On to days 3 and 4 of the Scotland trip. These consisted of visiting more castles, including the one that inspired Disney's castle, with some pre historic sites thrown in too.
The first castle we saw was painted pink and is called Craigievar. It has lots of little towers that looks like Rapunzel could have lived there. Turns out this is the castle that may have been the inspiration for Disney’s castle, so maybe this isn’t such a far fetch idea, if Rapunzel was a real princess. Craigievar castle started off as a simpler tower house, with a courtyard, and other outside buildings surrounded by a defensive wall. Some of the original wall is still standing. An Aberdeen merchant called William Forbes purchased the original partly built property from the impoverished Mortimer family around 1610, finishing off the building around 1626 in the Scottish Baronial style of architecture. The castle was painted pink during repairs in the 1820’s, having originally been a cream colour. The castle itself was closed so we couldn’t go inside and had to satisfy ourselves with exploring the outside and its gardens. There is an herb garden to go with the castle but this seemed rather unkept at the moment, maybe due to the castle being closed. There was a wood walk, which we did a part of, and came across a pair of trees whose leaves had turned bright red. I don’t know what they are called but they were stunning! Later on that day, on the drive next to the next place, we saw in the distance a place called Corgarff Castle, a tower house similar to Craigievar Castle but not as ornate and a lot smaller. This is probably what Craigievar would originally have looked like.
The drive through the Cairngorms National Park took us past some of the ski runs and lifts, that are currently closed due to it being off season. There were quite a few runs although they did seem rather short compared to some of the ones, we have been to around Park City, Utah. We stopped briefly at a distillery called Glenmorangie on the way to Dunrobin Castle, to see if we could buy some of their whiskies but unfortunately, they were closed. We did end up buying a bottle later from a local supermarket and this turned out to be one of our favourite whiskies. We did end up buying 8 bottles of whisky altogether, so I will do a blog post just on this later.
Dunrobin castle itself, also looked like something out of a fairy tale with towers, landscaped gardens and a view out to sea. It also hosted talks on falconry. It is a large castle that is still family owned, although they no longer live there, instead only using the grand dinning room occasionally. Considering its size, only two floors were open to the public, with none of the towers accessible, which is a shame due to the magnificent views it will present.
Last place we visited that day provided a contrast of living accommodation, called Carn Liath Broch. This is a type of pre historic house found throughout Scotland consisting of a tall main structure with a number of stories and attached out buildings. The theory is that it belonged to one wealthy local family that may have controlled part of the area.
The next day, we went to the see a place called the Hill of Many Stones, which contained numerous stones in lines placed there during the Bronze age to potentially commemorate the dead or as a graveyard. It is not a large site and did not take long to look around, so we headed on to Wick Castle, nestled on an outcrop of land by the sea. There is not much left of the castle that once used to be controlled by Norway rather than Scotland. There are impressive arches carved out by the sea near the castle with some rocky outcrops looking like a face with a rather large nose. The town of Wick itself doesn’t have much going for it, with a lot of its buildings boarded up, other than Old Pulteney distillery. Their whisky is one the one I liked best when we did a tasting at home at the end of the holiday. More on that in another post.
The last castle we say that day was St Clair, located on a rocky outcrop. This castle is under the protection of the World Monument Fund as it has been subjected to erosion by the sea over the years. It is a pretty castle and I hope it stays there for many years yet. For those that are fans of Dan Brown’s the Da Vinci Code and conspiracy theories, this is one of the castles owned by the St Clair of the Rosslyn chapel fame.
John O’Groats, the northern most inhabited point in the UK was next. Its full of the usual giftshops and rather over rated. The only place worth visiting there is the John O’Groats Brewery to buy some beer. Dunnet Point, the actual norther most point of mainland UK is much better with a viewing platform allowing panoramic views of the sea and local area. Once we were done with Dunnet Point, we left to catch the ferry to take us to Orkney where booked into our B&B for the night. We left almost immediately hoping to catch the Northern Lights but no luck as it was a cloudy night.
Day 3 saw us stay in a little 1 bed flat called The Stroops, located on a hill overlooking a village, its bay and the sea. It was common to have deer come and visit to graze, but unfortunately, they did not come while we were there. I highly recommend this place to stay in. https://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/the-stroops.en-gb.html?aid=318615;label=English_United_Kingdom_EN_GB_29562089065-V39waLuA6GZJTAO%2A2fCNrAS113417542585%3Apl%3Ata%3Ap1%3Ap2%3Aac%3Aap%3Aneg%3Afi70400237180%3Atidsa-301964817723%3Alp1007147%3Ali%3Adec%3Adm;sid=8d6a6985e30874d97ad38a8caf28f8db;dest_id=-2598470;dest_type=city;dist=0;group_adults=2;group_children=0;hapos=1;hpos=1;no_rooms=1;room1=A%2CA;sb_price_type=total;sr_order=popularity;srepoch=1604329615;srpvid=82b86a47655d011b;type=total;ucfs=1&#hotelTmpl
Craigievar Castle https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/craigievar
Glenmorangie distillery https://www.glenmorangie.com/en-gb/our-whiskies
Dunrobin Castle http://www.dunrobincastle.co.uk/
Hill of Many Stones https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/hill-omany-stanes/
John O’Groats https://www.visitjohnogroats.com/
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