{"id":1155480,"date":"2026-08-18T11:17:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T11:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1155480\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T11:17:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T11:17:53","slug":"a-bostonian-heads-to-scotland-to-walk-from-edinburgh-to-glasgow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1155480\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bostonian heads to Scotland to walk from Edinburgh to Glasgow"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the time I headed over there on the last evening of the festival, I had witnessed the results of this international cross-pollination in other corners of Boston; the traffic cones on top of sculptures<\/a>, the spontaneous marches<\/a>. Every hour on social media seemed to present new glimpses of merriment, like a man descending the so-called cop slide by City Hall<\/a> while playing the bagpipes. \u201cYou know,\u201d a friend said, turning to me as we walked toward cheers echoing from The Haven. \u201cI don\u2019t think I can remember a time when Boston felt this fun.\u201d But when the Tartan Army went south to Miami<\/a> for the match with Brazil, I started to wonder: How do we keep the good vibes going when the Scots have left?<\/p>\n

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When the World Cup watch parties ended and the temporary open container zones<\/a> were scaled back, would Boston revert to its sleepier self again? I wanted to believe we had just been through a Mary Poppins experience that would leave a lasting impact, but I could already feel the city simmering down. So, on a wicked muggy night that had most of Boston sequestered inside with AC, I started to think about following the Tartan Army to Scotland.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s two major port cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh, are connected by a pair of waterways with footpaths: the Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal. Following these paths from one city to the other makes for a mostly flat, 57-mile journey. Having already spent a bit of time in Edinburgh sampling whiskeys and climbing the craggy hill called Arthur\u2019s Seat, I fancied the idea of spending a few days walking the canals to Glasgow, Boston\u2019s new sister city.<\/p>\n

Testing the waters on X, I posted that I was \u201cThinking of going to Scotland and walking from Edinburgh to Glasgow.\u201d Within 24 hours, I had an inbox full of messages from Scots, including a written rendition of \u201cWe\u2019ll Be Coming\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009a sports anthem for the Tartan Army\u2009\u2014\u2009with one notable amendment.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll be coming,<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll be coming, He\u2019ll be coming down the road, When you hear the noise of the Boston boy,<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll be coming down the road.<\/p>\n

I started packing the next morning.<\/p>\n

The Union Canal begins near the castles and museums of Edinburgh\u2019s Royal Mile, in a neighborhood called Fountainbridge. It was improbably sunny when I arrived there with a stuffed hiking backpack and some scones from a nearby Marks & Spencer. <\/p>\n

That old axiom you often hear in New England\u2009\u2014\u2009to wait five minutes if you don\u2019t like the weather \u2014\u2009might well have been imported from Scotland, where you can experience rain, fog, and thunderous winds, and still end the day with a sunburn. I wanted to make the most of the morning rays and get sauntering.<\/p>\n

I set off along the cobblestones for a little town called Broxburn, following a school of teenage kayakers through the immersive vegetation and wildflowers that grew on both sides of the canal, as the sounds of Edinburgh faded away. Scotland\u2019s relentless precipitation yields abundant greenery. Even in a major city such as Edinburgh, you\u2019re never that far from a thicket of ash trees or a patch of stinging nettle.<\/p>\n

As I ambled beyond Edinburgh\u2019s city limits, the towpath squiggled onward. Spur paths led into backyards, quiet streets, and, in one town called Ratho, a charming inn where I enjoyed a golden Innis & Gunn lager on a deck perched above the canal. Public walking ways in Scotland can feel like arteries, connecting people and places, ultimately keeping everything alive.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe start of the Union Canal at Lochrin Basin, very close to central Edinburgh.Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert\/for the Boston GLobe<\/p>\n

After emerging from the shadowy woods of Ratho and crossing high above a forest on the towering Almond Aqueduct, I found myself in more prolonged sunlight as the scenery transitioned to farmland. Some fields were dotted with sheep. Others contained burly hay bales. One of Scotland\u2019s foundational crops is cereal oat, and shortly after arriving in Broxburn\u2009\u2014\u2009where I climbed stone stairs from the canal to the town center\u2009\u2014\u2009I got to experience this at a bakery called Nikki\u2019s Bakehouse. The \u201cgypsy cream\u201d that I sprang for, essentially a golden whoopie pie, featured maple-infused oatcakes. According to the cashier, I was the third American who had popped in that week.<\/p>\n

