Our Last Day: Aberdeen to Edinburgh

IWe got an early start out of Aberdeen in the morning in order to have a full day to soak in the scenery one last time along the North Sea coast of Scotland.

We drove onto a little town, just south of Inverness along the coastal road. It was so adorable, a little fishing town.

I guess it was low tide! No wonder why the sailors have winged keels or centerboard keels!

This boat below reminded me so much of the Krusell's boat that I spent some fun times on as a kid!

As we found all throughout Scotland, as we left one little town, or even went around the bend in a road, it was always up for grabs what we may see next. This last day, was absolutely the day of the cows!

I so enjoyed the grazing cows throughout the day, I was pleased to hope (?) that they were all milk cows and not for meat! 

As the road meandered toward Edinburgh, we headed to St. Andrew's to see the Cathedral ruins there. Plus, one of my teachers, Mary Gentile, told me that we should see St. Andrews!  St. Andrews is Scotland's oldest university town and is home to the famous St. Andrews Golf Course, where people come from all over the world for a round of golf. Golf is Scotland's national game. The earliest record of the game being played is 1457, when golf was banned by King James II, as he felt it was interfering with his subjects' archery practice! Mary, Queen of Scots was berated for playing golf shortly after her husband was murdered.

St. Andrews also has the Cliff and Oceanside ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral. The cathedral began being built in the 1100s and at one time was the largest building in Scotland. 

We noticed that many of the gravestones had the name of the person in large font, and then the occupation in smaller font. So many gravestones were for children. One that made me particularly sad was for a man who died at 47, all four children who died from 4 to 15, and eventually, his wife and the mom of the children, who died at age 75. I cannot imagine that kind of grief. It made me wonder, was it an invasion or was it a disease? Whatever it was, only the mommy survived. 😢

Very small openings in the walls.

Umm... Yikes!??

We moved on slowly back to Edinburgh. "Matilda", our Scottish gps woman, continued to have a mind of her own with where she would bring us, ugh! She was done with us by the end of the trip and the feeling was mutual!

We arrived back to our Apex Waterloo Hotel, same as where we started. Much to our surprise, we had a suite! Lovely!

We finished this most lovely trip by walking back up the "Royal Mile", a cobblestone street, lined with restaurants and Scottish shops. 

We went to my dearest stepmother's most favorite restaurant in Scotland. It sits atop the Royal Mile, just a few feet below the Edinburgh Castle. A small, but most elegant setting. Why called "The Witchery"? Back in early times, 16 or 1700s, hundreds and hundreds of "witches" we're born at the stake in this area. Yikes! After getting over that horrible thought, we dined for Phyllis and what a wonderful capstone to a fabulous trip with Sweet William!

We enjoyed this time together in Bill Scott's family homeland so very much. We are happy to go home to see our family and friends, but as we leave with wonderful memories and thought provoking experiences to last a lifetime, I must wonder... Where next?

#bucketlist  #fillthepassport

Inverness to Aberdeen

We left Inverness to go to Aberdeen, the town where Bill's great grandfather, John Gibson Scott, married his great grandmother, Mary Mae Mutch. They came to America together and stayed, therefore: Sweet William!

On the way to Aberdeen, the landscape changed from mountainous to rolling hills and fields.

We went to a Scotch whiskey distillery, Glenfiddich. Glen means valley, fiddich means deer in Scottish Gaelic, so... Valley of the Deer. This is why the Glenfiddich logo is a stag.

We learned more about whiskey than I've ever known!  "Scotch" is just whiskey distilled in Scotland. Single malt just means that it was from beginning to end, all made at one distillery. Whiskey only has three ingredients: water, malted barley and yeast.  This company has been owned and run by one family, William Grant & Sons since 1886.  It is the 5th generation that is running it now. Our tour was 90 minutes long and so informative. The grounds are beautiful.  We went building to building to learn about each step in the process.

We then moved on to taste test four different whiskeys, by age of the whiskey.  12, 14, 15, 18 years old.

Note: Just a tiny bit of each for me, just enough to get a tiny taste, And i still don't like it! But I certainly gained a respect for how it is made today. I loved that she only would pour for the passenger, not the driver. But she did give me permission to have a tiny taste of each of Bill's.

We moved on down the country roads and found a perfect picnic spot for lunch.

And we pulled into the lower corner of that field for our picnic in Curb Buster! (No curbs hit today!) But CB remains the name!

We arrived in Aberdeen with a surprise that they gave us an entire four room apartment in the "Skene House". We have a bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen, all for the price of a reasonable hotel room!

They suggested we try a pub up the street called McGinty's. Not what we expected, but we had a great time. The mushroom soup was the best I've ever had. There was a soccer game on several tv's arounf the pub. We love watching soccer now! We've watched a few games while here. Panchro and Ignacio will be proud!  This was England's premiere league, West Bromfield playing Arsenal.

We took a stroll around the city after supper.

Where is Dick VanDyke, the chimney sweep from "Mary Poppins?"

But, of course, here is my favorite photo of the whole day!  See her baby lamb behind her?!

And...the most significant part of the day? We are here, in Great Britain, to celebrate Queen Elizabeth 2's 90th birthday! Happy Birthday, Your Royal Majesty! Front page of the paper here:

So Long, Isle of Skye, Hello Inverness and Loch Ness!

We really didn't want to leave Skye, I just loved it. I'd love to come back again sometime and have the entire trip be in the Inner and Outer Hebrides Islands. It has been a beautiful day! Jackets set aside, lovely full blue sky here in Inverness. Took us about four hours to get here, with stops.

The roads were nice, always a beautiful view, and never knowing what will be waiting for us around the next bend.  My favorite times are when we just meander down some side roads...

We came upon the Eilean Donan Castle. It sits overlooking Loch Duich in Glen Sheil. Say that 3 times fast!! It was destroyed by the English warships in 1719 and was restored in the 1800s.  

 

Many stops for terrific scenery along the way...

Still many snow capped mountains...

Before we left Skye, we stopped at a little grocery store and bought some drinks, an orange, cheese, and crackers for a picnic lunch. We tailgated along a one lane road in the middle of a farm, in our Volvo wagon. (still aka. Curb Buster.. Yup, everyday!) we didn't know we'd have so many guests for lunch!

I LOVE Scotland!

In the Highlands, all roads lead to Inverness, the Highlands' Capital. As we entered Inverness, the first thing we saw was the Inverness Castle. The castle is a Victorian building of red sandstone. It's now a court house.

After checking in to our B&B, The Corran House, we took a nap and then headed on foot for supper up the street in the "city". The sky was a gorgeous blue and everything looked so gorgeous!

We had pizza and lasagna for supper in a little Italian Restaurant named "Zizzi's", it was a nice change from Scottish food!

It was another super day in Bill's "homeland"!