GillianMcLaughlin's VirtualTourist Home Page

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My brand new member pic is a joint effort that makes me laugh and laugh... Sue Stone provided the portrait and Rob Davis for some very fine tarting up with photoshop.

Thank you both...

Some of my favourite quotes about wine:

It's a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding
but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
James Thurber

I guess it’s too late but I’ll know next time
To mix some water with the wine
Joan Armatrading

I don't want to drown in someone else's wine
Bob Dylan

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I was born and raised in the south of Scotland, but once I finished my studies in 1986 I moved away, like many Scots. I've since lived in London and Brussels and have recently moved to Berlin.

I live to travel. I made my first solo trips when I was 16: 3 weeks in the Netherlands followed by 3 weeks in Paris (I had an enormous collection of penpals around the world at the time). That trip was the first of many to France.

In 1990 I was lucky enough to land a job that gave me great possibilities of travelling all over Europe. For 5 Years I worked out of London and travelled on average once a month around Europe. When the work moved me to Brussels, I began solo trips to destinations elsewhere around the world: Brazil in 1996, Nepal in 1997 and China for the Millennium (I was loking for a destination where they were not celebrating the year 2000!). In 2003 my last "big trip" was to South Africa and Namibia, but I also managed 10 days in New Orleans - one of my favourite destinations.

I also manage to do a lot of travel thanks to another of my hobbies: I LOVE seeing Bob Dylan live. In 2003 I managed a couple of concerts in new Orleans, then later in the year, Helsinki, Stockholm, here in Berlin, Rome and Milan. In years gone by I've driven a car round most of Spain while he was touring, and also did a logistical nightmare of a trip to Prague, Cracow and Warsaw... a great reason to see places and meet people!

I'm now less able to take these big trips, but I still get around Europe: I came back from Stockholm yestarday and am now setting up trips to Dublin and Athens... and one back "home" to Brussels.

I really fell over this site because I was looking for wadvice about a number of things relating to settling down in Berlin... so I'll go off now and see if I can find somewhere approprate to do that. I look forward to hearing from you, and also to building a site ofmy favourite places and books.

My most recent big trip. I've loads of photos to sort through, so those pages are only just beginning. I've managed to get a few pictures together of the amazing Himba tribes that live near the Angolan border, as well as some info about the dunes and getting around this enormous, beautiful country.

China 2000 - escape the millennium, but not the cold. Harbin in the North East was something to behold... if you're not stuck in the ice that is! This picture was taken in Harbin... way, way up north where they have an annual ice sculpture festival.

And while visiting China, always worth a visit to the Opera. Can't imagine Pavarotti getting up to the hi-jinks of this crowd though!

I spent a good bit of time in the Yunnan province, in the south west of China, which leads into the Himalayas to the north and into the tropics of Laos, Thailand etc in the south. Am still working my way through those pages, but have some info ont he very beautiful town of Lijiang.

A bit shaky on the boat, but can't deny that Hong Kong pulled out all the stops for Y2K!

I've just begun to review my pictures of Nepal - I'd forgotten just how wonderful that trip was. It started ominously with a trip to the dentist in kathmanu and then... well you can read about it in my Nepal pages! This photo, and some of my favourite photos ever, was taken near the sacred temple of Pashupatinath, a place where the Hindu faithful cremate their dead.

In face this is reputed to be the largest stupa in Nepal and one of the largest in the world. I arrived at daybreak and sat for an hour watching the town come to life as the light got slowly stronger! I still have much to do in order to convey half of what that Nepali trip was like.

This is a photo of the house I grew up in, and where my parents still live. It's just outside Dumfries in the south west of Scotland, and I'm on a one-woman mission to make Dumfries a major tourist destination!

Scotland in general has lots to offer though, and has already attracted some of the finest VT pages around. So not too much I can add. You may be interested in my travelogue though about the old Gaelic-speaking people who lived in Fearnmore, in the North West. We spent all our childhood holidays there and so have collected many stories that convey a time and place that has now gone.

I've also just added a tip on Scotland, the Movie Location to my General Scotland tips, in response to a huge interest expressed by various VT members. So where was Brigadoon filmed?