Glasgow to Paisley to Coulter to Lanark to Balloch to Glasgow

Today is the day we went to the Glasgow airport to pick up the rental car.  As I have already posted about driving I will try not to say too much about driving in Scotland.

We picked up an Ibiza "ecomotive" at the rental center.  I was trying to get it out of the parking lot, but I kept stalling in third gear.  After three tries I was about to take it back to the counter person because it sounded funny, but then Beloved Nancy Davis told me the car was a diesel and it was supposed to sound funny.

Space fixing the Ibiza

To get out the the airport you had to drive on three infinite loop round abouts.  The rental lady said if I ended up back in the rental center parking lot not to be too upset, as it happens to everyone.   By the third stall I as wondering how many people never even get out of the rental center parking lot.   

For those following along at home this was our route.

This is a Google link map of glasgow to Coulter to Lanark to Balloch to Antonine wall to Glasgow

Beloved Nancy Davis' mother's family name is Coulter.  She doesn't think they come from Coulter Scotland but it is a unique name so she wanted to visit.  She is also from the clan Ferguson but we  did not research Ferguson Scotland at all so we did not go there.  I tried to find out where the clan McFly came from, as in "Back to the Future" - McFlys, but I could not find them on the map.

To get to Coulter we had to drive on a Scottish thruway.  Scottish thruways use infinte loop round abouts instead of highway ramps.  We were going 70 miles an hour thinking we were in good shape, when the next thing I knew I was cornering on rails through a round about trying to continue south on the same major dual carriage road.

However after this round about I found myself in the Scotish passing lane.  Do not drive the speed limit in the passing lane.  A car nearly ran me off the road, and then when I could finally get out of the lane safely, two people on a morotcyle road backwards for half a mile so they could gesture their appreciation of my driving skills.   

Welcome to Coulter cemetery

I Liked the skeleton

Butterfly on a Butterfly Bush

The town of Coulter consists of a school, church, cemetery, manor house, sheep pasture and a pub.  We got out of the car to walk around the cemetery.  We saw a bunch of stones and grave markers then we took a small gate out of the back onto a quiet country path that led to a quaint manor house.  We have been told you are allowed to walk everywhere in Scotland without a problem, but I did not think that included walking in someones back door, so we left through a side gate and got back in the car.

When you pass through the gate at least you know where you'

re going

Manor House.  Maybe it was the front door Nancy wanted to walking through

On the way back from Coulter there was a castle that was in our way.  Scotland has a bunch of castles littering the landscape.  To get to this castle it was my first opportunity to drive on a single track road.  I had not yet gotten used to the head-on-collision style of driving in Scotland but thankfully the road was little traveled and everyone coming my way waited in the lay-bys even though I did not yet know that's what these were.

Craignethan castle was the style castle we liked most.  It was decaying but not rubble.  You were allowed to climb up/down and through any of the stone that was left, and when you were done you were tired, dirty and knew a little more about how people lived than you did when you arrived in the parking lot.

Craignethan was built in 1530 by an illegitimate grandson of James II.  He had traveled through Europe so he added some of the new castle defenses that were vogue in Europe at the time.  He was pro-catholic during the reformation.  He was BFF's with James the V until James the V beheaded him in 1540.

Even though this guy was beheaded his son got custody of the castle and became BFF's with Mary Queen of Scots.  The son helped her escape and put her up in Craignethan for a period but she was captured while trying to make it to Dumbarton Castle.

The son died and the family was not doing to well so in 1579 the crown was nervous of this castles defenses so they knocked down the tower and filled in the dry moat.

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Beloved Nancy in the Kitchen Fireplace

Minstrels performed in the Loft above this banquet room.

After the Craignethan we went North beyond Glasgow looking for the Antonine Wall.  This was a wall built by the Romans in 156 AD.  The wall was on our map but with no definite layout of where you go to see anything.  It was my understanding that we would be walking in the footsteps of the Romans.  Instead we ended up on some horse trail walking through road apples.  This may or may not have been the Antonine wall.  The horse trail was not going to keep the northern Scots out of southern Scotland in it's current condition.

Did I tell you they do not label roads the same way they do in America.  They must think all traffic is local and therefore no one would need a sign to help them determine where they were.  Somehow we ended up in Glasgow anyway and finished the day.