Bret caught up with Emily and her folks for a long weekend trip through Scotland. First stop: Perth. We stayed at a nice hotel overlooking the South Inch park. They were set up to host a horse show in the park but we didn’t stay long enough to partake. We did have a nice walk after dinner to the river Tay.

We didn’t spend much time there in the morning, because we wanted to maximize our day in Stonehaven and Dunnottar Castle. Emily’s great Grandmother and Grandfather (her Mom’s Dad’s parents) hailed from Stonehaven. She grew up hearing stories about visits to Stonehaven from her great Uncle.  We arrived at the harbor and were careful not to drive off into the ocean.

Then we drove up to the castle!

You may recognize this castle from the 1990 Mel Gibson film, Hamlet.

The site of Dunnottar Catle had religious significance to the Picts prior to the arrival of St. Ninian and Catholicism in the 5th Century.  It is thought that the original chapel was founded by St. Ninian at that time.  The standing ruins were built in the 15th and 16th centuries, although there are many references to a castle at Dunnottar prior to then.  The castle was built by William Keith and his descendent who held the castle as the seat of Earl Marischal until the Jacobite rebellion in 1715.  It had been falling apart since then, until restoration began in 1925.  It is probably most famous for its role in hiding the Scottish Crown Jewels from Oliver Cromwell.

 

It was pretty cool!

Next up,  we headed back into Stonehaven for fish and chips.  Emily ran across an article some time last year that announced that the winner of the best fish and chip shop in the UK in 2013 was in Stonehaven, so we had to seek it out.  The Bay fish and chip shop definitely lived up to the billing. We wandered along the beach and through town a little more before hitting the road to Aberdeen for dinner with the extended family.

These are Emily’s second cousins once removed (i.e. her Mom’s Grandfather’s Sister’s grandchildren) and their spouses.  It was so fun to have dinner with family that Emily has not seen since she was two years old or so and still feel like old friends.

Aberdeen was an interesting city…  very grey.  Almost every building is constructed with a grey granite that looks like concrete blocks.  We did not have too much time to explore, but we did get a couple nice walks in.  We also tried our luck at a nice looking pub and met a friendly local, but he turned out to be a Denver Broncos fan.  As always, it would have been nice to have some more time to explore, but we had new places to head on to and explore, so we were off the next morning for Dornach.  We’ll fill you in on that in our next post 🙂