Pitlochery

October 20, 2012

Another grueling morning… The beds are so comfortable at the Osborne House that we sleep until after 8am.  Oh, how wonderful!  Heather and Neil are so nice.  We enjoyed their hospitality. 

Oh!  We really enjoyed our dinner at Rock Salt and Snails last night. We sat next to some very nice Brits and had a lovely conversation.

On the road by 10:30am (!!) we went directly to Balmoral Castle to meet with the Queen and Prince Phillip.  Imagine our horror when we arrived to find that they had left 2 weeks ago!  I feel awful for having mixed up our date for tea.  Imagine me standing there at the door to Balmoral, with my spectator hat, hearing that we were not welcome!  Well, we drowned our sorrows by stopping by the Royal Lochnager Distillery.  Though we didn’t go on the tour or taste any whiskey, we did see the nice video explaining how this became “the” Royal Distillery.  It seems that the guy who started the distillery, John Beggs, noticed he had new neighbors, wrote to the Queen’s personal secretary inviting Prince Albert to come on by and have a taste.  Lo and behold the next afternoon Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their 3 oldest children stopped by to see the distillery and have a taste.  Soon after that it became the “Royal Lochnager Distillery.” 

So, I removed my spectator hat and carefully placed it in the back seat of the car and off we went.  We drove along; saw a sign for Braemar Castle.  We stopped and took the tour.  It was getting colder and those stone castles get and stay cold.  However, it was very interesting.  This castle was built in 1622 by the Laird of the Mays.  They only got to live in it until 1688 when the neighbors burnt it down due to allegiance with the wrong head of state.  And of course along came the Jacobites and you know how that worked out. In any case, the neighbors, Farquharson’s (or something like that) took it over as a summer castle.  They lived about 5 miles away!  We were allowed to take pictures.  We were impressed how wide and smooth the staircase was in comparison to the other castles we’ve been in. 

On the road again through the Glen Shee area.  This is a ski resort area, though not in October.  Thank goodness!  The scenery changed again and is so beautiful. And we came across unfenced sheep.  

We cruised through Enocdhu, Kinnaird and Mouli and stopped in Kirkmichael to find something to eat.  We didn’t find any place to stop to eat, but we did find this broken down church. Sad. 

We got to the outskirts of Pitlochery and found Edradour Distillery.  This is the smallest and one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland.  We stopped, but the next tour was 30 minutes away and we’ve been on a lot of distillery tours.  So bc bought 2 of their little bottles, Edradour 10 year and Caledonia 12 year to taste.  He’s enjoying them now. 

We came to our B&B Craigatin House and parked the car.  We walked into Pitlochery and had a nice snack and walk about.  We will walk back to the main part of town to have some dinner.  This is a very nice B&B.  Very old building, but renovated nicely.  We’ll be here 2 nights. 

While out walking we came across this beautiful maiden.

Hope all is well, love you!  Bc and gc