Linlithgow

Hello there! Long time no see. Yes, I know. I haven't called or written and you thought perhaps I'd just forgotten about you. Wrong you are. As per the last post, life has been a tad on the busy side since January. And when it hasn't been busy, it's been full of too much listening to/reading about music or watching of Flight of the Conchords. But I will slowly attempt to dig myself out of the backlog of photos and stories that I would love to share with you! So if you're ready to hop into a time machine with me, we'll wizz* through the past few months of adventuring around Europe. Enjoy!


Linlithgow Palace (map)
January 25, 2009

The first trip after Garrett left was to Linlithgow, a town not too far west of Edinburgh. The major site of the town are the ruins of Linlithgow Palace, a former royal palace set beautifully on a loch (lake) surrounded by a large peel (park). Historic Scotland can tell you much more about the history so I'll just share a few photos.

This is the tower of St. Michael's Parish Church, which sits right at the entrance of the palace ruins. The metallic spiky-ness is a strange contrast to the dull stone worn down through the ages, but I quite like it.

The palace is roofless but there are actually parts of the property where you can slope up winding stairs and get lost in a labyrinth of palace rooms. The bulk of it is just a set of walls though :) Here is one example: some passages behind the great hall that were used by servants as a path to the kitchen.




The most beautiful part of the palace today is probably the massive King's Fountain in the courtyard, still very much intact. Apparently wine flowed through the pipes in the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie. It was recently restored and now flows (with water) at summertime. I suggest clicking the photo to see a bigger version, which still doesn't do justice to the very detailed carvings.

Photos have been up on Facebook for a while and I've also put them up on Flickr. I think I'll start doing this for all of my photos. Facebook is a great place to share photos because it's easy for people to browse and comment, but the quality is absolutely rubbish when compared to Flickr. I'll try posting links to both and you can decide where you would like to browse.

*The use of the term "wizz" does not imply that this catch-up process will be speedy. It will happen though, I promise.