Today was a whirlwind of visits. Shockingly, I awoke and was refreshed. We started our day off at 10:30 by visiting the castle ruins. I figured the girls might find it boring, but quite the contrary. They ran around all of the marked areas as we were the only visitors. They loved it! I couldn’t believe it. It was very nice but I was expecting them to maybe be bored.
After Kildrummy, we drove north for 20 minutes to Hunley castle. This too was also a ruin but it was more crowded and not as much fun. It was also a bit smaller than Kildrummy.
Next on the list was a visit to Glenfiddich Distillery for some whisky (that is how they spell it in Scotland). Again, we hoped it would not be too boring for the girls and that proved to be true. We watched a couple videos talking about the history of the distillery. Then we had a tour and at the end of the tour, we watched another video of how the barrels that hold the whiskey are made – Glenfiddich makes their own. And after the video, Emily had a question. While we walked to the end, several of the adults in the group remarked that they too were wondering the same question that Emily asked. At the end of the tour, the guide asked everyone if they wanted to sample three whiskys. Emily & Ainsley said “No” which illicited several laughs from the other people in the tour. The girls got to sample some “juice” and sat along with everyone else.
Then off to some shopping. Since we had been unsuccessful in our search for some Scottish sweaters, we drove north again to Elgin, home of the famous Johnston Wool Mill, We thought we would make it in time to see the tour of the mill but we forgot that it was Sunday and they were closed. Lucky for us, the shop was not closed. We bought kilts for the girls, a sweater dress for Ainsley, a coat of me and one for Scott as well. After we slapped down the credit card, we headed to Spynie Palace, also in Elgin. Spynie was another ruin. We did get to climb into one of the towers and see the underground dungeon area.
Our final visit was to Duffus Castle. It did not have early closing hours and the man at Spynie recommended it. As it was not included in our castle guide, we luckily navigated using an atlas lent to Scott by one of his coworkers. Duffus was built on a big mound of dirt that was man-made. Due to the softness of the ground, one of the towers had fallen, There were other kids at the castle rolling down the hill but we opted to stay clean and not to have the girls roll.
Finally we arrived at the B&B in Nairn – our home for the next two nights. It was spacious even for all of us being in the same room. The cottage was built in 2010 so it was very modern which was nice. Our hostess, Liz, recommended we walk along the beach to dinner at the GolfView hotel which we did. The girls ran around outside while we had an appetizer. We also got to people watch and saw an interesting group made up of young guys (late 20s/early 30s impeccably dressed all wearing very nice watches – Scott noticed the watches) The rest of their group was made up of older gentlemen, not as impeccably dressed. Scot surmised that they were here to play golf as a celebration for a deal as he figured the young guys may have been investment bankers. I heard a Texan accent a few times.
We walked along the road on the way back to the B&B which we went to B.
No comments:
Post a Comment