A Walk in and Around Blairgowrie

Walking along the banks of river Ericht

Views of the Sidlaw Hills

Remains of the old mill cottages

A old chimney

remains of an oldwater wheel

On the Monday we headed to Blairgowrie in Perthshire to do a shortish walk in the area. It was ok weather, rather typical April day mixture of rain, sun and wind. Once we parked the car we started our walk along the river Ericht, techincally we should have continued but there had been some land slides so the area was cordoned off.

Therefore we had to walk upwards and were rewarded with some lovely views of the surrounding Sidlaw hills and farmland. Then we found our way back down to the river and to the area where in the 19th century there were around 12 jute and flax mills. Blairgowrie was very important in the production of Jute and linen, the powerful river Ericht was needed to pump the water wheels.

We then crossed over a bridge to the other side and walked into Rattray, over another bridge which took us back into Blairgowrie and went for a well deserved lunch. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant but we had a good lunch and the staff were very nice. Then we headed off to see my nephews in Tayport.

Some Street Art in Paris

Back in March I went to Paris for the weekend with my friend Aimee, these photos were all taken on a bitterly cold Sunday. We started off at the Pomidou Centre, where we had tickets for the Salvador Dali exhibition but as the line up was long and we did not fancy waiting in the cold we opted for lunch instead.

Then we walked to a metro station and got off around the Canal St Martin area, as I had read that it was a nice area to walk in. Maybe it was due to the fact that it was not the best day to walk by a canal, it was not what I thought it would be like, hopefully in warmer days it looks different.

All the street art we saw looked cool and would have liked to see more, maybe another time!

Photo of the Week - Seagull

This hungry fellow was in Edinburgh, my sister and I were walking in Princes Street Gardens on our way to see an exhibition. It may be hard to imagine this from the photo but he was really huge, the seagulls here are just plain old big. Anyway it was pretty amazing to see it close up though!

More to come from the weekend in Edinburgh later on, hope you are all having a good week!

Falkland Village

My last day in Scotland we went to Falkland for a walk and a look around the lovely village. First we did our walk which I will post about later on, then we stopped for some refreshments in a nice coffee shop. I had the sticky toffee pudding with cream, having had a fair share of scones over the last week, it was time to taste something different and it was delicious!

The village was really lovely, but the main attraction of the place is Falkland Palace, as it was late we could only see the outside and some of the gardens. The palace was built by two kings James IV and James V replacing the old castle from before, during 1501 and 1541. It was a favorite retreat of the Stuart Kings and Queens, including Mary Queen of Scots.

I have visited the Palace but a long time ago, afterwards we continued walking around and saw an interesting shop. If you have old violins, fiddles and cellos this is place to go to sell it or buy one, maybe they deal in other instruments too.

On the Rigi

Back in March when we had a lovely sunny and blue skies day I decided to do a day trip with Alessio so we went to the Mt Rigi.

Mt Rigi is in central Switzerland and it sometimes known as "Queen of the Mountains" we got there by way of the mountain cog railway at Arth-Goldau. It has a height of 1,797m and on that day we had really great views all around. You can see around 13 lakes and have views into the Alps, in the distance we saw Lucern and its lake. Right at the summit it was very windy and cold, but we found a sheltered area it was really lovely and warm.

Instead of taking the train all the way back down we decided to walk some of the way. We saw lots of fellow hikers and it certainly was a lovely walk. Eventually Alessio decided he had had enough of walking and wanted to stop for some refreshments, therefore we went to Hotel Klösterli. We were lucky as the next day is was closing for holidays.

As the train station was right there we waited for the next train down, before that we visited the lovely church. I was quite surprised at how decorative it looked.

Instead of going to the Rigi summit there is a cable car that takes you to Rigi- Scheidegg, which is 1,665m. Maybe Alessio and I will do that one too!