Day 9 - Balmoral Castle & Inverness

Up and ready early we were. Tom was quite happy to wave goodbye to Aberdeen's parking and traffic and off we went. This time we knew our way to the castle and this time Tom listened to us when we spotted the signs and the car park. We were there a little after it opened and we got our tickets and hopped in the tram for the drive into the estate. 

Balmoral is the queen's summer retreat. She resides here for eleven weeks from August through October. During the rest of the year the castle is open to the public. There are several little cabins that people can rent and stay in during that time too which I found odd. The mystery reader in me saw all sorts of ways where this wasn't a good idea. Especially riding through the forest that surrounds the castle. Yet obviously it all works out. 

The tram dropped us off at the guards station. There we could purchase an audio headset for more pounds, but since there was a free app for download on our phones we all opted to do that. That meant we had to walk to the gift shop and cafe for the free wifi in order to download the app. Of course, once we hit the shop we lost Grandma. She was off and shopping until we convinced her we would return and she wouldn't want to carry her stuff now. The app, however, took forever to download and once mine did it said I had no room on my phone to finish it. So I had to imagine or look for signs to read about the history of the castle. Madison let me borrow her phone at times, but I found it difficult to hear or use with a group. 

The sheer size of the castle was impressive. Just imagining people living in it was impressive. The castle was given to Queen Victoria in 1852 after it was purchased by Prince Albert. He thought it too small for the royal family and set about designing and building a bigger one. It sits on 50,000 acres.

The estate is within the Cairngorms National Park and is owned by the royal family and not by the crown. I had to use the panorama view on my camera to get the whole castle. I kept trying to imagine the queen and her family on holiday here. What did they do? I pictured Kate and William with their two kids there, but it was really hard to get an idea of it all. None of the castles I have ever viewed on this trip or on my other Europe trip had residents. What must that he like? It was all fascinating.

The sunken garden had a few flowers, but most of it was just beginning to bud. The garden was right outside what was once Queen Victoria's bedroom suite. We were allowed to wander through it, and I tried to see the queen and family doing the same thing. Had she stepped right where I was walking?

From the sunken gardens we walked to the Castle ballroom. It is the largest room in the castle which was a bit disappointing to me as it didn't seem very large. I imagined a Cinderella ballroom, but it was more like a dining room. There was no photographing in the ballroom. It is still used today for two big dances that the queen has when she is here for holiday. There were a lot of animal heads all over the walls near the ceilings because it was a hunting lodge.

There were several exhibits in the ballroom. I learned later that these were newly added for 2015 and so I suppose the room without all that stuff would look larger when hosting a ball. The exhibits consisted of original pictures of the royal family through the years enjoying the castle and its grounds. We saw an original baby "cot" (bassinet) that was discovered recently in the castle (I mean who has time to wander this castle in a few years time?) and thought to have been used by any of Queen Victoria's nine children. It has been restored and was very tiny and old. Some of the toys that were played with by the various children and grandchildren were displayed, along with an electric car that the queen and her sister Margaret use to drive around the estate. We watched some slide shows of Prince Charles and his sister riding around in it too.

Apparently the royal family has always been and still is very outdoorsy people. They like to hunt, fish, ride, garden, and hike and encourage their guests to do so too. A few days after touring the castle Mary Anne picked up an English paper that had an article about the castle. It discussed how the castle was very much a working castle with a year round staff.

When the queen stays for her 11 weeks of holiday she brings a staff from London with her as well. Those that reside here year round have not always found the job a great one. They are secluded and well from town and pubs so recently the queen has equipped televisions in the staff's bedrooms and offered up weekly bingo nights.

There are several more gardens around the castle. One, the kitchen garden, was added decades ago by Prince Phillip. It has many fruits and vegetables that are used in the kitchen when the queen is in residency. The staff too is fed from the garden and from the article I learned that the there are strawberries, red currants, blueberries, plums, blackberries, rhubarb, gooseberries, and tayberries to name a few.

I thought the flowers, like all of the United Kingdom, were absolutely beautiful and so much more colorful than what we have here. It could just be my imagination, but I found so much joy from all of the foliage and just wanted to put a huge batch in a vase in my hotel room.

Once the royal family leaves the castle is "put to bed". The beds are stripped, the lampshades are wrapped in tissue paper, and the photographs are turned toward the walls. The carpets are covered, the personal items are put away, and the linen is cleaned and stored very carefully. They still have Queen Victoria's linen monogrammed with her initials and it is still used today. The sun and the air can destroy so much of these things and must be preserved from visit to visit. The castle does not have much dust due to the fresh Highlands air nor spiders.

