Today we checked out of the Eilean Iarmain hotel on Skye this morning after an early continental breakfast and drove the 10 miles to Armadale for the ferry to Mallaig on the mainland. Very windy (as usual on Skye) with very low clouds and rainy. We had 10 minutes between the arrival of the ferry at Mallaig and the train's departure to Glasgow. We (mostlyBrian) were kind of concerned about that tight connection. But all the locals were totally sanquine about it. For good reason. It was about a 3 - 5 minute walk from the ferry to the train.
The West Highland Railway is said to be one of the 3 most scenic train rides in the world. But with the low cloud and rain we didn't see a lot of it. We DID cross the Glenfinnan Viaduct (the stone train viaduct in the Harry Potter movies) and we got a (somewhat poor) shot of it. The train stopped there, apparently due to the high volume of requests for photos. It was a 5 and a half hour train ride after the half hour ferry crossing - a long and mind-fuzzing travel day. We had the Skye hotel make us some sandwiches which was a good thing. About 45 minutes before we arrived in Glasgow they brought a food cart (using the term "food" loosely) around. We would have starved otherwise.
Arrived in Glasgow where we are staying next to the train station and on George Square in the central core of downtown. It is a municipal holiday tomorrow so there are lots of people on the streets. Not really a good walking place. It is the downtown of a really big city without the charm of the Royal Mile as in Edinburgh. We had beer and pizza for supper and will take it easy this evening. Tomorrow we will walk around and tour a bit before catching the plane on Tuesday for Paris.
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