Scotland day 7

Today, Thursday, July 30, we drove down to Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s summer home in Scotland. It’s a lovely drive, through evergreen woods, fields of grain and pastures with the mountains in the distance. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought the estate because they loved the area, and it’s easy to see why. Much of the estate is left wild, with only the area immediately around the house having mowed lawns and flower beds. Albert planned the gardens and had many trees planted. The Royals spent much of their time here. It has been preserved as it was in their day. The current Royal Family also spends part of the summer and fall at Balmoral. When the Family is not there, the ball room of the house and the grounds are open to the public. The entry fee includes an audio tour of the grounds and one room of the house.

In the stables, old carriages from Victoria’s time were on display. The ball room has stag heads mounted high on the walls and displays of photos of the other rooms of the house. It was a lovely sunny day and we wandered around the grounds, ate a picnic lunch in a grassy field, and finally hiked up a trail that led to a hill overlooking the palace. The view from the top, looking across the valley to the mountains beyond, was beautiful. Unfortunately, the day turned less pleasant, with clouds coming and going and smattering of rain off and on. We didn’t get very wet, but I was glad when we got back to the start of the trail and took the tractor ride back to the car park.

On the way home, we stopped in Ballater (a fair-sized village along the route) to pick up some food for dinner – a variety of sausages. We don’t have these types of sausage in the US, as far as I know, which is a real shame. We had venison, mixed game, pork and haggis, pepper beef and regular pork sausage. All were delicious and not really fat, except for the pork. For dessert, we ate local strawberries and red raspberries with cream.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Scotland. We leave Saturday morning for London. It’s been such a wonderful holiday. Being away from home and in such a rural location is very relaxing. Geoff and Kate lead very busy lives, especially during the school year. It’s great for them to get totally away. For me, it’s just lovely to be far from city traffic and all of my commitments, where the only sounds outside are the sheep baaing and birds cheeping. The only downside has been the lack of an Internet connection. We all feel very disconnected with the rest of the world. I have no idea what is going on in the world. Perhaps this is the way a vacation should be. We’ll catch up with everything on Saturday.