Scotland - Day 5 (Part 2)

After leaving Pitlochry, I headed north and made my first stop of the day just up the road at Blair Castle. It's quite a pretty white castle, but looks more like a mansion, as it was transformed some time back by its wealthy owners after it was no longer needed as a defensive structure. After some internal debating, I decided to tour the inside of the castle and was glad I did. I nothing else, it has convinced me that I in fact do want a castle. You can call me Lord Warner. They also allow weddings to take place at the castle (I'm not sure if you have to be descended from the right crown, or simply offer up enough cash). They had a few pictures of weddings taking place there and they really did look fantastic. They actually clear out the main dining room in the castle of all its historic wears and allow the formal dinner to take place there. It looked absolutely spectacular. And now I've actually found the pricing online, and it's really not that out of the world. I'm shocked.

After having visited several very old buildings in Scotland, I'm noticed that whoever manages these things is obsessed with the most minute details about all of the random artifacts found in the castle. It all quickly blurs together and becomes rather meaningless to me, so tend to read signs selectively, focusing on those things that truly interest me or random facts. For instance, in this castle I learned that woman's makeup at one point in history was wax based. If they got to close to the fire, there face would literally begin to melt. I think this would make them look less pale, and God forbid women look like they ever saw the light of day. Apparently they designed these special screens for fireplaces just for the purpose of diminishing the heat. It must have been quite the relief for women when new forms of makeup were invented that allowed them to look both sickly and enjoy the warmth of a fireplace.

Outside of the castle, I actually made a very exciting discovery. I met my first shaggy cows! Here's a photo I took of one - they look like hippie cows. I think this one is stoned.

From Blair Castle, I headed what I think was Northeast towards Speyside, which is the whisky capital of Scotland. There are so many high quality distilleries there, I had a hard time deciding which one to visit. But finally I opted for Glenfarclas because it is still family owned (most are corporate owned by what I can gather) and has a reputation for producing high quality whisky. It was a nice tour (almost as good as Edradour, even though they had claimed no one was as good as theirs and no one else would take me through the middle of the distillery or let me take pictures - both of which Glenfarclas did). The only disappointing thing about the visit was that everything in their store is exported to the US, so I didn't have the opportunity to by anything that is hard to find back in the states.

One of the many things I've learned about the Scots that I didn't previously know was that they have a reputation for being fairly frugal. At Glenfarclas, what this means is that they don't make any whisky unless they can pay for it. They don't have any debt. So everything in their numerous warehouses has already been paid for, meaning they are sitting on a literal gold mine of whisky waiting to be bottled over the upcoming years - it must be millions upon million of dollars worth. As I was leaving the store, I saw a friend come in with who I think was the owner. He gestured to one of the cashiers to grab a bottle his friend - it was a bottle of 40 year old whisky. Must be nice - that's at least a $500 bottle.

From Speyside, I headed towards Inverness, with one last stop at the Culloden Battlefields, location of the last significant battle on the British Isle. At this battle in 1745, English troops (with a few Scots) fought against the Jacobites led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, who had snuck into the Highlands to recruit Scots to help restore the Stewart dynasty. Had they been successful in their rebellion (and they may have had a chance), the world may be a very different place. The American Revolution happened only a few decades later, in part sparked by higher taxes the British were employing, in part to pay for past and present wars. It sent chills down my spine to consider how important this battle was in determining the direction of the world. It's also a very important event for Scotland, as the Jacobite defeat led to outlawing of much of Highland culture, not the least of which was the tartan and kilt.

Speaking of tartans, I've noticed the front of some Scottish 18-wheelers are painted in a tartan. It's something else to see one of these trucks barreling towards you on these narrow roads with this paint job. It's almost like being rushed by a giant rowdy Highlander.

One final note on my dinner covered in the first post for the day. I finally tried haggis. Well, not really, but my steak had a haggis sauce. I'm not really sure what a haggis sauce is, but I don't really want to find out. I can report that whatever it was tasted quite nice, though.