In May and early June 2023 we traveled to Scotland and Germany. We were accompanied by Edith Freiser from Berlin who is Bonnie's Exchange Sister. Bonnie has shared her story and some photos of the trip in the Google Drive cloud.

We arrived in Glasgow on May 12 after a five-hour delay in Iceland. Icelandair didn’t have enough planes to have one available for the Glasgow run. This was at their home base airport. They first announced a two-hour delay, which finally ended up being three additional hours after we were queued up for boarding. Instead of a 737 they found an old 767 and a crew that they could use. When we arrived in Glasgow, the airport directed the flight to a gate with 737 jetway We ended up having to de-plane down stairs to the tarmac.

Glasgow was about as drab as expected. Our apartment (AirBnB) was in a great location and was very nice. We went to the Barras Market, the Hunterian Art Museum and The Charles Rennie Mackintosh House at the University of Glasgow, the Riverside Museum and the tall ship (bark rigged) Glenlee that was moored at the museum.

Next (5/15) we traveled to Fort William via Scotrail’s West Highland Line. Here we boarded the famous steam-train The Jacobite for the round trip to Mallaig This train appeared as the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter movies. It is typically considered one of the top three steam-train rides in the world, along with the Durango and Silverton (which we have ridden) and the Machu Picchu line (which we have not).

What we noticed in Fort William and later everywhere in Scotland… A huge shortage of restaurant workers. Everywhere we went it was difficult or impossible to walk into a restaurant and get a table. Most restaurants had signs indicating that they were booked full for that evening. Tourist season is already in full swing in mid-May, with lots of visitors from the USA. If you are planning on coming in August, book table reservations in July.

From Fort William we ventured on to the Isle of Skye (5/17). I had read that Skye was the #3 tourist attraction in Scotland. After Edinburgh and Loch Ness. I didn’t realize what that meant. Skye was not the remote, quaint, place that we had expected. It was full of tourists, the highways were bumper-to-bumper and the villages were anything but quaint. Maybe we should have visited 20 years ago We were disappointed.

I discovered a serious planning error here. I did not have directions to the AirBnB that we had booked. I knew roughly where it was but no specifics, no contact information, no wifi no cell service and it was raining. We finally found help at a (booked full) restaurant in a village about 10 miles away that helped us stupid Americans (and one stupid German). It was well after dark (in the rain) when we found our cottage two miles down a one lane road in a field of hundreds of sheep and lambs.

The Keepers Cottage where we stayed was first-class other than location. My two main requirements are good wifi and good shower. It had both and a nice kitchen also. The building was originally a crofters hut before the clearances in the 1800s.

The best thing we did on Skye was to visit Dunvegan Castle and Gardens, which was located in the village of Dunvegan. It is the ancestral home of the McLeod Clan and has been continuously occupied for over 800 years. Also there were many acres of formal gardens, reminiscent of Butchart Gardens.

After Skye we traveled via train to Inverness on the North Highlands line (5/19). Nice three-hour trip. Again, in Inverness, no available restaurants in the central city. This is in a city of about 100000 people.

At Inverness we took a cruise on Lake Ness (which every tourist does). In reality, this is a bucket-list check-off. When they make American movies about Lake Ness they could do the locations at Hood Canal near our home in Bremerton…They look the same. One thing Hood Canal lacks is castles ... like Urquhart Castle. Near the cruise boat office were a small herd of Highland Cattle. Also in Inverness we visited and browsed the world-famous Leakeys Bookshop

Here we discovered another shortfall in my planning. We were planning to travel by train from Inverness to Thurso and then on to Orkney via Ferry… but on a Sunday. I missed that there was a very abbreviated train schedule on Sunday, and the only train (usually 3 on weekdays) arrived in Thurso well after the last ferry. So we were forced to rent a car in Inverness to drive to Thurso (2 ½ hours), leave the car there, and walk onto the ferry. Of course, the Ferry on Sunday was fully booked for vehicles. Our plan is to then take the car back to Inverness on Tuesday before heading on to Aberdeen via train.

The second week of our trip has gone much better than the first. It was a 120 mile drive along fair to good highways from Inverness to Scrabster at the far north of Scotland where they ferry to/from Orkney operates. The ferry trip was very similar to the Port Angeles/Victoria COHO. It was about 90 minutes across open water. This time the Pentland Firth

The ship passed along side the Old Man of Hoy which is a 449 foot tall sea stack of stone sticking up from the beach in front of 450 foot cliffs... Very Impressive.

