Balmoral, Stirling and Edinburgh

Balmoral was a very nice experience. As expected the grounds were very large and very beautiful - it's remarkably peaceful, and set next to the beautiful River Dee. It was raining lightly, which only made the pine trees which dominate the area more beautiful. The castle itself was actually a good deal smaller than i had expected - but i suppose it is only the 'summer residence', and there is still a very large amount of staff housing about the place.

Unexpectedly we did get to look inside the castle, but only the ballroom section. The ballroom had been set out for an exhibition showing a number of art works as well as giving a feeling for the ballroom as it would have been used - including showing off a number of royal ball dresses.

We spent the night at a hotel on the outskirts of Perth, which was a bit of an odd experience. The hotel itself was reasonably classy, and had a beautiful grounds surrounding it, but our room seemed to have a number of problems with it - the TV hadn't been supplied with an aerial plug, and there were no curtains in my bedroom. Luckily they fixed these problems and we had a reasonably good night.

This morning we went through the town of Stirling, which is built around a castle built (and, oddly, destroyed) by Robert the Bruce. The castle was interesting, but so far my favourite castle has been the first one we saw - Harlech Castle in Wales. I think that i just find the ruined and semi-ruined castles more interesting than the ones which have survived in fairly pristine condition.

We've now made it to Edinburgh, and after a slight problem finding our hotel (when we rung to book with them they failed to mention that the entire street they are on is closed for work) we've settled in nicely. I'm not sure how much sightseeing we will be doing here - i know that there are plans to see the castle, which is in walking distance from our hotel, and Mum wants to see an art gallery that she enjoyed last time she was in Scotland, but beyond that i'm not sure what we will be doing here, which is a bit odd since we're here for another 2 days.

Unfortunately all three of us now have colds, but i think we're all getting over them. Dad's doing the best, and Mum's probably feeling about as bad as i did a day or so ago.