We leave early for a 1,5H drive to the southern coast of Scotland. The landscape evolves from flat land to hills.
Our first stop is Kirkcudbright, an artist village mostly because of Edward Atkinson Hornel. We visit his big house and garden. We don’t especially like his painting style, but it’s interesting to see how a wealthy artist lived 100 years ago. He did well for himself and owned 30 houses in the town.
The garden is very nice with a view on the harbor and perfectly tailored for some more games of hide and seek.
The castle in the town is closed for renovation, so we drive to the nearby Dundrennan Abbey, a 900 years old abbey built from hard-weathering grey sandstone, so the original architectural forms and mouldings are well preserved.
Next are the Threave Gardens covering 26ha. As the children are a bit tired, we decide to focus on the walled garden and estate.
In the estate, we’re occupied with finding the toy soldiers hidden for Cleo’s age group. We find 12, and are almost send back into the house as there were more we did not find.
Luckily we can enter the garden again where a butterfly lands first on Olga’s and then on Tims arm.
We finish with Caerlaverock Castle, a triangular castle from the 13th century. It was owned by the Maxwell family until the 17th century. And went from a defensive castle to more of a renaissance style manor. This was it’s downfall as it was besieged in 1640 and partly destroyed after it surrendered.
At 16, we head back to England, again an hour drive. Olga cooks dinner while the kids entertain themselves in the playground.