We didn't do much exploring of the grounds as it was so large and the day was a bit chilly. We ended our visit with some tea and sandwiches from the cafe. Proceeds from the cafe are used to furnish the castle and pay the staff. We shopped some in the gift shop and then took the tram back and headed off to our next destination.

Inverness was a little over 70 miles from the castle so we figured a little over an hour and a half of travel. We should have known that Maude would mess with us. She took us on her little detours that she enjoyed sending us on. The ones that took us through the hilliest and the steepest, but were also the most beautiful.

I kept the Scotland travel guide in my hands as we drove and read aloud as we passed through areas. At one point I spotted a castle as we drove and I dove into the book to find out it was the Corgarff Castle built in the 16th century. We did not stop much to the girls delight. They thought the castle touring was getting old yet they weren't offering up any other suggestions. Mostly as we drove they slept.

As we drove I took photographs and soaked in everything I could. I loved the sheep and the cows and the occasional horses that grazed the lands. As we wound our way up and through the mountains I saw a sign that said sheep wandered free for the next two miles. I pointed this out to our crazy fast driver and then I kept my eyes peeled.

I didn't have to wait long. As we came up over a hill and started down it a sheep was crossing the road. I yelled and Tom slammed on his brakes and the sheep nonchalantly crossed in front of us to the other side. Immediately I was unbuckled and out of the door snapping away in the cold wind. Madison awoke and followed the sheep to the other side. As she crept closer to them they would move just a bit away and continue eating. I suppose they were use to people stopping to take their photos.

As we traveled along we saw snow on the mountains in the distance. This drive took us through several different mountain ranges and while it doesn't usually snow in the towns there is snow on the mountains.

We arrived in Inverness a little after eight o'clock in the evening. Our hotel was in the middle of a row of old buildings along the Loch Ness. We had parking behind the building and we got check in and settled as quickly as we could. It was a spa with an indoor pool much to Darcy's annoyance as I had laughed when she said she was bringing her suit. She listened to me and did not. The hotel directory, however, said it would be happy to supply a bathing costume if she so wanted to swim.

We had three rooms all next to one another with front views of the loch and the Inverness Castle (which we did not visit much to my dismay). We unpacked and headed down the stairs to the dining room. We heard bagpipes playing as we neared the dining area and in the front entrance Scottish girls were preforming for the guests.

We watched them through several dances and then headed into dinner where we ordered mountainous haggis for a starter. Haggis is the heart, lung, and liver of a sheep mixed with onion, herbs, oatmeal, and suet. It usually is encased in the sheep's stomach, but there wasn't any casing on ours. We all bravely tried it and agreed it was quite delicious. Tom devoured most of it as the thought of what we were eating had the rest of us sampling it.

After dinner, which we found wasn't as good as the haggis, we all went to retire for the night. Outside the dining area and front entrance was a sitting area as well as a Starbucks and a bar. Tom went off to get some coffee and Mary Anne and I were drawn to the sitting area where a tour group from Canada where having a sing along. They were singing Que Sera Sera which happened to be a favorite of my dad and so I immediately started singing with them. One guy was playing the guitar and one woman was pulling up the words to songs on an Ipad. They loved that I knew the song and had joined in and they loved it more when Mary Anne appeared and jumped in.

Tom got his coffee and tip toed past us as if he didn't know us. Mary Anne and I stayed for about 45 minutes singing and offering up song suggestions. The guitarist wasn't any expert, but he was hilarious. Mary Anne would yell a suggestion and tell him to start it off in the key of B or F or G and he would tell her to start and she would and he would play in C. Always. She tried to help him, but he smiled, nodded, agreed and would do his own thing. We got the biggest kick out of all of them. Finally we finished with Home on the Range and bid them all good night.

Day 8 - The Highlands & High Tea

We were going to take this day as a restful one, do some laundry and recoup, but John had suggested we drive to see the queen's summer retreat. He told us it was a very scenic and beautiful drive, but did caution that the roads were narrow and the trip an uphill one. Grandma decided we should take this drive and so we ignored the laundry piling up and jumped into our van.

John was not exaggerating. The drive through Aberdeenshire was beautiful and it was a rough one as we drove up, up, up into the mountains, twisting and turning around on the roads. We had some issues once again in the direction department with the GPS whom I named Maude. Maude enjoyed making sure we experienced the Scottish life. She took us in roundabout directions. She circled us around roads eventually meeting us up with the main road which would turn out to be a nice straight road, unlike the one she had just had us on. There was some grousing among the troops at one point. Tom was sure we were going the wrong way. Madison was sure we were not. She kept telling him to trust Maude, but he insisted we were heading way out of our way. So he turned around and drove at race car speed back the way we had just traveled so that we could avoid heading into a city we would head into later in our trip.

