Pitlochry to Edinburgh

So today we started making our way back to Edinburgh for our final few days in Scotland. 

I have totally fallen in love with the heather and how the have turned the hill sides purple. Our first planned stop was at 

Doune castle

Doune castle is a medieval castle situated near the village of Doune.  They believe the castle was originally built in the thirteenth century , then sustained some damage in the Scottish wars of independence.  Then was rebuilt by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany.  

The castle survived relatively intact and unchanged until it fell into a state of disrepair around the 1800's.  Restoration work took place in the late 1800's and not long after it was handed over to state care.

Doune castle has become a popular filming location over the years with the Burton and Taylor version of " Ivanhoe " and Monty Python and the holy grail being filmed here and more recently it has been used at "Winterfell " from Game of thrones and as "Castle Leoch" in Outlander. It was a lovely little Castle. After Doune we headed to 

Linlithgow Palace

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Linlithgow palace was one of the principal residences of the Scottish monarchs during the 15th and 16th centuries.  Each of the monarchs added there own sections to the palace over the centuries, creating the courtyard style palace that exists today

We had some lovely tour guides , from the local primary school who guided us through the ruins explaining in great detail each of the different rooms in the palace. They were really very good and I was impressed with their knowledge.

  

Linlithgow was knicknamed the royal nursery, with several kings and queens being born here, including James V and Mary Queen of Scots.  It was obviously a very beautiful palace in its time and you could spend hours exploring all the little corridors that go off in different directions.  

 As we were leaving Linlithgow there was a wedding about to take place in the chapel beside it, we stayed well clear as much as we could, but I couldn't help snapping a picture of the bag piper as we walked back to our car , he was pretty amazing playing some modern love songs to entertain the guests as they waited for the bride.

Finally I made it to a yarn shop. Ginger twist studio has been on my Instagram shop crush list  for ages so it was nice to walk through those doors.  It was a lovely little shop crammed full of yarn and crochet and knitting bits and pieces.  On the day I arrived the owner was not in, but her lovely assistant was, she very kindly offered to cake up my yarn for me, which I think she really regretted when we discovered that the yarn was REALLY tangled and it took both of us a good 30 mins to untangle it. But it was all good we had a great chat, and I have some lovely yarn to remember Edinburgh. 

 The Royal Edinburgh Miltary tattoo

  Last night we went to see the Royal Edinburgh military Tattoo,  this was one of those things that we were just  lucky to have the opportunity to see. It wasn't on our to do list until we realised we would be here at  the time it was on and then we thought well why not. 

 

This is truely a really great show, the amount of skill that these musicians have to play there instruments whilst moving in a choreographed way is just amazing. I found myself so wrapped up in the show I was clapping and cheering along with the crowds, With a of my family and friends   receiving video messages sent direct from the tattoo, lucky it wasn't to early in the morning in Australia 

They had the most wonderful light show being played out simultaneously on to the castle.

And the Dancers that performed were just amazing, at one stage they even had a Viking ship that was set alight ( not really obviously).  It was a brilliant night, even though we were freezing our b..ts off, we had a ball.

A h-uile la sona dhuibh

‘s gun la idir dona dhuibh!

(May all your days be happy ones)

Googy Girl