Hi there!!!I went to Scotland this weekend, I visited Edinburgh and Glasgow. It was a nice trip otherwise very very tiring. It was the first time that I took a long tour guide in my life (normally I just take the city tour and visit the city by myself), 11 hours to arrive by bus, everything extremely fast and people snoring during the journey! Apart of those little and annoying things It was a great experience. We left Brighton Friday night and arrived in Edinburgh in the morning. A very good Scotch guide showed as all the city and said some historical curiosities about the place. So beautiful! We took the last days of the festival, so the city was full of "peculiar"people. They are so creative to hand in papers on the streets ( they sing, make choreographs ... everything to call attention). The castle was very impress, but guess what! We didn't have time to visit! That's all about tour guides! Now I have to see my pictures again to remember what I saw and try to remember of what the guide said. In the follow day, I changed the plans and I skipped of the pre determined tour. Everybody went to Highlands and I decided to stay in Glasgow and enjoy the city. I'm so proud that I did this. The guide said that go to Scotland and don't see the Highlands is the same to go to London and don't see the Big Ban. Ok! I was tempted to go but I saw the schedule - 5 Castles, Willian Wallace Monument (I read a paper about this - Audiovisual Technologies in tourism) and more things that I don't record now. And I started to considerate the "bubble destination" and all the things related to see the city as a tourist (stay inside the bus all the time, guides talking without stopping and "5 min of break to take pictures") What can I get of that? Beyond a very tiring journey and overwhelmed information? So, I decided to stay in the city. It was the best choice in my point of view! I had a book guide and I followed the things that I was interested. First of all, I took a bus to arrive at the town and see how is the pace of life there. I saw a lot of Mackintosh (The Glasgow School of Art ) works and I had a tea at the original Willow Tea Rooms - a lecture about Art Nouveau! Everything is keeping the same since 1900, even the uniforms of waiters. Glasgow is lovely, full of history! I went to the oldest house (with the ancient furniture inside), Cathedral and St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art that I loved it - they have a gallery of Religious Art that show the rituals of which step of the life in different religious (birth, teenage, weddings...). The follow day was as usual a short city tour around Glasgow inside the bus (because we didn't have time even for taking pictures at the main attractions) and a long journey back to Brighton.
The bus tours had competent and knowledge guides and I could concentrate more (listen) during the Glasgow tour, I agree with Tove Oliver that if we know what we're going to see we can record more information.
It was a great weekend!
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2 comments:
It was a great trip. Glasgow seems a nice city. I've heard about the glaswegians. They are very knowledgeable and passionate about their city. And the city has a lot of art. The Mackintosh design attractions are very famous, a fusion of Scotish, Art Nouveau and japanese style.
One day Ill go there.
Bye and kisses.
Hi Heloisa, I visited Scotland two years ago, and I think you really missed something if you didn't visit the Highlands. Although, I must say a one day tour cannot be sufficient; back then we did a three day Highlands and Islands tour which was one of the most beautiful tours I ever experienced. Amazing guide! He told us Edinburgh castle would not be that special and instead took us to Eilean Donan, really beautiful! Glasgow I did not like that much, and I think I saw a lot of the same things you saw as well.
As for the William Wallace tour guide, you did not miss that much, the museum was interesting, but already in the beginning I lost interest in the audio guide: it worked with entering numbers and then you got a corresponding audio fragment, which was wayyyyyy too long and boring. Might be a good experience as how NOT to design a tour guide.
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