Woke up today and first on the list was travel to Balmoral Castle, see what we could there and then off to Edinburgh and prep for our flight to Dublin on Sunday.
A short drive to Balmoral Castle along one of many backroads. Balmoral was Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite place. Just seeing the area it was in and it was easy to see why. The Ballroom is the only inside area open to the public. No photos are allowed. It contains portraits of the royal family, but mostly Queen Elizabeth. None of Princess Di. They get to choose whose photo goes up in there.
Balmoral was built by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert around 1856. It has been kept about the way was when built except that the present ballroom was added later.
One last note. When booking the tickets, I noticed that they had parking inside the gates for the elderly. I believed we qualified and when I drove up they did indeed allow us to drive up to the castle.
Now for some photos.
The Royal Gates opening for our car. Made people wonder I’ll bet
The Chain walk up to Balmoral.
Balmoral from the front lawn.
Balmorals turret.
Mary Ann in front of Balmoral.
We saw the man in the kilt in our town Ballater earlier this morning. The two of them went inside where we were not allowed to go.
The rear of the turret where we parked our car.
A nice footpath in the garden.
The Ballroom Garden Maze.
Ballroom Garden closeup.
Panel
Explaining the garden
Walkway to Ballroom entrance.
On the terrace
A small royal gate.
The Royal Gates parting for us as we leave.
So we left Balmoral and drove the backroads on the Eastern side on Craigholm National Park. Just one more photo.
I do have to mention that driving on Scotland’s country roads is a lot like sailing. Long periods of calm and relaxing time, punctuated by moments of shear terror. Like when you meet a tour bus or a large semi. Of course it only happens when the road is at it’s narrowest.
But we get to Edinburgh too early to check in, so we go to find a laundry where we can wash clothes and show up in Ireland with all clean clothes. We drive to one and they can’t do it in the time we have left. She tells us if another one which is open later but about 4 miles away. We drive there, still not having eaten lunch. And the sign on the door says “be back in an hour” but does not say when the sign was put up.
But on the brighter side, we find an Indian restaurant run by a Seikh gentleman and have some of the best Indian food I have ever had.
Mary Ann’s Gobi Mongolian, which is cauliflower fried and tastes like very tender meat.
I had pork belly curry with a naan.
We were two very happy people.
We get to our place for the night and it is run by two lovely people who we talk to for almost an hour about our life and theirs. A great end of the day.
The view from our private terrace. Clothes on the lone makes us feel like we are part of the family. And they are a very nice family.
And they have a very nice tomato garden.
And we also manage to get all the stuff we have accumulated into 2 checked suitcases and a carry on bag for each of us. And yes the checked bags all have air tags so we can track where they are. What a great invention.
See you on the Emerald Isle tomorrow.
Comments
Post a Comment