This morning we were heading to Balmoral Castle for a tour but before that we had breakfast at the hotel. We drove the 1.5 hours or so and really got our first good glimpses of the highlands. We only had a few code brown moments and almost all were me getting flustered at a roundabout and missing a car I needed to yield to. Driving on the wrong side is tougher on the brain than I ever expected. Intersections especially sometimes feel like doing a math problem while driving and carrying on another conversation all at once. We arrived safely at Balmoral and proceeded into the tour. Becky loved the kitchen gardens and I think my favorite was the razorback statue or just the castle itself.

The tour was interesting with a lot of anecdotes about Victoria and Albert and their construction and life there.

After Balmoral we headed back to Braemar the village nearby and ate lunch and did a little shopping before heading on to Huntley Castle. Huntley Castle was initially built in the 11 or 1200s but the current ruins were mostly built in the 14-1600s and were occupied by the Gordon family up until the civil war when it was destroyed. It’s a cool ruin in that a good chunk is leveled and you can just see the foundations but one wing is still mostly intact and you can explore everything from their family rooms to the kitchens to even the prisons which had a bit of a surprise. Someone had put 2 mannequins in there as a surprise for visitors.

After we finished up at Huntley we headed into Inverness to get checked into the hotel before exploring and finding dinner. In Europe hotel rooms can be kind of a gamble and double beds are common but this room had a new wrinkle in that the bed was up against one wall. We will see if I break Becky trying to get up in the middle of the night. We headed out to do a walk around the old town to see some sights and after striking out on a few restaurants we settled on an Indian place that really hit the spot. We finished our walk after dinner and headed back to the hotel to get ready for tomorrow.

Pics will be added tomorrow. I’ll add this one taken from the car on my phone as a teaser.