The drive that should have taken only an hour or so instead took four. If the scenery had not been so magnificent we might have overthrown the driver. As we got closer to our destination we realized our time was dwindling. The castle closed at 5:00 pm with the last tour going at 4:30 pm. This made Tom increase his speed which increased our hearts as he sped around corners high in the mountain.

Suddenly in the middle of our tree lined road we saw signs and a car park. We saw them and then we didn't see them as Tom sped past. I saw that they had said Balmoral Castle. He saw the sign that said Braemar Castle nine miles ahead. So nine miles ahead we went. More bickering ensued with Grandma and myself arguing that we thought we had bypassed the castle we wanted and Tom insisting we had not. Eventually we arrived.

At Braemar Castle. We drove up the hill toward it realizing we had the wrong castle. We all took photos and then Tom turned around and drove like a bat out of hell back nine miles to the castle we had originally come to see. We parked in the car park and hiked across the bridge above River Dees to the gate to the entrance of the castle. A tram was just returning with the last tour of the day and so we got information and thought maybe, just maybe, we would try again in the morning. We took photos of a red squirrel and the river and then we got back into the car to start the long drive back to Aberdeen.

Moods were a little dark. Tom decided what he needed was a pint we needed was dinner. It was now after five thirty and the towns we were driving through were small. He toured the first town and we found everything closed. We went on. We toured the next town and found nothing. We went on. We got to the third town and he saw a sign. By this point I had stopped caring looking out the window and was jotting down things for my blog. He drove up and he drove down and he drove all around until he found this little cottage in the middle of nowhere along the river.

It said it was a breakfast and lunch place, but that it had high tea. We had learned from Dorothy the night before the difference between afternoon tea and high tea. Afternoon tea is a daily occurrence that the Scots have about 4:00 pm as a little pick me up between lunch and dinner . Dinner is then served some time later in the evening. High tea is a meal, much like what we consider supper (in parts of our country), that is served after five and can include meats and alcohol and always includes a plate of tasty pastries. If having high tea then there is no meal after that.

Tom and Darcy went into the place and returned saying we could have high tea. There was much discussion on this and whether we should or shouldn't. At one point Tom was backing the car to leave when we all said no, no let's do it. It was getting late. We were all hungry. And no one wanted to sit in a car on those roads again at this time. We got out and went inside.

It was like stepping into a fairyland. Built along the falls in the town of Banchory, the restaurant, The Falls of Feugh Tearoom, was exquisite. It was exactly the kind of place little girls thought of when having tea parties with their stuffed animals. Simply beautiful. We were not exactly dressed as I would have imagined this place was use to and the waiter (or owner) kind of crinkled his nose as we walked in. He was standing straight with a napkin on his arm and he showed us reluctantly to a table. 

The high tea was a set menu with several meat choices of chicken, lamb and fish. They were out of the beef the waiter informed us before asking for our drink order. Grandma, instead of asking if there was wine, made it a statement as in "You don't have wine here" sort of to herself as if saying, what shall I order, and I was afraid the poor guy would pop a vein in his disgust. He assured us, "We certainly do have wine. We have a full bar" which was behind Grandma's head where she couldn't see. She got a tad stuffy with him while I silently cheered because I felt he was judging us and none too kindly. By the time we left, however, he LOVED us and we had him laughing. 

Tom and Grandma had lamb. The girls had chicken. I had rainbow trout. I have never had that before, but Grandma told me it was delicious, and I was embracing and thus ordered it. We had beer and wine and still water, two bottles of that, and a loaf of freshly baked bread. We were the only patrons in our area. Outside was a table of four and in the room next to us was a family of four with two small children. 

The food was something from a magazine. The presentation was lovely. The taste was we-simply-can-not-talk-this-is-so-good scrumptious. It was the best meal of the trip thus far. We all agreed. Grandma said it was the best lamb she has ever had (and she "makes the best lamb) and told this to our waiter who of course knew this. He then told us that he uses a butcher locally and that all of the vegetables and meat are locally grown and raised in Aberdeenshire. We praised the chef and then we chatted up the waiter and suddenly he relaxed and turned into a very nice gentleman. 

He was happy to serve us our tea. He knew that I was excited about it all, and he presented the tier of cakes with great flourish. Our eyes were like a child's; very saucer-like. He pointed out each pastry and told us their names. He served us tea and coffee and left us to indulge. We made our way through the pastries voting on our favorites, but we could not finish the tier. And we tried. But the dinner itself had been so delicious and we had consumed every bite so our stomachs could only handle so much. We did well though and then we and walked around the property and talked more with our waiter who waved to us as we left. 

The whole experience improved our moods, and we joyfully climbed back into the van and talked about our experience all the way back to our hotel. We also decided that we would try the queen's castle again tomorrow on our way to Inverness, our next destination, and we made plans to wake early.

Just like that we were back in the groove.