Scotland – pierreo.com – Join me on my journey

Scotland – Part 3

Posted on 12 September, 2012 by pierreo

This is part three of the Scotland trip – after the islands, we went to Inverness and the infamous Loch Ness, with a monster?

But first we went to Elgin and on the way stopped at an old distillery turned into a museum. Great visit, but boy was it hard to find… The Dallas Dhu Distillery was shut down about 30 years ago and has now been turned into a museum.

The nice thing about being a museum is that you can get closer to equipment, and even peer inside – this is where the hops are mixed with hot water before they are allowed to ferment.

They have restored and preserved several Fermentation tanks.

There are two stills, made of copper as always. Scotch Whiskey is double distilled to get to about 70% alcohol before it is aged. In some cases, we were told that the product of the distillation process has no flavour at all; all the flavour is gained in ageing in oak barrels. However, if this were true, why use high quality grains and water, and where does the “peaty” flavour of some whiskeys come from?

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Travel

Scotland – Part 2

Posted on 2 September, 20122 September, 2012 by pierreo

With much delay due to a number of other activities, here is the second part of my recent trip to Scotland.

We took the scenic route from Skye to Scrabster, where we would catch the ferry to Stromness, on Mainland, in the Orkney Islands. It is not a long drive, but took us almost all day as we decided to stop whenever the view was nice.

We drove along the West coast, on a small windy road that was quite pleasant. Occasionally, the view got even better. There are ruins of a castle on a spit of land in the middle of a loch.

and there were nice flowering bushes in places as this is the end of spring.

Leaving Scrabster on the ferry – here is a view of the light house at the entrance to the bay. It looks like the keeper had a large wall-enclosed garden to take care of as well.

There were many birds on the cliffs as we were heading out. There were also many nests in the cliffs, but too far away for a good view.

We had a great day for the ferry crossing – bright and sunny but not too hot.

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Culture, Travel

Scotland – Part 1

Posted on 2 July, 2012 by pierreo

In late May, Bee and I spent almost two weeks in Scotland to take advantage of two holidays that occur close to each other. This meant that it only cost us 6 vacation days!

We left work after lunch and headed for Zeebrugge where we took the ferry to Hull with my car. I had been to Zeebrugge quite a number of times on a sailboat, but I had never seen the port from the higher vantage point afforded by a large sea-going vessel. It was also a very nice day, which made for a particularly memorable sight.

As we maneuvered to get out, two tugs stayed close just in case we needed help. This is looking back towards the yacht club, where I usually come from…

As we come out of the harbour, I realise that the visibility is particularly good. I can clearly see the high rise in Oostende and even the coast beyond it.

It is very difficult to show you the true effect that this view gives. Below is a view of the coast from Zeebrugge on the right all the way to the first barrier of the Delta Project in the Netherlands at the far left. You cannot really see that on the photo below – but trust me, it is there.

Here I have enlarged a few details so that you can see them better …

A container carrier coming into Zeebrugge offers a great opportunity for an artsy shot, against the sun that will start to set in a few hours.

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