After taking a cab to the airport, we drove to our AirBnB... Lillies Lodges. Boy were we surprised at how small, remote, and under-equiped it was. Way too small for three adults. The wifi didn't work and we never got "hot" hot water. It looked good on the web but we clearly chose the wrong place.

Once again we couldn't get into a restaurant and had to settle for heating frozen dinners at Lillys. We were able to book a table for the next night in Kirkwall... the main town on the island.

Suddenly, the next day, things got better. First off was Skara Brae. This alone made the trip worthwhile. This is bucket-list must-see. Skara Brae is a neolithic village that was inhabited 5000 years ago. That's thousands of years before the Egyptians and thousands of years before Stonehenge. Plus...there was wifi in the cafe.

After this we moved about five miles down a single-track road to Ring of Brodgar Stone Circle and Henge which is another neolithic site from 3000 BCE. While not as Impressive as Skara Brea or Stonehenge it was breathtaking. This was easily the best day of the trip

Next we traveled via car,bus,ferry,different car,bus and train to Aberdeen. Spent one night there... More prosperous, clean, and interesting than we expected. Toured the Maritime Museum which featured the North Sea offshore oil industry that made Aberdeen the Calgary of Scotland for 40 years. The emphasis is now on decomissioning and removing the platforms. We saw three removed platforms later along the Firth of Tay near Dundee.

Our last stop in Scotland was Edinburgh . We visited Edinburgh Castle (our second trip and I would go back a third time). I made up a Rotary meeting at the Rotary Club of South Queensferry the home club of the 2023-2024 Rotary International President Gordon MCInally. We also visited the National Library, Scottish National Museum, took a boat cruise on of the Firth of Forth.

We finished our visit to Edinburgh with a tour of HolyroodHouse Palace. at the end of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. The tour of the palace was great. It had been closed to visitors for several weeks because of Royal Family business. Sunday (May 28) was the running of the Edinburgh Marathon, which ran in front of the palace and which kept away the crowds. Between visits to this palace and Edinburgh Castle we have taken in a lot of Scottish History

Next was a quick plane ride to Berlin. The main "tourist" thing that we did on our final week was to tour and receive and English language presentation at the Reichstag building which was damaged heavily during the World War II bombing and rebuilt with a new building inside the older shell. It is the home for the Bundestag, which is the German govenment parliment.

We also traveled by train and bus to Szczein Poland as a bucket list checkoff. We were expecting a small city with old-world charm. Instead we found a bustling city of over 400,000 with trams running everywhere. Our first clue approaching the city should have been the 800,000 square foot Amazon Fulfillment Center which was near the Ikea store. Poland (unlike the UK) is a great value to visit. An excellent dinner of pierogies and beer was about $11.00. Our hotel was $90.. Modern... three star.. all the amenities and a great American style breakfast buffet. It had a great shower and excelent Wifi. Grand Focus Hotel in case you care.

After Szczein we returned to Edith and Jochen's weekend home on the Teupitzer See in rural Brandenberg State south of Berlin. We spent a relaxing few days enjoying the lake (including of course a boat cruise tour) and German hospitality

Our final adventure was to a complex of World War II and Cold War bunkers at Wunsdorf , about 30 miles south of Berlin in the former East Germany. This unexpectedly turned into one of the highlights of our trip.

Actually, the term complex under-describes them. The original bunkers and shelters were built in the mid-1930s to be both the German military command staff headquarters and the Wehrmacht (Army) headquarters, command and control center (Maybach I and II). Additionally, concrete towers were built as shelters for the civilian population in the event of a chemical weapons attack on the complex. Later during the war, a huge, underground, multi-story bunker (Zeppelin Bunker) was constructed as the German govenment communications center. This was for telephone and radio communications with all forces and outposts. Many of the enigma message coding machines were installed here.

After the war, the Russians destroyed (and left in ruins) the Maybach I and II command bunkers, but left in-place the Zeppelin communications bunker. During the cold war 75000 Russian troops were stationed here along with housing for officer's families Many of the apartment blocks and barracks are still in German civilian use. This was the largest Red Army military base outside of Russia.

At the height of the Cold War the Russians rebuilt and repurposed the Zeppelin Bunker into a shelter against nuclear, chemical and biological weapons attacks. The German communications center was converted into Soviet Union communications center for both military and civilian (KGB) communications. This was their closest permanant facility to the United States, Cuba, and Nato countries.