Crail at Its Finest

Many of you realize that our life has been extremely hectic as of late, and that this trip was actually thrown together only 2 months ago.  Just about the time I started planning, I spotted a Facebook post singing the praises of Crail as the perfect vacation spot.

Well, we had never been to Crail, and when I was able to easily find a B&B, with a triple room, for 2 nights that fit into the schedule, I jumped at the opportunity.   And, after the exuberant welcome that we received last evening, I had the feeling that we would love it here.

Crail sits in eastern Fife, right on the Firth of Forth as it meets the North Sea.  Our original plan was to arise early and head down to the harbor to see the sunrise.   I could say that we got up and were disappointed when we saw that a fog was hanging in the air.  But the fact of the matter is, none of us was up before the sun, and, when I did peek out the window,  I knew immediately that we had missed absolutely nothing.

Can you see that mist out there?  Sleeping in a wee bit was the perfect decision!  And we were just happy that we didn't awake to rain!

After an absolutely awesome breakfast, we thought we would head down to the harbor area as it appeared that the fog was lifting a bit.

As luck would have it, the fog was lifting, and we delighted in the visual beauty that was slowly developing.

How awesome is that?

While we were standing on the pier in the harbor, I watched this boat slowly come in.

The man on the boat, then proceeded to unload lobsters from traps, into a large bucket which was hoisted to the top.

He then climbed up the ladder

The fresh lobsters were then taken just a few hundred feet to a small shack in the pier area.  

Here's what the lobster traps look like for those who might be interested.

We decided that we would come back later in the day and have one of the fresh caught lobsters steamed for our enjoyment. 

In the meantime, we headed out to Kellie Castle for a tour.  Just look at those brilliant blue skies! The mist had subsided.......for now!

When we arrived, we were told that a guided tour would begin at 12:15, and last around 50 minutes.  So, we spent the time walking around the surrounding gardens.

As you can see apple trees were brimming with fruit

pumpkins were nearly ready for picking

And I do believe that the zucchini had been forgotten.

The 45 min wait soon passed, and we headed inside for the beginning of the tour.  The guide, Margaret, introduced herself, and led us right up a flight of stairs to a landing.  She gave us a brief history of the castle, and showed us a very large painting that featured that very same staircase leading to an open front door.

The artist was John Henry Lorimer, and his father had purchased the house from the Earl of Mar, in the late 1800's after leasing it for many years.  Margaret was sure to give us all of the details of the painting which we might just have missed.

Now, we've been on quite a few of the National Trust property tours, and have found them to be fun and informative.  But today's tour was definitely one that will stand out in our minds for quite some time.

It was obvious that Margaret was a master in regards to the knowledge of this castle.  She knew the history of the house like the back of her hand, and she was an expert on every single piece of art, furniture, ceilings and statues.  I kid you not when I say that in the first room, the present day drawing room, there were no less than 70 separate items in that room, and she went into detail regarding every single one, and she also seemed to have some sort of anecdote related to many of them. 

It was definitely interesting, but, honestly, our heads were buzzing as she went on .....and on.......and on, obviously excited to share her vast knowledge with us.  I began to notice that people in our group were quietly slipping out of the room, but I didn't have the heart to leave, and I really did want to see the Castle in its entirety.  When all was said and done, our "50 minute" tour was not a second less than a full hour and a half.

So, what did I learn?

Well, the castle began as a single tower, owned by the Oliphant family as early as 1360.  The 4th Lord Oliphant added the east tower in 1573.  Twenty years later, the 5th Earl joined the two towers resulting in what one sees today. 

The 5th earl then sold the castle to Sir Thomas Erskine in 1613. He was a personal friend of King James I, and when he invited the king to his castle, Erskine commissioned a group of plasterers to make a unique ceiling in the formal bedroom just in honor of the king's visit.   The molds from the ceiling were then used in several of the stately houses and castles including Craigeviar which we had visited the other day.

In 1829, when the 10th earl died, there were no obvious heirs, and all of the contents of the castle were auctioned, and the castle was left abandoned. 

