the edges where the mountain winds fail to scuff the reflection. A perfume of snow rides the air shivering from the mountain tops. I bend down to stare at the black rocks flecking the shore; they are mountains to whatever looks up to them. I had passed from the fecund darkness of Rothiemurchus Forest where slats of daylight periodically pierced the entwined arms of ancient oaks to this wide vision. The contrast is almost too much: the air frosts my lungs; my pupils constrict to black pinpoints; my reflection wavers in Morlich’s visage.

I have a curious habit of comparing real places like Loch Morlich to those that exist only in stories. Surely this is what Tolkien had in mind for the Mirrormere. It’s a reverse hope that there may be something out there even more fantastic, more wondrous. The clouds blaze in the sun and I clasp frozen hands beneath my windbreaker. It is robbery to think such thoughts here with this sight before me. This, with all the heavens cast in the water, is fantasy. This is wondrous. So I go on shivering.

Picture This: Loch Morlich, the Mirrormere is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012

Even the schools in Edinburgh are something to gape and wonder at. That was the thought flitting through my mind as I stood in the courtyard of George Heriot’s School on the southern edge of Edinburgh’s Old Town. It’s a rare view, being inside the school. Much like other castles of education in Edinburgh, George Heriot’s School isn’t open to visitors, which I think is a pretty smart policy (minors and all). So how did I sneak past the guards and clamber over the Flodden Wall without being noticed?

No, it wasn’t my years training as a ninja in Iga province. I was the guest of Willie Wallace, a George Heriot’s alum which granted him the powers of re-entry to the school. With guests. On no less than every one of my trips to Scotland, I’ve rented my car through Willie’s business, Celtic Legend, so last time I was in Edinburgh we decided to grab a pint (or two…). Realizing that I love all things Scottish and that I’m interested in going off the typical tourist path, Willie offered to show me around Edinburgh’s hidden-in-plain-sight bastions of education, which, incidentally, also happen to be architectural masterpieces. I love Scottish hospitality.

We stopped first at George Heriot’s School. George Heriot was the royal goldsmith in the early 17th-century, and upon his death he left the modern equivalent of tens of millions of pounds to found a children’s hospital (another name for a charitable school). By 1659 the “school” was complete – in truth it looks like a magnificent Renaissance castle with its turreted quadrangle positioned on a wide grassy hill overlooking the Grassmarket. There are one-of-a-kind views of Edinburgh Castle from George Heriot’s grounds, not to mention great perspective of George Heriot’s School from Edinburgh Castles’s battlements.

George Heriot’s School was the first major structure built outside the old city walls of Edinburgh, and part of the old Flodden Wall still runs between the school and Greyfriar’s Kirkyard. Today more than 1,600 kids go to school at George Heriot’s, arranged into houses that immediately made me think of Hogwarts. Is it coincidence that J.K. Rowling wrote her stories less than a mile from here?

George Heriot’s School is a heady place where the past seems to waft from the sandstone walls. I can only imagine how cool it would have been to attend primary school in such a place; growing up, my schools were mostly aging cement boxes from the 60s. By the look of it, William Wallace (many famous Scots by this name), the architect of the school, spared not one of George Heriot’s pounds.

After our extensive tour of George Heriot’s School, we hopped back in Willie’s car and drove to the all-boys Stewart’s Melville College on the north side of Edinburgh. As we were not alumni of the school, our interaction was limited to a breathtaking view. Willie’s backstory illuminated how the college was actually two different schools – Daniel Stewart’s College and Melville College – until their merge in 1972. Both were built in the mid-19th century upon the generosity of wealthy patrons, much like George Heriot, and while I’m no savant of architecture the spires and towers bear some resemblance to George Heriot’s Renaissance style. To be clear, these are not public schools; these are private schools with large tuition bills.

Last stop on our tour of Edinburgh’s castles of education was just a couple of blocks over at Fettes College. If that name is familiar to you it might be because Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, went to school here. Fettes College grew out of a donation from former Lord Provost of Edinburgh Sir William Fettes’s desire to commemorate his deceased son. David Bryce served as architect for this palace, blending elements of Loire château with 19th-century Scottish Baronial. Or so I’m told. Interestingly, Fettes College follows the English education system. It made me wonder if its students were largely of English extraction, but there was no chance we were getting inside to ask that question.

The look inside George Heriot’s School was a rare treat, but all these schools are worth a trek around Edinburgh for the visual delight as well as the chance to see parts of the city you might otherwise skip. It’s hard to fathom the generosity of these schools’ patrons, and to imagine what life must be like for the students attending these schools. Willie recounted some tales to me and it sounded like some urban fantasy. I think I’ll go watch Dead Poets Society again.

Edinburgh’s Castles of Education is a post from Traveling Savage. Copyright 2012