It’s been months since our trip and the details are getting blurry, and I still have a bit more to get to, so here’s basically a mashup of several days where we did the tourist thing.
Balvenie and Glenlivet
Distillery tours! This is a must-do in the part of Scotland we visited. Aberdeenshire, as one local pub denizen emphatically told another while I eavesdropped, is not the Highlands, but we were very close to several famous distilleries, and I think this day trip was one of the highlights for Donna and John as tour guides. We hit two on this day: Balvenie and Glenlivet, to see how whisky was made. The big parts of their presentation had to do with malting and drying the malt, and the barrel aging of the whisky — the coopery that maintained their barrels was a point of pride for Balvenie. Needless to say, we got to sample what they had, from almost-raw whisky through the world famous finished products. (To be honest, I didn’t think I’d make it through the sample flight at Balvenie, but I’m glad I did.) Very educational, and super fun.
Scenes About Gardenstown
This was a day I had to myself: John needed to do some legal/financial stuff for the house they were buying, and Donna & Anne were off on a shopping trip to Banff. I just spent the morning walking about Gardenstown, taking pictures of the different little sections: High Green where we were staying, Seatown where John & Donna’s rental (and new vacation home) were, and the harbor itself. (Mind you, all of these parts were withing spitting distance of each other — it really is a small town.)
I joined John in the afternoon, and we all went to dinner when the ladies got back.
The Falconry
This was another highlight, especially for Donna! She really like showing off her local discoveries, and this was an unexpected find from several years back when they were looking for fun things to do with Iain and Finn. It was fun for us too, and a real “touching grass” moment: the views all around, the look of the birds up close, and especially the feel of them landing and taking off from your hand…
The woman who owned the place was really nice too, she showed us around after the demonstration and then invited us in for tea.
Stay tuned for just a wee bit more, I have maybe one or two posts left in the series.
