After a pretty big day traveling to St. Andrews with mom and dad, we decided to take it a bit easier on Wednesday. Since we did not go inside of Edinburgh Castle or Glamis castle, we decided we would visit Crathes Castle which is just 20 min away from my home.
We left around 11am allowing us to relax some in the morning. Again, it looked like we would have nice weather which was great because the castle grounds has a huge garden. Who wants to take a stroll through a garden in the rain? Not me.
Crathes Castle is part of the National Trust for Scotland of which I am a member allowing me to enter the castle and grounds for free. Yippee!! Unfortunately, visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside the castle. Complete bummer, but I got PLENTY of pictures of the grounds and the beautiful flowers that were still in bloom.
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| tons of butterflies on these flowers! |
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| Dad trying to figure out what the butterfly flowers are. |
Thursday was my parents last day in Scotland, so what better to do than visit a Whisky Distillery?! For those of you who do not know, Scotch is Whisky without the 'e' meaning single malt. If it not single malt, then it is Whiskey with the 'e'. And in Scotland, you dont call it Scotch, you call it Whisky. Anyway, Scotland offers TONS of different distilleries to visit and tour. One of the most famous is Glenfiddich - pronounced GlenfiddiCK, not GlenfiddiCH, by the way. Even though I toured the distillery while Julie visited, I wanted my dad to tour one that he knew and that he could go home and brag about touring on his trip. No one back home is going to be impressed with, "I got to tour the Macallan distillery." Whoop-di-doo, says dad's co-workers. Visit this website to learn how to say various Whiskies.
We left around 9:30am since the distillery is about an hour and a half away. We stopped at Dean's Shortbread factory along the way to get some cookies (or biscuits as the British say) and view the makings of the shortbread. After a few days of great weather, it was no surprise that we experienced some rain during our trip. But when we arrived in Dufftown, the sun was peaking through the clouds, and we had great weather during our distillery tour!
After my dad and mom choked down the wee drams at Glenfiddich, we ate our lunch and headed back toward Aberdeen. We took a stop at Touched by Scotland so mom could look for a few souvenirs. Unfortunately, nothing in the store interested her (nor me), so we were back on our way. The store was a few miles out of the way, but not a big deal because mom and dad got to see what a "country road" looked like... wide enough for one car, but actually two ways. Hah! I dropped my folks off in the city centre of Aberdeen to look for souvenirs, but again no luck :-(
That evening, we took a drive to Lairhillock Inn to enjoy dinner for my parents last night. My mom finally got to taste the delicious dessert of Sticky Toffee Pudding in which I ended up eating it all myself and was way too full afterward. On Friday morning, my parents packed up their things, I took them to the airport, and we said our goodbyes. It was wonderful having them visit me. It was fun getting to show them around my new hometown and its surrounding areas. I am sure I wore them out... I heard dad slept on the plane ride home! I hope they enjoyed it just as much as me, and I hope they come back to visit me again next year!
RANDOM FACT:
Crathes Castle was inherited by the Burnett family years ago. Do you know any Burnett's? If so, they would be famous at the castle and can hang up their picture!
-Debbie-
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