Kellie Castle was  then discovered by the James Lorimer family in 1870. He was a professor of law at Edinburgh University, was married, and had 6 children.  He approached the 9th Earl of Mar, who now owned the property but left the castle unattended, and asked if he would consider leasing the house.  A 38 year lease was agreed upon where the Earl of Mar would make the external repairs, and Lorimer could live in the house and pay for interior repairs.   James' sons and daughters were all artistically talented with John Henry being an accomplished artist.  His parents converted an upstairs turret room into an artist studio for him so that he would be close to him and continue to pursue his passion of painting.  Many of his artistic works are hanging in the castle.  

Robert Lorimer was an architect and he designed numerous pieces of furniture that now stand on display in the house. 

Even though James died in 1890, the house continued to be lived in by this family until 1936 when  John Henry died and willed all of his possessions to charity. Once again, all of the contents of the castle were publicly auctioned off.  

In 1937, John's nephew, Hugh Lorimer, took over the lease and he and his wife Mary moved into the castle. When the Earl of Mar died, his successor offered the castle for sale to the Lorimer family, and so they purchased it and owned it until it was offered to the National Trust in 1970.

I can't really say how the trust managed to have so many Lorimer items on display since all of the contents had been sold off many years ago.  A few of the pieces were donated from family members, but believe me, that house was brimming with a variety of items, and you can rest assured that Margaret knew something about each and every one of them!

What I found extremely interesting was the ingenuity of Mary Lorimer in regards to some of the pieces.  There is a large table in the dining room, which had once been a wood workers table.  Mary purchased it at auction relatively inexpensively. Similarly, a huge wardrobe stands in the men's dressing room.   That piece once stood in a church and held altar robes.  A pianoforte stands in the drawing room, a result of trade between two families:  the owner was happy to trade it for a barouche. And, finally, there was a lovely canopy over Mary's bed that she constructed herself.  She found a relatively large oval broken mirror that had a gold gilded edge.  She removed all of the glass, had someone saw it in half lengthwise, added some gold upholstery to where the mirror glass had been, and hung it from the wall above the bed, with gold netting streaming down the sides.  Now, how clever was that?

Our guide knew absolutely everything about every single piece in that house, and believe me, we learned not only about the items, but about the personal history of just about every family member.

I'm just glad that we didn't have to take a test when it was all done!  We politely exited, and headed back to Crail, because, we had a date with a Lobster, remember?

When we returned to harbor, the mist had returned, but that didn't dampen our enthusiasm.  I peered into the lobster chest.

He didn't appear very happy.   

Marty ordered one steamed lobster at the little brown hut.

And, 10 minutes later,  this showed up for us, along with three plates and dinnerware.

Amy took one bite and decided that she didn't care for lobster.  So the rest was for Marty and me to enjoy.  One thing to note:  Scots do not eat their lobster with clarified butter.  Or so I was told by our B&B hosts, and, to be quite frank, there was no mention of such a thing when we ordered.  So, Marty and I just enjoyed the lobster without any enhancements.

And it was really quite delicious, full of flavor, and, obviously, as fresh as one can get, having just been pulled from the sea a few hours earlier!

By the time we finished our treat, the skies began to clear, and we decided to make the most of it and walk along a bit of the coastal trail.

But before I describe the walk, I'd just like to make mention of the Lobster man....the one with the hat in the boat, who hauled in the lobsters, climbed the ladder, and carried the catch to the Lobster hut to sell.  His appearance was quite  unique, with very long hair, a knit cap on his head, camaflouge shorts, and bright yellow Wellies upon his feet.    Honestly, it would be hard to miss him.

So, we found it rather amusing that while we were driving to Kellie Castle, this same man was driving his truck (at a rather fast pace) in the opposite direction, back to Crail.  He had obviously made a delivery to someone nearby.  

Later, while waiting for the steaming, we spotted this same man, skirting from place to place in the harbor.  Then, while walking back to the B&B, we saw him pop out of his truck, and walk up to someone's front door holding a canvas bag in each hand, (obviously each containing a lobster).  He departed the house empty handed and jumped back into his truck, obviously going out to make another delivery.  Hours later, that same man was still hopping around town.  What a hard working and industrious young man!  

