From Fort Williams to Glasgow

Today the highlights will be a little rarer, but we are still looking forward to the drive from Fort Williams to Glasgow. Especially because after just a few kilometers we reach the nucleus of the “Highland Titles”. This is a project to preserve the Scottish landscape that was once born in Glencoe.

The concept involves selling land in small parcels to different people. As a result, forestry companies would have to deal with thousands of owners if they wanted to acquire the forests and meadows in order to then be able to use them commercially. So I acquire a tiny piece of land, which I leave to the organization to look after. Participation in the project is made interesting by various accompanying measures, such as the fact that the owner can now officially call himself “Laird” or “Lord”.

After all four of us are such leirds, we stop and visit “our” country. And a lot of effort is really being made to return the old and monotonous commercial forest to a natural, self-renewing jungle. Wild cats have now settled there and there are rare birds to observe; Overall, you can literally feel the peace and quiet that has returned to this piece of land.

A few kilometers further towards Oban, below Connel Bridge, a relatively large inlet is drained at low tide and re-watered at high tide. This creates a huge tidal current in the narrow area below the bridge – a truly impressive spectacle! I’ve only seen something similar once on our tours through Norway: that’s Saltstraumen near Bodø; it is actually even more powerful.

On our way from Fort Williams to Glasgow we come to Loch Awe and stop at an impressive old church to take a closer look.

It is St Conan’s Kirk, a church still in operation today, Wikipedia writes:

“The building was built according to plans by Walter Douglas Campbell, the brother of Archibald Campbell, 1st Baron Blythswood, who was not a professional architect. The background for the construction of the church was supposedly that Campbell told his mother, who was also the The construction was financed in order to save the daily journey to the church in Dalmally and to build a church closer to home. After construction began in 1881, the first construction phase was finally completed in 1886. The building at that time was rather simple and of significantly smaller dimensions than it is today. Nevertheless, it was sufficient for the small community in the sparsely populated area on the north bank of Loch Awe. Between 1907 and his death in 1914, Campbell expanded the building. The work was then continued by his sister until her death in 1927 completed.”

It is easy to see that this building was added to and rebuilt several times by different builders. It’s not “all of a piece”, and therefore quite funny in a special way.

In Inverary we treat ourselves to a little something to eat and actually want to visit the impressive castle. But the prices for just a look at the garden, let alone the building, are so exorbitant that we decide we’d rather go out to dinner tonight for the money. Of course, the castle is really worth seeing from the outside!

At the Holy Loch we take the ferry across the River Clyde and then through slow-moving traffic to Glasgow, where we camp for the night in the luxurious Hilton Hotel. But as soon as we arrived, we went back to a pub with large television screens, because today the final game in the Champions League BVB against Real Madrid is taking place. 

There’s a really good atmosphere in the restaurant; It’s probably about nothing for the Scots in this match, but the opening game of the European Championship is against Germany. And yet most of the pub’s visitors keep their fingers crossed for the people of Dortmund. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, that doesn’t help much in this case either: Dortmund lose the game and we lose the desire to stay here any longer.

So we make our way home, briefly try out one or two whiskeys in the hotel bar and finally retire to our comfortable and cozy beds. Good Night!