Crathes Castle

Today Jason, Erin (friends from TX who are here for the long haul - 3 years!) and I went to Crathes Castle, a 16th century tower house about 45 minutes away from Aberdeen by bus. I was afraid that our plans were going to fall through, since the day dawned very rainy in Aberdeen. But we decided to chance it, and were rewarded with cloudy but dry weather while we walked the grounds (it did start raining again pretty hard as we walked back to the bus stop though). So here's a bit of information and a few pics of Crathes Castle.

Crathes castle stands on an estate granted to the Burnett family by King Robert the Bruce in 1323. The house was occupied by the same family until the 1950s, when it became a historical landmark. Photos are not allowed inside the house, but it was pretty neat inside. There was a heraldic ceiling (wood, with coats of arms throughout) in the room which the laird used as a court for petty crimes, original painted ceilings in four rooms, and period furniture and family portraits in every room. At the very top of the tower the guide did open a window and allow us to stick our camera out the window and photograph the grounds - see below.

The most impressive part of Crathes Castle is supposed to be the 4 acres of walled gardens, which still have the original hedges, planted in the early 1700s! Unfortunately, whoever told me that the walled gardens are in bloom all year long apparently lied! Everything was pretty dead except the shrubbery. Oh well. It was still pretty. Here's a couple of pictures of the gardens.

Pretty much the only thing we saw blooming other than the hedges were the snowdrops, a wildflower apparently the first sign of spring in Scotland (like the bluebonnets in Texas). The reason for the name "snowdrop" is quite obvious - in large patches it looks like the grounds is covered in snow. There were small bunches here and there throughout the garden, and a couple of larger patches on the grounds.

So, that was my adventure for this weekend. The castle was pretty cool - the first real castle I've seen in Scotland (last week's was in ruins), and it was fun to get out of the city and hang out with my fellow transplanted Texans. Hopefully more of these weekend explorations will follow.