Strolling through the village offered some really quaint houses, and, as usual, I took way too many photos, but I'll try to limit how many I share here.  (But it can be hard picking the best ones.)

The yellow house has a plaque with the year 1632.

This is the walk down towards the trail.

Some views along the shoreline.

A cute house along the way.

More shoreline

And, finally, the view of Crail  walking north along the trail from Anstruther. 

The weather was a bit chilly, but certainly welcomed!  Just a few hours earlier and it would have been impossible to see the village from the trail due to the mist.  Once again, how lucky were we?

Well....tomorrow's another day and we'll be off on another Gallivanting Adventure.  In the meantime, Crail has been everything that we had hoped it would be.  Can't ask for more than that, for sure!

Until tomorrow......

Soaked in Scotland

Well, it appears that the 92% chance of rain that had been predicted for yesterday, caught up with us today, as it poured through the night and continued throughout the day.  But, a little rain never kept us from gallivanting, so we just made certain to put on our boots and don our rain gear as we headed to Stonehaven harbor.

Our intended destination was Dunnotar Castle.  Marty and I visited this awesome sight several years ago, but since we were so close, I added it to the agenda so that Amy could enjoy the views as much as we had.

I had accessed the web to find the hours of operation and noted that the preferred way to visit was via parking in the harbor and hiking along the cliffside walk.  The website stated that the lot was small, and in order to keep it in good order, we should hike in if at all possible, plus we could enjoy the beautiful view as we walked.

That sounded like an awesome plan, don't you think?   The weather had been sporadic rain off and on, but it seemed that we should be able to dodge a few raindrops.  After all, we were prepared!

We parked in the lot near the harbor

and headed towards the cliffside walk,

but the access from the town was not easily seen, and we ended up walking a bit out of the way prior to finally finding the trail to the castle.  But soon we were on course which became obvious once we passed the war memorial.

As we were walking along the cliffs, the rainy, misty drizzle began to fall heavier,  the wind picked up, and it was obvious that we weren't going to get a weather break anytime soon.

The views were pretty spectacular.

But it was becoming exceedingly difficult to get a decent photo as the rain was pelting and I was concerned about raindrops on the lens.

We managed to get relatively close, but the rain was coming down pretty heavy at this point, and we questioned whether or not it was worth actually touring the ruins in the rain, especially considering the cost was £7.00 per person.   We all decided that we should turn back. 

And, let me just note here that there were plenty of people who had decided to park in the lot near the castle to avoid getting soaked.  May we please go down on record as being Americans who actually do follow directions?  But, really, had the weather been more accommodating, the hike would have offered some outstanding views.

So, we took a quick photo of us standing in the rain with the castle in the background,

and began the trek back to the car.  I began to note that deep puddles had suddenly appeared in short time along the trail that required some leaping to get over.  Had they been there on the way out, I'm certain we would have turned back.  The timing had been just perfect.

By the time we reached the car park, my pants were so wet that it was obvious that I would need to change them or it would be like sitting in the bath with my clothes on.  Luckily, we were in transit and our suitcases were in the car.

I had thought that my elbow felt wet, but decided that it had to be my imagination, until I took off my coat and found both of the sleeves of my shirts to be soaked as well.  It appears that I had been holding my hood to keep it from blowing off my head, and the rain must have been pouring down my sleeves.  So, that required a change as well.   

All seemed in order until I decided to pull something out of my "rainproof" purse, and found it to be quite wet. In fact, my passport was warping, anything paper was limp and both my phone and my camera had water on them.  Well.....by THIS time, I was pretty annoyed.  Especially since I had gone out of my way to purchase a waterproof purse.

I voiced my disappointment out loud and my daughter said to me, "Mom, I'm pretty sure that they didn't think that you'd be wearing the purse in the shower when they said it was waterproof."  Good point.  And that was when I realized that she was absolutely correct.  We all DID look like we had just come out of the shower wearing our clothes.  Was it worth it?  I'd say yes.  Would we do it again?  Probably not in the pouring rain.  Not unless we had some way to dry our clothes easier!

