Zeno sleeps until 9, he’s clearly a happy camper. The rest of us also slept well, we leave our camp site at 9:30 and depart for the harbour city of Aberdeen.
The first stop is the 16th century Provost Skene’s House, telling the stories of remmarkable Aberdeen citizens. Such as the inventor of the iron lung, a famous opera singer, the first photographer of the moon, and many other pioneers. As allways, there’s a lot to do for the kids, drawing, stamping, puzzeling…
We like the 300 year-old Painted Gallery a lot, it’s a secret room with catholic paintings done in a Protestant time by a high-standing government official. It was only discovered a few decades ago, it had been covered for 300 years.
The next museum on the list is the Maritime museum. It tells the story of Aberdeen’s links with the sea from the days of sail and clipper ships, to the latest oil and gas exploration technology. Also here, the kids are distracted by all games and technology, so we have time to explore the artworks and displays, such as the first divers uniform, and read about the life of men on ships.
The final museum of today is the Aberdeen Art Gallery, and it houses fantastic works. Ceramics, impressionist paintings (Monet and Renoir), silver and glass. The children are most entertained by the puppets and tea set and are having their own little tea party.
We pick up our car from the city centre parking garage and drive 30 minutes to Drum Castle. We arrive at 13:55. The next tour starts at 14. We wanted to split ourselves, to ensure the kids won’t distract any other visitors, but we’re the only ones for the tour, so we get a quick and private one.
It was the hunting lodge of Robert de Bruce, King of Scots in the 13th century. He gave it to the Irvine Clan who owned it for 24 generations until 1975 when it was given to the National Trust of Scotland. As all castles of the Trust, also this one is nicely decorated with furniture and art. The tower houses a library of >4000 books.
We’re done with the tour in 20 minutes. Tim explores the garden while Olga and kids explore the playground and Olga even gets stuck in the climbing tree.
Olga manages to climb back down and we visit some stone circles on the way to our campsite. But first we spot five Scottish grouses flying out of the bushes. Unfortunately, Olga is too late making a picture. Partly because she was convinced it were ‘just’ ducks. But the fifth grouse clearly was not a duck.
The first stone circle is the Cullerlie circle, which is 3800 years old. It’s special as it has three little burial cairns within the circle.
The second one, Tomnaverie stone circle, lies on the top of a small hill with great views of the surrounding landscape. This one is older, some 5000 years old. It was probably used to track the movements of the moon.
We’re camping in the Cairngorm’s and are surrounded by purple and green hills. But being a bit higher up on further away from the sea also means that the temperatures are also colder, it’s 10° when we have dinner and it’s predicted to fall to 5° this night. There’s also a light rain, so we hide in our tent with our books. Sleep well!
