out of edinburgh and into the countryside

The following morning, we checked out of our nasty hotel and took a cab to a nearby train station so that we could pick up our rental car and leave Edinburgh. Right away, I was more enthusiastic about driving in Scotland than I had been after our terrifying Ireland experience. Our car was much newer and much larger. I was able to plug in an mp3 player for tunes, and most importantly, the car was automatic instead of manual.

Our first stop was Melrose Abbey, which was a couple hours outside of the city. The drive to the abbey was pleasant, with the weather clearing up quite a bit while we were en route and then at the abbey. Due to its size, shape and decent condition (despite being in ruins), Melrose Abbey is one of my favorites of all the churches, cathedrals and abbeys I've visited in the UK and Ireland. The pleasant surroundings and decent weather probably helped.













We climbed as far up as we could go. Here are some views:


















Our next stop was Floors Castle, which is the home of the Duke of Roxburghe. The structure itself doesn't look like a castle so much as like a country estate in France, but it was quite large (I was told 63,000 sq. ft.) and very interesting in that the family still lives in the castle. Pictures were not allowed inside, but this was evident from the recent family photos that could be found in many of the rooms that we were allowed to see. Given the mix of old and new, I'd have to say this was one of the more interesting castles that I've visited.



Courtyard at the back of the castle:


We had lunch in the castle cafeteria, and although I don't remember now what we ate, it seems like it was pretty good (we ate in a few of these castle cafeterias while we were in Scotland, and all were better than I had expected). Our next stop after this was Glamis (pronounced "gloms") Castle, which is the home of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. It's also notable because it's where the Queen Mother, who passed away not too long ago, grew up (I had never known that she was Scottish, so that was kind of interesting). Once again, photos were not allowed inside, but there were lots of interesting things to see inside--another decent mix of old and new. It's well worth a visit if you're in Scotland.





It rained a bit while we were inside, but it started to clear up as we got outside, which was great because there are nice gardens on the grounds. We wandered around for a while, and it was very enjoyable outside.



The family's pet cemetery:








Highland cattle--the coolest cows ever:


When we were done at Glamis, I had Becca look in our guidebook for anything interesting in the area, and as she was skimming, she mentioned something about the Picts, and this immediately caught my attention. I've always had an interest in ancient civilizations, particularly those that are extinct. Unless you're up on your history, you've probably never heard of the Picts. They were the original inhabitants of much of Scotland, and the Romans found them too dangerous to deal with, hence their never conquering Scotland and building walls in northern England to keep the barbarian Picts out. Anyway, Becca mentioned that there were Pictish symbol stones in the area, so we found the nearby village of Aberlemno in the GPS (couldn't actually find the stones), and off we went. After getting lost for a few minutes, we finally found them, and I was not disappointed, except for the heavy rain (we got pretty wet), but that resulted in some interesting skies and scenery.

Double rainbow!


Stone in the church courtyard, with Celtic cross:


Courtyard stone reverse:


The nearby fields after the rain stopped:


Nobody knows what the purpose of the stones was, but they can be found all over parts of Scotland, and clearly they were of interest to people hundreds of years ago, because they were sometimes moved to church courtyards or even inside churches, as was the case here and at another abbey we would later visit. In any case, special thanks to Becca for catching this interesting and little visited point of interest in the guidebook. I love stuff like this.











Our final stop of the day was Aberdeen, which we never saw more of than going to and from the hotel. That's probably OK, though. One of my British colleagues mocked me mercilessly (the jokes actually haven't stopped yet) when I told him that we were spending the night there. It didn't look that bad, but it also didn't look like there was anything to do there. At least the Hilton there had great sticky toffee pudding.

All in all, a really great day and we saw a lot of cool stuff.