Overcompensating

In order to make up for yesterday’s disappointment, we set off on our way to Edinburgh via five castles. Not that we’d set out to visit five castles, we set out to visit a couple that were on our route but when we arrived at the first,  five minutes before it was due to open & the only car in the parking lot (save the staff-person’s), the helpful woman in the gift shop / ticket office suggested we get a Historic Scotland pass which allowed us to see as many Historic Scotland sites as we could fit in three days of looking spread across five calendar days.

So after having a look at  our first castle, Balvenie Castle, we consulted the map, found our next castle and headed off.

Now castles in Scotland (and England, for that  matter) are grouped into one of two types; castles that are still in use (by some Earl, or Duke, or Lord of some sort) and may resemble what the romantic view of what a castle is, or may simply be a very large “manor house” fully decked out with historic furniture, tapestries and the like – in these fine edifices, you can look, but can’t touch or take pictures; the other type of castle is what my Uncle would describe as “piles of rocks”.

Our castle criteria was simply this – how many piles of rock are on our immediate path and how many can we see before we need to be in Edinburgh.

The answer was, four more; Huntly, Kildrummy, Glenbuchat & Braemar – though technically Braemar wasn’t a ruin, and we only could see it from the road since it was closed today (we only stopped because we drove right past it – I should get a bumper sticker that says “I break for Castles”. 

Also, to be technical, the Glenbuchat castle isn’t on our Historic Scotland map and was free to go and see (the very chatty attendant at Kildrummy  Castle suggested it and gave us directions on how to get to it).

The thing I like the most about old castles is marveling at their construction and imagining what they looked like in their prime.  “What does this half-wall represent?” “I guess this hole here was for, umm, drainage.”  I looked down a lot of “drainage” holes today – and was certainly left with a greater appreciation of our modern conveniences (running water, plumbing, central heating, just to name a few). 

I think that’s one thing I really like about travelling it helps broaden your horizons and allows you to better appreciate what you have.