Thursday, May 12

Departed for Balmoral Castle this morning after a mediocre breakfast at the Hilton (but Farley had duck eggs which he said were quite good). Although we had a lovely room in a charming Hilton (it is the smallest in the world), the restaurant service was very sketchy so a bit of a downer there. We spent 3 hours at the castle, more that we had planned. And the funny thing is that you only see one room – the ballroom—in the castle itself. The rest of the tour is a video and exhibits and extensive garden walk around, but the audio tour is so well done, it doesn’t feel insufficient. Today was the rainiest morning we’ve had so probably not the optimal day to tour gardens but we had fun anyway. We were shocked to see the time when we finished at the castle so made the painful decision to forego lunch and drive as quickly as we could 2 hours south so we could make the last tour at The Famous Grouse distillery.

A fair amount of our drive was along the river Dee and the scenery was so incredibly lovely – the babbling river and intensely green fields and stone cottages and at times you could see snow fields up in the mountains. And when we hit the Cairngorms, the landscape completely changed and there were no trees anywhere but plenty of patchwork hillsides (I think some of the dark color was heather and I am so very sorry that we missed the blooming season because I can only imagine how beautiful it would be to see all the purple masses). I believe this would constitute the “moors” and I can see why many people are so taken with this area. I would love to explore it more fully.


Farley masterfully handled the driving chore, up and down and round about, pedal to the medal to make the distillery tour. I was a bit green by the end but we made our destination in time for the last tour of the day and enjoyed The Famous Grouse presentation and tasting. Ask Farley about flying with the Grouse!

We checked into our last Guest House which is by far the best in the quaint town of Crieff. We hope to do a bit of shopping tomorrow morning before heading off to Falkland Palace, a favorite country home of the Stuarts for the primary purpose of hunting in the surrounding countryside.

Dinner tonight was perhaps the best yet; although not actually Scottish fare, a bit more French actually, but soooo scrumptious. Farley had steak and I had pork and we both enjoyed a sort-of scalloped potato dish and very interesting side salad.

The weather has turned much cooler, definitely how I thought the Scottish weather would be. With only one more sightseeing day, our thoughts are turning towards home and we look forward to seeing all of you and settling back into the rhythm of everyday life.