The next morning, after a surprisingly restful night above a pub at the Oatridge Hotel, I hopped back onto the canal towpath and followed it past an enormous pink shale mound called Greendykes Bing. The sun made the shale colors pop and my skin crackle, and I was relieved to see some ominous-looking clouds approaching from the west. But before they arrived to snuff out the sun, the pathway took me into one of the thickest woodlands I had seen yet. It turned out to be a ferny gateway to Winchburgh, where a marina full of narrowboats and a tiny coffee stand called The Wee Bothy lured me away from the towpath.<\/p>\n

I was smitten with the hobbity hut, with its open doors, tiny kitchen, and shades of blue. As the owner, Irene Mahoney, made me a bacon toastie, she told me she had run a restaurant, but when the grind collided with the realities of aging, she decided to semi-retire by downsizing to a waterside hut. Already, her fans were queuing up, including a French bulldog angling for a biscuit. While the bacon toastie was a savory winner, brightened up with tiny pickles, it almost felt more like having dessert\u2009\u2014\u2009a final course, after a nourishing meal.<\/p>\n

As I followed the canal to the village of Linlithgow through another open stretch of countryside, a voice from the water called, \u201cWhere you going?\u201d I turned and saw two young women kneeling on a paddleboard in the canal. The one who had called out was Ruby Thompson. She was from Ireland visiting her friend and fellow paddler, Isla, and she had seen my backpack and rain gear, taking me for a local. (Flattering!) A towpath-to-waterway conversation began. <\/p>\n

\"AScenes from the author\u2019s walk from Edinburgh to Glasgow, including a “gypsy cream” at Nikki’s Bakehouse (top row left), Mark Palmer (center) at The Kelpies visitor center cafe, a friendly flag (bottom row center) on the Forth and Clyde Canal near Banknock, and a victory dinner of steak-and-sausage pie (bottom right) at Drygate Brewing in Glasgow.Photographs by Miles Howard; Globe staff illustration<\/p>\n

It reminded me of how the Tartan Army had swept so many Bostonians into their ranks during the World Cup, through a warm greeting on the street or gallows banter in the long line for a bar. Somehow, they had gotten into the same gregarious headspace as Thompson. <\/p>\n

But that wasn\u2019t necessarily a reflection of how Scots carry themselves at home. In the city of Falkirk, my destination for Day Two, I hopped on a bus for an \u201coff-trail\u201d detour to a pair of gargantuan horse sculptures known as The Kelpies\u2009\u2014\u2009a tribute to the horses that powered Scotland\u2019s farms and dragged those barges along the canals\u2009\u2014\u2009and that\u2019s where I linked up with Mark Palmer, a sports journalist for The Times of London I had met in Boston when he was covering the World Cup. I was curious to hear his thoughts on the social climate in Scotland when there are no games looming. <\/p>\n

\u201cScotland is not necessarily a joyous nation,\u201d Palmer said. \u201cThere\u2019s a tendency here to look on the negative without imagining what the positive could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds familiar,\u201d I said. \u201cWhen it\u2019s just us, people in New England can be stodgier and more withdrawn. What do you think made the opposite possible in Boston? All that shared joy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe writer took a detour off his walking route in Falkirk to see The Kelpies, a pair of gargantuan horse sculptures. Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert\/for the Boston GLobe<\/p>\n

\u201cInordinate amounts of alcohol, for one,\u201d Palmer said with a chuckle. \u201cBut, without wishing to butter up you guy, it does need a receptive host. .\u2009.\u2009. I kept waiting for that moment where people would think, Actually, we now need to push back against this disruption; trying to get to your subway stop and there\u2019s a queue of 10,000 kilts. But that moment never arrived.\u201d <\/p>\n

Later that night, at a pub in Falkirk called Cheerz Bar, the bartender commented on my Buc-ee\u2019s cap\u2009\u2014\u2009\u201cAre their bathroom really the cleanest in America?\u201d\u2009\u2014\u2009and soon I was giving him updates on how many statues in Boston still had traffic cones atop their heads. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe writer passes by The Falkirk Wheel. Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert\/for the Boston GLobe<\/p>\n

I spent the next day segueing from the end of the Union Canal to the start of the Forth and Clyde Canal, which continues to Glasgow. Boats are raised and lowered between the two waterways with an eye-popping Ferris wheel-like contraption called The Falkirk Wheel, and after watching this with a small crowd of tourists, I pressed on westward through rustling bushes and warm rain. <\/p>\n

