Last year, while we were staying in Glasgow, we decided that we wanted to try to keep traveling as long as possible and we created a goal of coming back to Scotland for more music tuition in the summer of 2016. When we left the UK in January we had to wait for the tourist visa to reset, and that meant we had to stay out of the UK for six months. (Taking part in HelpX experiences in Spain and Ireland was a fun way to save our budget and it allowed time for our UK visa to reset.)
Way back in the dismal months of winter, we signed up for the Alasdair Fraser summer Scottish Fiddle Workshop on Skye as a treat to enjoy upon our return to Scotland.
The workshop is held annually at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, which is Gaelic for "The Big Stables of Ostaig." It's a Gaelic college on Skye, and originally was housed in old farm buildings. The campus has grown substantially over the years, and is now a full-time institution with classes in Gaelic language, Scottish dancing, music, history, and lots of other topics.
This week, fiddling was the main draw!
We stayed at the Flora MacDonald Hostel, about a mile from the campus. We were in the side-house, and had two musicians for house-mates. Carolyn and Rebecca are both from Shetland, and we enjoyed hearing about their lives on the island.
The week was filled with music:
There were several classes daily focusing on fiddle and cello technique, and well as classes in ensemble, dancing, and Gaelic singing. We were busy!
Each night there was a concert or ceilidh, followed by sessions that ran into the wee hours! The picture above is of Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, the main organizers and tutors of the camp. There were loads of other tutors, lecturers, singers, and other artists.
Over the week we were fortunate to have several lectures on the psychology of music, the way the brain works and how it relates to playing music, and other such relevant topics.
Learning about these things gave us both "food for thought" and inspired us to reevaluate how we learn and play music. In the picture above is Adam Sutherland, on the left, and Alasdair Fraser next to him, both fantastic fiddlers and tutors. On the right we have a physician as well as a neuroscientist, both of whom happened to be attending the fiddle camp and offered to share their research and experience. Fascinating and very interesting!
We also saw this sign ... and thought about our pending pipe tuition in Glasgow.
But let's not get too distracted just yet. There's still fiddling to do!
One night we walked a mile or two down the road to the community center Ardvassar.....
This ceilidh was a blast! The hall was too small for everyone, so the dancing moved into the street!
And later in the week another ceilidh after dinner!
And we were entertained by the outstanding musicians who were enrolled with us in the courses. This pipe-fiddle-cello group was amazing!
Singing classes were also on offer by an amazing Gaelic singer from the outer Hebrides, Christine Primrose.
We had one afternoon free, so we took off for a wee bike ride. And, as we are wont to do, we found a nice route with lots of hills...
We wound our way to the west coast of Sleat to Tarskavaig, where we stopped in the wee community hall for tea and scones. Later we learned that the Alasdair Fraser fiddlers and cellists used to go to that hall for their ceilidhs, but the camp numbers soon outgrew the hall.
After tea we went north to Tokavaig.
Found the steep bit! And, for once, we got to go down it instead of up!
It was a beautiful ride, and it was nice to take a break from fiddling to get some exercise and see the scenery. Such a beautiful place...
Toward the end of the week some friends of ours arrived in their camper van - Ulrike and Wolfgang!
And our new friend Martina, on the right in the picture below.
We met Wolfgang and Ulrike last fall in Glasgow while we were all taking classes at the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop (GFW). They're from Germany and, like us, they took a year out of their "normal" lives to come to Scotland and study music. They've been to Scotland quite a few times and they love it here!
We stayed in touch with them over the course of the year, and, as they were planning a driving tour of Northwestern Scotland, they arranged their route to meet us on Skye. What a treat! We had dinner with them, and with Martina, in the quiet parking lot of the school.
Below is Martina, on the left, and Agnes.
Agnes is also a GFW relation from Glasgow. She came to Skye for the fiddle camp, too. We haven't seen Agnes since we left Glasgow in January - it's nice to see friends again!
To wrap up the week, we had our big concert on Friday night. It's hard to capture the magnitude of it, but there was about thirty cellos and eighty fiddles playing for an audience of about 150, all packed into the main foyer and cafeteria.
We were wedged together in the dining hall, and barely had enough room to swing our bows! All in all, it was a rich experience to play the tunes we'd been learning all week, and the crowd was most appreciative.
Finally, and sadly, we packed up and left the college on Saturday...but don't be too sad... as it was on for another adventure! We had a wonderful weekend planned with Wolfgang and Ulrike!
We cycled from the college to Broadford, about 13 miles north, where we met our German friends and their camper van.
We locked up the cycles at a friendly hotel and packed ourselves into the back of Wolfgang and Ulrike's van and drove to the ferry terminal at Sconser. It felt a bit like cheating to get into a moving vehicle but it was dry and cozy and we soon got over our guilt! Besides, we biked that road last year and once is enough!
It was kind of a miserable day at the ferry terminal...
We caught the ferry to Raasay, a small island between Skye and Applecross. We love these small ferries!
We stopped in the beautiful Raasay house for a coffee and lunch:
This 18th century mansion was once the clan house of the MacLeods of Rassay. There has been a clan house at this site since the 1500's, although the original was destroyed by government forces after the battle of Culloden in 1746. The current structure was built shortly thereafter as a replacement and was visited by Boswell and Jonshon on their famous journey through the Western Islands of Scotland in the 1770's. The house suffered a fire in 2009, requiring extensive renovation. It's now a luxury hotel, hostel, cafe, and outdoor adventure center. We enjoyed several hours there before heading north.
The weather cleared a little and we had stellar views of Skye...
Raasay is not very densely populated, and we felt very remote while we were there. The island is stunningly beautiful, and we were thrilled to once again be on one of the small islands that dot the western coast of Scotland.
We drove the narrow and winding roads for an hour or so and came to our destination:
Calum's Road!
Mr. Calum MacLeod hand-built a 1.75 mile section of road to connect his village of Arnish to the end of the paved road at Brochel. He used a pick, a shovel, a wheel barrow, and an army engineering manual on how to build roads. He built this road because the Council wouldn't do it ... so he took matters into his own hands!
Over the course of ten years he laid the road bed, receiving only small amounts of outside help to blast some rock faces. Below is Calum's Road, winding away into the distance.
It is an incredible accomplishment, and it is somewhat a surprise that he completed his road in 1974, which is very recent history.
And a few years after he finished the road the Council adopted it and agreed to maintain it. By then he and his wife were the only inhabitants of Arnish. We walked the entire length of Calum's Road, and were gobsmacked by the amount of effort that went into the project.
And we found this a bit baffling...!
We spent the night on Calum's Road. Wolfgang and Ulrike had their camper (and a wee break for a tune before dinner!)
And we had our tent...
And the wind was strong enough that we had to deal with no midges!
We had a wee session in the camper that evening, and Ulrike treated us to a tune on her new Smallpipes.
There is a tune called Calum's Road, and we played it in honor of Calum. What a character! And what a beautiful place. We tucked in for a peaceful night, sleeping along side Calum's Road.
We caught the ferry back to Skye, and Wolfgang and Ulrike dropped us off in Broadford. We said goodbye for now, knowing that we'll see them again in October when we go to Germany. We then cycled from Broadford to Armadale.
In the late afternoon we caught the ferry back to Mallaig. Then began the topsy-turvy train-or-bus ride back to Glasgow. (There was another train strike on, so it was back on the bus... Sigh.)
We made Glasgow late on Sunday evening, and headed back to our favorite place in Glasgow: Albert Drive!
We crashed on Jennifer's couch (thanks, Jennifer!) and then headed to Edinburgh early on Monday morning for a super-special treat! Stay tuned!!!!
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