Glasgow

Today we visited the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.  Incredible building.  We were lucky enough to arrive just as someone was giving an organ recital on the huge pipe organ.

This is what the art gallery is suggesting a haggis looks like.
The wee beastie on the left.

Inside the gallery

Painting by Whistler

A weird art installation.

Pipe organ in the gallery.

The outside of the Kelvingrove Gallery

Doune Castle

We stopped at this castle because part of the TV series Outlander was filmed here.  Happy surprise when we got here as Monty Python and The Holy Grail was also filmed here.  They even sell coconuts in the shop.  We were given headphones and audio sets to listen to the story about the castle and they had both Terry Jones narrating explaining about the real castle and also Sam Heughan who plays Jamie in Outlanders.  So much fun.

Dundee statues

The Dragon is based on a local legend of the Nine Maidens.
The dragon guards the east end of the High Street.

Desperate Dan is a wild west character in the British comic magazine The Dandy and has become their mascot. He made his appearance in the first issue which was dated 4 December 1937. He is apparently the world's strongest man, able to lift a cow with one hand. The pillow of his (reinforced) bed is filled with building rubble and his beard is so tough he shaves with a blowtorch.

Dundee-Verdant Works Jute Mill

Dundee was once a major jute producer (with the jute coming from India) especially during the wars where canvas for tents, etc. was needed.  It was processed through several machines until it became like twine and could be woven. 

Jute in bales

The Jute Factory

Dundee- RRS Discovery Museum

Today we headed over to the water where they have the RRS Discovery-the world famous Antarctic Research Vessel with Scott as the captain and polar explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton as the leader of the expedition.

RRS Discovery-built 1901

If you stood here and looked up, with the clouds
going by, it felt like you were sailing.

All the important people on the ship's bunks 

Me trying to unload the ship without it tipping.

A real stuffed Emperor Penguin.  Over a metre tall.

All the different explorers working on the ice.

Blair Castle; ancestral home of the Murray Clan and a long line of Atholls

En route to Dundee, we stopped at Blair Castle, one of the Highlands best known estates, and also the ancestral home to Clan Murray!  It has been home to 19 generations of Stewarts and Murrays of Atholl.

Blair Castle

The castle gardens

Statue of Hercules

Rob at the garden entrance

My favourite Atholl

Diana, the huntress

I was lucky enough to catch this piper walking by the window.

The great hall

A beautiful necklace of deer teeth.  Ugh.

On the left, the blond hair is Bonnie Prince Charlie's and the hair
in the middle is a lock of hair from Lord George Murray, Lt.
General for Prince Charlie 1694-1760

Picture gallery

Highland Bull

Highland bulls

This guy was sitting in a store window looking sad.

John Murray, 1st Earl of Atholl 1642