PITLOCHRY

Pitlochry (Website for this image)

Thinking of a holiday in the United Kingdom?

Try Pitlochry.

Pitlochry and Ben Vrackie by Val Vannet

Pitlochry, in Perth and Kinross in Scotland, is the quintessential highland town.

It has a population of 2,564.


The friendliest, most relaxed and most comfortable hotel in Pitlochry is The Green Park. AA rosette for food.

“Probably the best hotel we have stayed in!” / “Excellent Hotel” / “The most comfortable and relaxed hotel.” / “Excellent hotel - top class customer service” / “Truly excellent and relaxing”/ “Very friendly, very comfortable and very popular.”

For shopping, try the House of Brewer (Food, clothing, art, restaurant....) House of Bruar - Quality Scottish Country Clothing and Produce

Pitlochry lies on the River Tummel and is surrounded by mountains, including Ben Vrackie and Schiehallion.

Much of the architecture is Victorian.



In 1947 there began the construction of a dam as part of the Tummel hydro-electric power scheme.

The damming of the river created Loch Faskally.

The dam and its fish ladder can be viewed by tourists.

Website for this image

Pitlochry's famous Festival Theatre was founded in 1951.

(Pitlochry Festival Theatre What's On)

There are two whisky distilleries, both with visitor centres.

Edradour, the smallest distillery in Scotland, is privately owned.

Blair Athol Distillery is owned by Diageo.

Pitlochry (Website for this image)

Pitlochry has a fine golf club with fine views and fine food.

Worth a visit is Blair Castle, with its Hercules Gardens.

Blair Castle is home to the Dukes and Earls of Atholl, and home to the Atholl Highlanders, 'only remaining private army.



Also worth a look are: Killiecrankie, Rannoch Moor, Ben Vrackie, Black Spout Wood, MacNaughtons of Pitlochry and Queen's View



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TRAVEL

In 1969, Rockefeller insider Dr Richard Day predicted the future in these terms: "Travel would become very restricted." (Rockefeller Insider Vowed in 1969: “Travel Will Be More Difficult”)

SELL THOMAS COOK

WHERE TO GO INSTEAD OF NORTH AFRICA

MALTA - BIRZEBBUGA - SEABREEZE HOTEL

TOP TEN - LONELY PLANET

BEST CITIES TO VISIT

HAPPIEST DESTINATIONS

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Passage from India

For once I’m almost at a loss for words; well, almost! Anything I say about India, about my experience of India, is almost bound to sound hackneyed. Yes, it is a place of extremes and contrasts, of terrible lows and wonderful highs.

I read so much, looked at so much, in preparation for our odyssey; from novels, like Passage to India, The Raj Quartet and White Tiger; movies like Gandhi and Slumdog Millionaire, to handbooks like the Rough Guide to India (the Rough Guides are my travel bibles!). It was all good and all relevant in one way or another though oddly enough the most relevant book had nothing to do with India at all.

Last year, quite by chance, I discovered Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, a novel set in Mexico on a particular day in November 1938: the Dia de la Muerte-the Day of the Dead. It’s an astonishing tour de force, a great whirlwind of ideas, images and impressions; of colours, of people, of places and of things. India, for me, was the same whirlwind and it’s going to take some time to settle properly in my imagination.

Where did we go and what did we see? Well, I have to say we were a tad too ambitious in the itinerary we prepared. In the end we covered a fraction of what we had intended to cover. Even the things we did see I feel I did not see enough, if that makes sense, that I needed more time to appreciate and understand.

From Old Delhi and the Red Fort, to Agra and the Taj Mahal, to Jodhpur and the magnificent Meherangarh Fort, to Lucknow and the Residency, we wandered and we wandered, taking in so much more along the way, museums, temples and events. Yes, we also saw the sun rise on the Ganges. On recommendation we went on a camel safari from Bikaner rather than Jaisalmer, an experience I will never forget, just as I will never forget my bad-tempered mount! Nor will I forget the temples of Khajuraho with their wonderfully divine and uninhibited depictions of sexual union, union in every manner the human imagination can conceive: it’s the Kama Sutra in stone relief! I would have liked to have gone on from here to the national parks but they are closed during the monsoon season.


Gosh, there is so much more I could write, about people, places and things, but I would risk going on at interminable length. I should say, though, that life here just presses in on one from all sides. The staring and the touching can be a bit irksome but by and large people don’t mean to be rude or unkind; they just have a different way of perceiving things. My blonde hair seemed to be a particular point of fascination! I suppose also because of the season and time of year we were a little more conspicuous as the tourist herds are thinner.

I loved talking to people where and when I could but my boyfriend was an essential companion (he often is!) because some men entertain the usual stereotypes about women from the west. The offers of ‘jiggy jiggy’ get just a shade too tedious after a bit!

I’d rather hoped top round the whole experience off with a few days in Kerala in the far south by way of contrast but that really was a bridge too far. Well, until the next time.

Our Girl in Havana!

I love to travel. I’ve been going to one place or another since I was very young. My parents are quite wealthy, so we always went on exotic holidays. Latterly I’ve been going away with friends, usually twice a year, sometimes more, when money and time allow.

Last summer I was in Havana . Yes, I was. What a fascinating place it is, full of life, of music, of dance, of sex…and of danger. The American embargo-a great error of judgement-has kept the place preserved in a kind of time-loop, somewhere in the early 1960s. Everywhere there are cars, American classic cars, fashionable over fifty years ago, that somehow have been kept going. The city itself, large parts of it, are crumbling, as if just emerging from a war or a great natural disaster. The old city-Habana Vieje-is still in reasonably good condition, as are large parts of the more affluent suburbs, but the intermediate core, and areas along the Malecon, are in a fairly dire state.

I was there with some girlfriends from university. We stayed in the old city, in a hotel called Ambos Mundos, a wonderful eccentric pink palace, where Ernest Hemingway lived briefly in the 1930s. His room-511, I think-is still preserved as a museum.

As always I tried to get to know the local people; but it’s not easy. The grey-shirted police are everywhere, absolutely everywhere, and they clearly have instructions to intervene when local people, other than those in the tourist industry, engage with visitors. There also, it seems to me, on the basis of some superficial observations, to be a racial element in this process. It always seemed to be the case that if we talked to black boys, or were with black boys, the police were quick to intervene. I was sitting with a guy in Parque Central, opposite the Hotel Inglaterra, when the police appeared and took him away. Yes, with virtually no explanation. I tried to intervene, but my Spanish simply is not good enough, and they speak too fast, so I was left helpless.

But I will not be put off by things like that; I simply got more careful. We did make contacts, in bars and clubs, with some really cool people. It was because of this that I was able to go to a Santeria gathering. It was in an old building, a real warren, in terrible condition, and full, really full, of people. The ceremony itself was held in a large room, with an alter at one end, consisting of various figures, Catholic saints and the representation of West African gods. There were drummers and people were drinking rum and dancing. The whole thing was so strange, like nothing I’ve ever experienced, really energetic, really wild. One woman went into a trance, undergoing a kind of possession.

I should stress that I do not believe any of this was put on for my benefit. ! paid nothing, part from a small offering we made to the saints and gods. I had so much rum, and I was dancing so wildly myself, that I could feel that I was being absorbed, if that makes sense, into the group and into the moment; as if I was losing all sense of myself.

I did not go back to the hotel that night: I stayed and I slept with a beautiful guy called Jorge. :-))