{"id":45,"date":"2016-01-25T12:44:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T17:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/?p=45"},"modified":"2016-01-26T12:06:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T17:06:43","slug":"loch-lomond-and-the-trossachs-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/2016\/01\/25\/loch-lomond-and-the-trossachs-national-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Adam Weinheimer ’18<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Weinheimer

UVM Honors College students at Trossachs National Park.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Today we (me, Ula, Onni, Ava, Patrick, Jeff, Tom, Dilpreet and Marco) took advantage of our open schedules and headed up north to visit Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. After doing some research, I found out it was pretty easy to get to Balloch (the town\/city right at the base of Loch Lomond) via Scotland’s train network. The ticket only cost 5 quid round trip, from Partick in Glasgow to Balloch approximately 20 miles north.<\/p>\n

We stepped off the train and popped into the visitor center for maps and info from a very cheery local. We began our stroll on the shore road that basically hugs the water and loops to Balloch Castle and the gardens and tours through the park. The grounds of the park were simply amazing. When we arrived<\/p>\n

\"Loch

Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.<\/p><\/div>\n

everything was green, but right as we began to walk the snow began to fall in huge flakes and everything was soon covered in a blanket of white. It felt so good to just stroll around as the snow fell in such a peaceful area. We traveled to a few of the viewpoints to look out over the water and take photos of everything around us. We really couldn’t get enough of the views! Now since it was snowing there wasn’t the greatest visibility to see many of the hills and mountains that you can normally see in the distance. However, that did not affect our trip and it only means we will have to go back! Here are a few pictures \"Weinheimerfrom our walk around the park\/castle\/gardens…<\/p>\n

Some photos don’t capture it well but the place was amazing as the snow fell. Kids began sledding down the big hill in front of the castle and we kept saying how we thought we were going to walk right into Narnia… seriously! We hope to go back because there is a 3 hour hiking trail that allows you to gain some elevation and get a good vantage point. Maybe when the visibility is greater so we can see far into the distance.<\/p>\n

\"WeinheimerOnce we finished up with the park we headed to a restaurant to warmup and grab lunch. We randomly picked a place called The Stables and it was a great choice. A very cozy, warm place that had everything we needed. I ordered (finally) fish & chips! Easily the best I have ever had… and to top it off I had a hot cocoa with a slice of carrot cake and homemade whipped cream. The floor was run just by two people, a man and a woman who were so kind to us. We ended up hanging out and talking for almost two hours before heading back into the snow. We made our way to the train station and in the 15 minutes we had to wait we decided to build a snowman! After all, Marco had never seen snow before so this was a big deal. The end result:<\/p>\n

\"Weinheimer<\/p>\n

So that’s all I have for our quick trip today. I am so happy how easy it was to get there, it was a nice first trip to take out of the city. Thanks for reading! More to come later on how I am getting acquainted… the food, the weather, school.<\/p>\n

While I’m at it, here are some random photos from the last few days:<\/p>\n

\"Sledding

Sledding in front of Balloch Castle.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Balloch

Balloch Castle.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Entryway

Entryway to the gardens<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Honors

Honors College students at Balloch Castle.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"My

My fish and chips from The Stables! (forgot to add to previous post)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Riverside

Riverside path to get home. Takes longer but nice on a sunny day.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Walking

Walking through the Botanic Gardens on my way home.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ashton

Ashton Lane after Ubiquitous Chip with Andrew Scott and his\u00a0wife Hanneke who are good friends of Ava’s family. They live in Glasgow and work as a sculptor and architect, respectively. I’ll have more
on this in the near future.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Hanging

Hanging out in the West Quad in-between classes.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"View

View from the South Campus. What we see here is the\u00a0Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Hanoi

Hanoi Bike Shop on Ruthven Lane with Ula. Great pho and authentic\u00a0Vietnamese street food. I had spicy pork pho and started with a\u00a0small dish of pheasant thigh over a bean sprout\/mint\/radish salad. Excellent.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Adam Weinheimer ’18 Today we (me, Ula, Onni, Ava, Patrick, Jeff, Tom, Dilpreet and Marco) took advantage of our open schedules and headed up north to visit Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. After doing some research, I found out it was pretty easy to get to Balloch (the town\/city right at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":640,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/640"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bechase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}