Gallivanting Geismom: Destination: Kingussie

As many of you blog readers know, Marty and I love gallivanting in Scotland and so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise to learn that we left Newark last night and 6 1/2 hours later, we were in Edinburgh. One might think that should be enough time to sleep, but, in reality, it's only about 2 or 3 hours straight, at best, since the airlines feel obliged to serve dinner an hour or so after departing, then breakfast, an hour or so before landing.

But, I've learned to make travel day relatively easy and we had the luck of absolutely glorious weather on our side, so once we picked up the rental car, we headed about 2 hours north to Drummond Castle Gardens.

I had read that these gardens were pretty spectacular and they had actually been featured in the Starz production of Outlander representing the Gardens of Versailles in Season 3. So, today was the perfect day to check it out.

One turns off the road then heads down a tree lined lane for 1 3/4 miles.

The drive actually seemed much longer as we waited for a break in the horizon. But certainly spectacular, don't you think?

Finally, we arrived at the parking lot and made our way to the castle.

The building itself isn't open for touring, but a brief history tells us that the keep was built in 1491 by John, the 1st Lord of Drummond by Charter granted by King James IV of Scotland. We were able to take a quick peek inside the keep, which pretty much just had display boards explaining the history.

The castle was built in the early 1600's, and in 1630, John Drummond, the 2nd earl of Perth, laid out the plans for a formal Renaissance Garden.

How amazing is that? And as we walked around, we found way too many photo opportunities on this spectacular day.

It's obvious to me that Marty and I entertain easily as we found these electric lawn mowers to be quite fascinating.

They looked like little cars driving here and there, mowing the grass on the very steep hill.

Once again, how clever is that?

Here are a few more photos of the beauty surrounding us.

There was a beech tree planted by Queen Victoria on the grounds, but you'll have to take my word for that as it was way too high to manage to photograph.

In the center of the garden stands a very unique sundial that was built in 1630 by the master mason John Mylne.

It is a stone obelisk with geometric arrangements of dials on various panels and within several hollows.

The lines on the dials cover the whole of Sundial mathematics from Britain, Germany, France and Italy.

Now, I'll admit, that I had no idea that there was such a thing as "sundial Mathematics", so if you find yourself questioning that subject matter, you are not alone. (And I'd certainly welcome feedback verifying that I'm not alone in that regards.)

In the long run, the obelisk features 61 dials that present 13 ways to read the time: Common hours, Babylonean hours, Italian hours and Judaean hours.

I never cease to be amazed by some of the interesting facts that I learn while traveling through this glorious country.

Strolling through the grounds, we passed ornate arches,

and this unique waterfall. It is difficult to capture in a photo, but if you look closely, you will see water falling from the arch. It looked like rain dripping from a roof, but as you can see, there was no precipitation. The effect was stunning.

A hot house held a variety of colorful plants

and various types of flowers adorned the grounds

We were lucky that there was very low attendance and we could peruse the grounds at our leisure. But we soon realized that it would be in our best interest to head to our destination for the night while we still had our wits about us.

Two more hours of driving, and we were settled in the village of Kingussie. This is a charming village, and Marty and I have stayed here several times, one with Amy included on a trip as well. Unfortunately, the B&B that we had treasured had changed owners, and has since been closed. So we are staying in the Duke of Gordon Hotel.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it is surprisingly quite comfortable. We enjoyed dinner at a nearby restaurant, where we were treated as special guests. One of the reasons that I love this country so much. The hospitality is to be treasured.

Dinner revitalized us, so we decided to take a brief walk around town. Directly across from the hotel stands a lovely park with a World War II monument in the middle.