At this point we headed to Edzell, to find a little tea shop that Marty and I stumbled upon two years ago when we were passing through.  At the time, we had enjoyed a delectable scone with jam and whipped cream, and I was hoping that they still made them so that Amy could finally get her scone of her dreams.

Let me mention here that I had stated that we were looking for clotted cream to go on our scones.  Well, it appears that what I would have enjoyed on my scones here in Scotland in the past was actually Scottish whipped cream, NOT clotted cream. And let me just mention that both are a far cry from a slab of butter. 

And,  American Whipped Cream fails miserably in comparison to Scottish Whipped Cream.  And, that opinion was definitely reaffirmed today, when the teahouse served us our scones with jam and whipped cream.

Just look at that smiling face!  Well, actually, we were all smiling at this point.  That scone just melted in my mouth!

Now that all was well with the world, we headed to Kirriemuir, the birthplace of J. M. Barrie.

Are my literature loving friends familiar with the name?  Does this give you a clue?

Actually, that statue really wouldn't be of much help to most people, so if you haven't figured it out, no worries. 

That is Peter Pan.  And J.M. Barrie is the man who penned the story of the little boy who never wanted to grow up.  

The cottage is the actual house where James was born in 1860, the 9th child to Scottish weavers.  It was noted in his museum that the day of his birth was cause for celebration, not only because he had come into this world, but also because it was the day that 6 horsehair chairs arrived for the family.  His mother had saved for years to buy the chairs, and it was the talk of the neighborhood, so people were popping in to see the newborn, but actually curious about the chairs.  Two of the original pieces still stand in the house.

Reading Barrie's life story in the museum was really kind of sad.  His eldest brother died from a tragic accident when James was 7 years old, and it left his mother with extreme heartbreak.  It is believed that he wrote Peter Pan to try to console his mother over the loss of his oldest brother.  She took solace in the fact that while her beloved son was gone from her, he would always remain a boy forever.  Thereby the making of the idea for the book.

I was actually surprised to see so many works written by Barrie in this museum.  It is believed that many of the subjects were based on people who lived in the village.  When I get some time, I really do hope to delve into some of his other offerings.  

Just a short walk from this museum is a Camera Obscura which supposedly offers an absolutely brilliant 360 degree view, featuring distances as far as 72 miles.  I wasn't too surprised to learn that it was closed, considering that we were lucky if we could see something through the mist just a few streets away!

The plan had been to enjoy some views and then head to the Miegle museum to look at Pictish Stones, which my husband is absolutely fascinated with.  It was only a short distance from Kirriemuir, and on our way to our next B&B, so why not?

But, with extra times suddenly on our hands, I suggested that we stop at Glamis, since we had to pass right by, and Marty thought that was an excellent suggestion.  Amy asked Marty if he had seen the stones before, and I had commented "not these Picticular ones", and with that, we decided to forego the museum and just make the most of what Glamis had to offer.

We arrived just in time for the next tour and were treated to a very entertaining young man who showed us through just a small part of this immense residence, filling is in on family lore and history. We thoroughly enjoyed it!

I'm not sure if you are familiar with Glamis, but it was the family home of the Queen Mother who was born there and lived there until she was 23.  In fact, she even spent some of her honeymoon in the castle, and there were special rooms made up for them for that special occasion.  Those bedrooms continue to maintain the same decor as when the Queen mother lived there, because it was her wish that if the house were to be opened for tours, she wanted them to remain decorated as she had lived in them.  It really was quite fascinating to see so many portraits and items that had been there for centuries. 

After the tour, we needed our Castle Selfie, of course.

before heading out to explore the gardens.

Which, as you can see, continue to show some extraordinary colorful blooms.

Just as we were leaving, we caught a glimpse of blue sky!

We stopped in St. Andrews for dinner, then headed to Crail, a harbor village on the Firth of Forth near the North Sea.

We were exuberantly greeted by Graham, our B&B host, and his wife Edna, and I can tell already that this is going to be a fabulous stay!

Graham tells me that the weather tomorrow should be dry and relatively warm, so I see another coastal walk in the near future as well as some fresh caught Lobster for dinner.

Not sure exactly what will pan out, but I'll be sure to keep you posted!