Day 19 Scotland Here We Come!

Friday Bruce Hotel Glasgow Scotland Room 118
A woke to a semi sunrise but the view over the lake was just so tranquil, shame to leave the view! The Days Inn even though in an awful spot to access things was a very comfortable, roomy hotel. The beds were super comfortable, great views and yes I am a bit sad to leave this spot as it really is very peaceful!

Off up the Hwy we set heading to our first stop The Broughham Castle, near Penrith at a Village called you guessed it Brougham. What a beautiful setting it was sitting right n t to a pretty flowing stream, on a green green field... But sadly it was to early to go into and as we had a long way to go today we couldn’t wait for opening time.... so lots of pics from a distance, good thing I have a great lens on my good camera.... could get in close for some shots... sadly the iPhone only does long distance shots....

So after capturing some lovely pics off we set for our next destination, Carlisle Castle this was an interesting strategic stronghold for the most besieged town in Britain being so close to the border, it had many battles fought, held Mary Queen of Scots for sometime, The Jacobites even took I over for a period, it later were executed for their evil ways and what they did to the local folk. As the years went on it become a military barracks, now is still in Army control with the Cadets being housed in some of the out buildings. We hav a cuppa here and the young guy who served us talked none stopped about the best coffee and how every Aussie he has dealt with all love their coffee know heaps about it and are very particular about how they have it and how it’s made.....

Once we had our education lesson on Coffee, he as a really nice fellow but did chat a lot, we headed into the Military museum, really interesting in that it had for every war Britain has fought some before WW1 they had displays of tools, artillery, cloths+++++ used by soldiers over the centuries and years.... very, very interesting. The last display was about the wives of service men over the years going back into the 1800’s where wives even went to war with their husbands.... some having an extreme hardship in doing so, but it kept the marriage together..... during some of the years men had to be in the services for over 7 years before being allowed to serve. Now husbands and wives of military personal are home based no travelling g with hubby or wife on deployment. They say that with internet etc there is no need, but you do wonder if the divorce rate and mental health rate maybe less if somehow families could stay together as they did years ago... I know war is tough in any circumstance but maybe the armed services need too rethink how and what they do with armed personal for there mental health as too many these days are suffering terribly!

Next stop off to Lanercost Priory, wow was she a beauty in her day.... yep took heaps of pics then had to move into The Roman Fort of Birdswald and Hadrian’s Wall.... coming across old sections of the wall and part turrents along the road as we made our way to the Fort section. Once there wow this section of Hardian’s wall was fantastic.... so much of it here compared to what we saw on our Cosmos UK trip 2 yrs ago.... this makes that section look nothing compared to how much is along this section which is I well preserved. Even goes through some of the little farms along the ridge line it follows we discovered as we headed of...

Everywhere you go even in Whop whop you have to pay to park they slugged us £4 here which is $8 makes it so expensive to just park at each spot... plus the payment into each Heritage site starts to add up very much indeed... So by the time we hit the Roman fort and you could see a fair bit of it from the fence line Joh was over how much it would be... if we paid for this one it would have been $80 for the day just in sites let alone food costs and parking costs.... my sightseeing is starting to add up and with our little budget have to plan sites to visit, try to get freebies is possible... it’s just there are so many sites in the UK your mind boggles, too many to choose from and decide best value for money... if we were both still working and this was on,y a holiday for 1 trip then we could go for it... but this is 7 months worth of an adventure so have to do some more research on value for money sight seeing.....

So with no plan to spend at the Fort also because we were by now running out of time as we still had a long way to go to Glasgow, we decided to have lunch instead.... I know if we could make our own lunches it would be so much cheaper but without fridges in our hotel rooms that becomes a bit of an issue keeping g stuff fresh to use. I am struggling with what we carry with us now trying to keep it cool enough not to go off...
So where we can we share a meal as I don’t eat much sharing can work most times.... I know John would rather his own sometimes but he is good and shares what we can both eat....

Once feed we speed off down or should I say up the highway towards Scotland.... so many hills still have patches of snow on them makes the drive pretty.... Once we cross the border it’s not as green as England last time here it was so green... and the houses look so different....

We finally get to Glasgow on peak hour traffic time so getting to our hotel is slow. We finally arrive to a very big hotel all covered in green moss and it’s a modern cream building, it looks so yukky and dirty. Anyway we park and head inside... wow it’s big and has heaps of different restaurants or so it seemed... Once booked off to our room 1/2 the size of our last very compacted looking over a very dirty back parking lot, big hopper bins and the rest of the other buildings. Not quite the views of Days Inn but it’s home for the next 3 days so we will make the lost of it... only had to pay £7 a night extra for us both to have breaky here bonus... guess the proof will be in how it is for that price but worth paying when it’s only $3.50 a night each...

As we came I spotted a door that that said shopping centre. So we set off to investigate... my glory it’s massive shop after shop after shop.... restaurants, picture theatre and so many e-cigarette shops I couldn’t get over it... so we are set to do something different in this place everything at our fingertips a but different to the Days Inn...

Out to dinner at the Hotels pub, Grumpy Jacks, food pretty ordinary service great... looks like a left over from the 70’s in its decore and the music they had on was from the 60’s, a bit like stepping back in time!
Now to plan what to do in Glasgow!Read more