Tag: Day Trip

Posted in Day Trip, Travel

Rosslyn Chapel

Posted on by Evallone

I’m sure everyone has at least heard of Rosslyn Chapel, mostly thanks to the spotlight given by Dan Brown in the Da Vinci code it helped bring even more tourists and conspiracy theorists to the church located on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Day-Trippin’

Back in March, I’d planned to visit Rosslyn Chapel with the family in April but obviously the tour company cancelled it when it was announced that churches across the country had to close for the foreseeable future. I was miffed to say the least, April is prime day-trip season in Scotland and I’d blew through most of my holiday allowance at work so doing something on my days off was a perfect idea. It started as a random conversation of somewhere different we could go to, love Arran so much but Scotland has a lot to offer and I still feel I’ve barely seen anything. Given that none of us have a car, it looked a bit awkward to travel from Glasgow to Rosslyn. The website does suggest trains and busses from Edinburgh… but then, a chance advert in a newspaper Pater found Strathmore Travel running day trips to Rosslyn chapel of all places! It included pick up from Glasgow, travel there and back and a wee lunch/tea in the cafeteria for £49 a head. Freaking bargain.

The New Normal: Virtual Tour

Alas, it’s as tragic as everything else we’re missing out on. Scotland has had some of its best ever weather in the couple of months since lockdown started and it’s grating on us all – especially considering how rotten the winter was and it lasted until the second week in March. But the kind folks who look after Rosslyn Chapel also know how to look after their fans and disheartened would-be visitors and have released an online virtual tour of the chapel. Please see here. (I would recommend viewing it on a laptop or computer, my Chromebook froze trying to view it!)

It’s lovely that we can view it while safe at home, and I think it really plays into how lucky most of us are to have access to technology and be online during this crisis. The fact that we can virtually visit the places we can’t physically go to right now is comforting. Remember google street view exists! You can walk down the main street of your favourite city and pretend you are there.

Not the review I wanted

I wanted to have a series of great pictures and to detail the whole day on here, which I can’t do. Obviously there’s a great deal that we can learn online about it, like now I know you’re not allowed to take pictures inside the church, so thankfully there is the virtual tour. It looks quite small, but given how old it is and the detail in the carvings it more than makes up for it. While researching this, I found a great post on the Rabbie’s website about Rosslyn Chapel. Rabbie’s are a travel company that do tours around Scotland including to the chapel. This post isn’t sponsored, I’m just trying to throw some good karma in the way of local companies that they’ll survive Corona.

Featured Image Credit: RCT/Vic Sharp Via Rabbie’s Website.

Let me know if anyone has already visited Rosslyn and what you thought of it? Anyone planning to go (want to road trip)? Do you do day trips in your home country?

e x

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Posted in Day Trip, Education, History, life, Travel

Have you met Dippy?

Posted on by Evallone

Meet Dippy the Diplodocus. He’s on tour around the UK having left the Natural History Museum in London for the first time since 1905. His show is on the road until 2020 and is next heading to Newcastle on 18th May, having just wrapped up a several month stint in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

Dippy is a beautiful big beastie who originally roamed the earth 150 million years ago, munching on leaves and hanging out with his dino friends. I can’t help but be reminded of The Land Before Time and Disney’s Dinosaur, so excuse me while I wipe away my tears.

If you are a paleo purist (ancient bones, not the diet) then maybe Dippy wasn’t your thing, he is a replica – plaster cast of the original Dippy in residence in Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History. However, I don’t care, because it’s thanks to Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist, that we over here have a Dippy to look at! Carnegie financed the excavation of Dippy in Wyoming in 1899 and they later discovered it was a new species, thus named the
Diplodocus carnegii. As a favour to King Edward VII, Carnegie faithfully reproduced the bones of the original at the cost of $2000 back in 1902 and gifted them to the Natural History museum in London.

Most people know how much Kelvingrove means to me, it’s my hang out place when I can get there; where my interests in art, history and old buildings converges so for that to be the temporary home of Dippy’s Scottish visit, I couldn’t have asked for more. Picture it, me in all my 30 years turning up with my pater and the two of us nerding out worse than the kids swarming around.

Dippy is 70ft long, no wonder it’s hard to get him in one shot!

Even though the photos show other people as scale, it still doesn’t do justice to how massive Dippy actually is. He towered over the adults, nevermind the kids and weighs in at a hefty 20,000kg (alive, I’m sure).

Smile for the camera

I had to zoom in to get his wee face, and felt so small and insignificant. Really makes me wonder about people who deny the existence of dinosaurs – we might mostly be top of the food chain these days, but we’re all fairly tiny and annoying.

Colossus at rest

It was a great day out to visit Dippy and I can only hope that there have been countless children inspired by seeing him. I may have ended up at the merch shop and may have acquired a Dippy soft toy for a small fortune…

Kelvingrove is a free-entry museum and is open nearly all year-round from 10/11-5pm everyday. There are accessible entry points from both the Argyle Street and car park entrance. There are two cafés serving hot and cold drinks and light foods, the basement café serving meals as well. The basement features different installations and the two gift shops sell the permanent and temporary merchandise. There is artwork from Dalí and the Dutch Masters to the exhibits of Ancient Egypt and Scottish Wildlife, so there is definitely something for all to see.