Eastern Scotland: Granite and Castles

Monday, 7 July 2014

You've struck it lucky--a post with tons of photos!  Today we visit Aberdeen and Stonehaven, both on the east coast of Scotland.  Before that, two things I've forgotten from previous days:  today's weird sign--"Large plant crossing, next 2 miles"--what about the small plants?  And how hard is it for the them to pull up their roots and cross the road?  Do large weeds get to cross?  And the second:  the street I want to live on most, from Inverness:  Druid Temple Crescent--isn't that perfect?!! Name my house Pagan Gardens and live on Druid Temple Crescent.  :)

One of my Facebook friends mentioned Aberdeen as the Granite City.  Yes, it truly is.  A few minutes out of the car and I knew exactly where that nickname came from!  After sleeping in (aaaaaah!), we visited Aberdeen.  We parked the car on the edge of the city center, then just walked for a few hours.  All down Union Street (the main street), colored flags were flying.  they were all tiny flags of other countries.  I'm not sure why.  Many towns are having festivals and Highland Games and circuses, I'm sure Aberdeen is not exception.

Another thing Union Street has is a few intersections that have the entire intersection hashed out with yellow stripes.  When the walk signal goes off, cars both directions get red lights and pedestrians can cross either way or kitty corner at one time--it was kind of crazy to watch, but convenient to use!   One other thing that Joshua noticed first, then we all noticed; many of the churches are no longer churches and many churches are being taken down for other projects.  I'm not sure if this is because fewer people are going to church or if there is some other reason.  We saw some churches as bars, casinos and restaurants.  The children all said that it was a good thing Grandma Kathi couldn't see that!  But then I thought about it, and if they are going to tear down the church anyway, isn't it better to save the structure and re-purpose it into say a restaurant or performance space with perhaps an historical placard about the church (such as we saw in Belfast) than have the entire building razed?  We saw so, so many churches being torn down (and many others being repurposed) it was kind of crazy.

A church being torn down--the building was to the right
of the steeple.

Inside the tower of this university, you can see an old steeple--maybe
from a chuch?

 Here are some other photos of Aberdeen, which is a very picturesque town.  Not a cutesy tourist town, but nice and a real town that people live in.

We thought this was a cathedral, then realized that it was a university!

The courtyard

Stained and leaded glass

Sibling love!

They had decorated dolphins all over--some sort of contest?

St. Nicholas--many old and historic graves in the kirk yard

Joshua likes the cat!  He looks like such a young man here, but can
also be such a little boy sometimes!  Gotta love him!

A small park

A memorial to Mary Slessor (see the next photo)

Mary Slessor grew up in the neighborhood of this park and
became s missionary to Nigeria, working to improve the status
and lot of women.  Her memorial is hand carved of local granite (as
unyielding as her faith and her resolve to do what was right),
echoing the shape of the water pots made by the the women
in Nigeria.  (for more information read the placard above)

This is part of a quote of hers:  "the bush with its myriad voices calls you"

More of the park

More dolphins

Posed children

My real children!

William Wallace (Braveheart)

After recently watching Braveheart, the children read all four
sides of the Wallace monument and loved it!

Is that a castle in the distance, sire?

A building

Not sure what this is, but it intrigued me as we were driving by!

After Aberdeen, we wanted to see the Dunnottar Castle in Stonehaven, but we really didn't want to do the long cliff walk again (as pleasant as it was the first time, not something we wanted to do again!).   Randy saw a road that led up to it on a maps app, and after many wrong turns, we finally found it.  We parked in the car park and walked a short distance to the castle!  After paying  to get in, we walked around.  Not sure if it was worth the £25 we paid to get in, but it was nice to just wander and take photos.  They had very few "interpretive placards", so it was hard to get a sense of the place, but better ruins than other places we've been.  Here is a greatly winnowed down selection of photos:

Had to include these colorful grasses:  red, pink, and purple

this is the kitchen

This is the Tories storage room.  Evidently, some Presyterians (both
men and women) were caught demonstrating after Henry proclaimed
himself head of the Church of England.  They were marched here and
ones that survived the march were imprisoned here in pretty horrific
conditions.  Some escaped, some fell to their deaths as they attempted
escape, some were tortured, and the rest were shipped off to the West Indies.    

Preserved carving over the fireplace (the Earl and Countess' coats
of arms) and a clock in the corner

An old clock--you can see holes where a sundial of some
kind must have been inserted.  They must have built a window
perfectly positioned to catch the light.  What a great, early clock.
Notice that 4 is IIII instead of IV.  The girls noticed  that same thing in all of the clocks
in the clock exhibition at the London Museum.  

The inside of the chapel looking out.  Not sure what the bowls are
next to the door for. Holy water is usually higher up, not on the floor.  

A restored garden with all of the medicinal qualities of the plants labeled.

The stables to the left, the smithy directly ahead, and the keep behind that.

They had nice views of the ocean

The top of the pointy hill on the left is where we climb the steps
to leave the castle

Evidently William Wallace is involved in the story of this castle (it began with the Picts), though most of the buildings here are 16th-17th century.   The tenth earl was the last earl however, because the family sided with the Jacobites.  At one point, the jewels of Scotland (called the Honours), were kept here.  During an eight month seige, they were able to get them out through the
wife of the minister of the village of Kinneff Kirk who hid them in her bed before burying them in the nave of the village church.  They were found a long time later and taken to the castle in Edinburgh.  

After seeing the castle, we drove down into Stonehaven and walked around the cove, past downtown to what the owner of our B&B gushed over and called the best fish and chips in Scotland.  Actually, they won an award as the best fish and chips in all of the UK!!  They have awards all over their walls, in fact the owners even got to have tea with the queen! Every night the locals are lined up in a long line extending outside to get the take-away fish and chips from The Bay Fish and Chips.  We were lucky to snag a table right outside the shop to eat ours in the cold and the mist with a view of the North Sea just past the line of parked cars.

The owner also said that the ice cream shop next door (Aunty Betty's) was almost as good.  Well, even though we were stuffed with our fish and chips, we ambled next door and--yum!

This is my single scoop ice cream cone with toppings!  It's slightly blurry
because I was trying to take a photo quickly before it melted!  (Toppings
are no extra charge!)

Here we all are with our ice cream confections!