The Forth and Clyde Canal was vaster and more exposed to the sun than its Edinburgh-bound counterpart, but still buffered by flowers, shrubs, and little groves of shade trees as I followed its bends past several sets of locks. What felt different here was the social atmosphere, with passing cyclists and walkers. Greetings had been rare on the Union Canal, where each of us seemed happily lost in our own little world, but as I approached the Glasgow metro area, nearly every fellow traveler offered a \u201cHello!\u201d or, if I stood aside to let a bike pass, a \u201cCheers!\u201d I had heard about the gregariousness of Glaswegians. Perhaps it was fitting for a city that\u2019s long been an immigration hub, where a constant flow of newcomers is part of daily life.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe author walks along the Forth and Clyde Canal heading to Glasgow. Boston’s mayor, Michelle Wu, initiated a sister city agreement with Glasgow during the World Cup. Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert\/for the Boston GLobe<\/p>\n

On the final morning of the walk, powered by a traditional Scottish breakfast that included poached eggs, rasher bacon, haggis, a potato scone, and other savory carbs, I set off from the suburb of Kilsyth to Glasgow\u2019s city center under sunny skies. The transition to the urban core was foreshadowed by electrical towers and distant high-rise apartment buildings peeking over the greenery.<\/p>\n

For my endpoint, I had chosen Glasgow\u2019s Duke of Wellington statue, where the tradition of adorning statues with traffic cones was born in the 1980s\u2009\u2014\u2009most likely at the hands of revelers staggering home from a pub. In the heart of the city, where gleaming towers collide with Victorian stone and spires, he appeared from behind a row of scaffolding like a creature from my dreams. The duke was sporting four cones, stacked atop his head, and someone had even put a cone on the horse, turning it into a unicorn. <\/p>\n

The duke may have been the finish line for my walk, but I wasn\u2019t ready to put my feet up just yet. The real finale was a conversation with a living, breathing Tartan Army veteran. <\/p>\n

\"InIn late July, the famous Duke of Wellington statue in Glasgow was adorned with the traditional cones on its head. The Boston traffic cone sat atop the horse’s head.
\nJeremy Sutton-Hibbert\/for the Boston GLobe<\/p>\n

His name was Simon Gibson, a surgeon who practices at a hospital on the west side of town, and I found him at a cafe steps away from a bridge across the River Clyde\u2009\u2014\u2009Glasgow\u2019s central waterway after which the Forth and Clyde Canal is named. Not only did Gibson join the Tartan Army for the second game in Boston, but he brought his wife and two kids along. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was so friendly, especially if they heard your accent, from the taxi driver at the airport to people we met on public transit,\u201d Gibson said as we sipped our Americanos. \u201cIt got to the point where we wouldn\u2019t go out without Scotland gear on, because it made you feel like a celebrity.\u201d <\/p>\n

It was impossible for us to avoid the reality that this mutual infatuation between Scotland and Boston had taken place during a period of historic geopolitical hostility and tension. Boston \u201creminded us of the good in America, and hopefully reminded parts of America of the good that comes with collaboration, rather than being insular,\u201d Gibson reflected. <\/p>\n

\"WhenWhen Simon Gibson was in Boston with his family to see Scotland play in the World Cup, he said, “It got to the point where we wouldn\u2019t go out without Scotland gear on, because it made you feel like a celebrity.”Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert\/for the Boston GLobe<\/p>\n

As we said goodbye, I caught a bus for my hotel, craving a hefty steak-and-sausage pie and grateful for yet another glimpse of a desire that millions of us share\u2009\u2014\u2009a human need to connect that transcends borders. The World Cup revelry in Boston was a reminder of these intertwined roots that make it possible for us to coalesce in a stadium, at a pub, or, in my case, on a trek along Scotland\u2019s canal towpaths. Who knows? Now that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has initiated a sister-city partnership with Glasgow, perhaps our cities will cook up another big event that allows the cross-pollination to continue, like a Red Sox game in Glasgow. Maybe, if it happened, thousands of Bostonians could march to the stadium. <\/p>\n

Until then, we\u2019ll have to find ways to carry the torch on our own; putting ourselves out there and opening ourselves to new friendships, at home or abroad. For the latter, I recommend walking. <\/p>\n

Miles Howard is a Boston-based author, journalist, and the founder of the Walking City Trails, a network of walking routes connecting over 75 green spaces across 23 city neighborhoods. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time I headed over there on the last evening of the festival, I had witnessed the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1155481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,1102,918,4884,314255,314256,712,16,286930,15],"class_list":["post-1155480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-glasgow","tag-britain","tag-edinburgh","tag-glasgow","tag-great-britain","tag-lochrin-basin","tag-miles-howard","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-union-canal","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117116242750524462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1155480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1155481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1155480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1155480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1155480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}