02.10.2011 – 02.10.2011  16 °C

The weather hasn’t improved much today as it still raining heavily. The view from the hostel window is pretty awesome though because when you get a small break in the weather you can see the mountains that ring Pitlochry (the town is in a valley) and they are wreathed in clouds. It’s really very pretty! It is also cold and windy so I waited until almost the last possible moment before deciding to leave the hostel and go for a walk around the town and its surrounds.

Pitlochry itself is quite an old town and is a hiking mecca. Every second shop is a hiking store with the every other shop being a B&B. Clearly the main economic activity in this town is tourism! I got a little break in the weather so decided to go and check out Pitlochry’s dam and salmon run. Some time back the Scottish govt decided to dam the river that runs passed the town and install a hydro electric power station. There isn’t much to see but the salmon run that they have built next to the dam is pretty ingenious. To ensure that stocks of Salmon in the river aren’t depleted the govt built a salmon run that runs under the dam wall and up into the top of the river! It seems to be multiple pools joined together that have connected via small pipes. Apparently the salmon have learnt to swim up through these pools and pipes to get into the river!

By the time I had walked across the dam wall it had started to bucket down again and I was feeling fairly well drenched so I ducked into a local coffee shop for a cup of coffee to warm me up. By now it was well after lunch time so I decided to grab a sandwich and take off in the car to see another castle about an hour from Pitlochry called Glamis. (The good thing about the UK is that when the weather is crap you can be guaranteed there will be a castle that you can go and see not far away that is not only interesting but is also out of the weather!)

Glamis Castle is famous for two things- birthplace and home to the Queen Mum (well at least until she got married) and it is the setting for the famous Shakespearean play MacBeth! I was sorely disappointed to discover on my guided tour that MacBeth almost doesn’t rate a mention. The castle wasn’t built until at least two hundred years after MacBeth was supposed to have died so I guess there is no chance that the King ever lived at Glamis! It is thought that the castle was the inspiration though for MacBeth’s castle when Shakespeare wrote the play. It is more likely that MacBeth lived at either Scone palace or Cawdor castle (Inverness) although no-one actually knows for sure.

The tour of the castle was really informative. Glamis is one of those really beautiful renaissance castles.. the kind that I always think of when I’m thinking of an English Castle (or a Scottish one for that fact!). It is still a working castle and the current Earl of Strathmore still lives in a wing of the castle with his family. The parts we were taken into are the formal wings of the castle and are still used for important functions or can be rented out for private functions. What was really nice is that they are still completely furnished so you can really appreciate the grandeur of this castle in its hay day. (I think these days the up keep of a castle like this one is just way too much for it to be completely family owned and used.. I guess guided tours are a way for the family to earn some income to put towards the cost of running the castle and the estate)

I was also disappointed to discover that Glamis is devoid of secret passages and has only one ghost! I mean, everyone knows that castles have heaps of passage ways and at least a couple of spirits flying about!!!! The story of the Glamis ghost is an interesting one, she was the lady of the house whose husband was killed for treason, she was also killed and is said to now haunt the chapel where she was taken captive!

Before leaving the castle I took a walk through the grounds and happened to run across what I think is a hedgehog! I saw this small brown, echidna looking, animal trot across my pathway.. The animal was so engrossed in what it was doing that it took no notice of me and actually allowed me to get quite close and take a couple of snaps. Considering I’m not sure what it is and I haven’t run across anyone yet who knows, if you know what my animal is drop me a line please!!!