So the weather today has been really good, nice and sunny and very warm, with some light showers forecast in the evening, which it did, hopefully tomorrow it'll be pretty dry.
I had planned on visiting a 3 or 4 castles today, but after sleeping in my thermals for another week, things where starting to get a little hummy, so I had decided to get some washing done today, before I do anything. To be honest that was a wise decision.
Just by the entrance to the Scone Camping and Caravanning Club site is a building called The Lodge, they have a small hotel, bar and a restaurant, so tonight I decided to have a cooked meal, none of this pasta sachets, or fast food stuff, and it was pretty good, I had the Hunters Chicken, served with chips and coleslaw. Being at the edge of Perth Racecourse, I have expected to pay a lot more than what I did, so I had Apple and Rhubarb crumble as well.
So where did I go to today, well as it was almost lunchtime, and 2 of the castles aren't open until the weekend I decided to visit Scone Palace, which is pretty fascinating due to its history. This is where the Scottish Kings were crowned. There was peacocks, noisy little buggers, and whilst typing this out I just heard a few of them, now I know what the noise was yesterday lol. The only draw back I would say, in my opinion, is that it's another over priced museum, where you can't take photo's inside, as the family are sometimes in residence, which I get, no now wants certain pictures on the internet, if that's the case don't display those, and I'm more interested in the architecture that their artwork, and, your only provided with a certain amount of the building to see, and being it is their home, in that case, they have the money, to open it up for free right? I would rather spend that £12 odd even after discount at a ruined castle, whereby you know the money is actually going into preserving that history, and not towards increasing the coffers for the rich and famous. Maybe I'm just cynical, but isn't this another way the rich are screwing over the rest of us???
After leaving there I headed to a more interesting building in my mind, that's Hunting Tower Castle
This castle has a nice history, and not really a strategic castle in the sense, Mary Queen of Scots stayed here on her honeymoon, King James VI was held captive here for 10 months before escaping and there was some paintings on the beams and flooring of the room above, which was amazingly preserved, there whole structure is pretty much in tact, apart from a few floors missing inside. You can even get onto the roof of both towers, which I can tell you know gave me the willies due to the height and not forgetting I'm in bike gear. The building started off as 2 separate towers and they was eventually joined together, although not hug in overall square footage, that stand 4 floors, had inside privy's that had a poop shoot to the ground, I would not want the job of cleaning those. It's kinda funny, as I have found some wash basins, with drainage to the outside carved in the walls, and the same in most of the castle kitchens I have seen. After chatting with the lady at the ticket office, I found out that she runs one of the castle's thats's closed today that I wanted to visit but that's life, and I was told of some places to visit in Edinburgh and near St Andrew. Oh and by the way it was £7.50 to get in, I paid half price due to being an English heritage member for only a year, so when asked if I would like to donate, I said yes, they only ask for like a £1 extra, I was happy to pay the £7.50, so with the donation it worked out under a £5. Money well spent, unlike earlier at Scone Palace, even with my 10% off as a Camping and Caravanning Club member.
So, it was still an eventful day, fully packed with history and seeing where certain things unfolded.
