Inverary to Pitlochry

October 12, 2023

October 12

We are so blessed to have days like these. We left the Drovers Inn and headed to Inveraray Castle early in the morning, stopping at the town of Inveraray before the castle opened.

Drovers Inn

I wish I could have videoed the entire drive

I made David stop every once in awhile. He was a great driver!

Inveraray

At Inveraray Castle, there were literally hardly any other tourists. October is the time to go! The place is so majestic with so much history. The Campbell Clan owns this place over the centuries and today it is the home of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. We toured the inside.

Inveraray castle from the gardens

As we were leaving the gardens, we tried to go out a different way and a woman with a black lab (Lara) said, you can go here but it would be past the rubbish bins. I recognized her from the photos and news article’s featured inside the castle and asked her, “Are you the duchess?” She said she was and we talked about the recent floods and she showed me a video on her phone of a poor farmer whose 200+ bales of hay were swept away by last weekends floods (the same ones that stopped our train from continuing past Edinburgh). She was exceedingly nice and I asked if we could take a picture with her. I asked about how she felt about people milling about in her house, and she said that it helped plug all the holes in the roof. We talked about where we were headed next and she gave advice on a town with beautiful views and good lunch. She said that Dame Judy Dench had just been by and had gotten sneezed on by a waiter. She talked about the workers in the castle tea room and how lazy they were - comparing them to workers across Scotland. She was very tall. I did some research on her and her name is Eleanor Cadbury Campbell. Her many great grandfathers started Cadbury chocolates. Her husband, the Duke is very handsome and was a page at Diana and Charles wedding and there were pictures of him with the late Queen also. He is a polo player. They have 3 children. The youngest of which was born in 2008, I believe. Anyway, an interesting encounter!

Duchess of Argyll and Lara

This castle was featured in Downton Abbey as Duneagle castle, where Rose’s parents Susan and Shrimpy were living very unhappily.

Anyway, off we went on our way to Pitlochry and decided to stop in Killin for lunch. I had read about the Falls of Dochart while planning our trip and then saw them on the news after the flood events of last weekend. The scenery during the drive just broke my heart that we were going by so fast and I couldn’t film it. Scotland is completely unspoiled and picturesque.

Falls of Dochart

After our lunch in Killin, we were making good time to Pitlochry and as soon as we were just out of town, we ran into a roadblock - road closed from 9-3:45 every day. We got our Waze on it and found what we thought was a way around. We took a road no wider than our little car through the most beautiful countryside and saw pheasants, red squirrels, and unbelievable precious farms but ended up at the same roadblock! (David thought so!)

We finally made to Pitlochry and found our charming hotel. We had just enough time to check out the town and enjoy some cocktails during happy hour! Back at the room, we showered! The Drovers Inn had no hot water!! Don’t go there! However, we met a couple there from Texas that I talked about in yesterdays blog who told us about the Enchanted Forest in Pitlochry. So during our drive I got tickets (most slots were sold out) for 8:45 pm. We shopped at a nearby grocery for wine and cheese for dinner tonight and met our bus right across the street for the Enchanted Forest.

Oh my gosh! What a lucky discovery!! This years Enchanted Forest theme was “Under the Sea”!! It was just an incredible experience! And as a bonus, they sold wine and beer all along the route! That made David and me happy! What an incredible display of lights, music and appreciation for our ocean!! We were one of the stragglers at the end of the event and so we got to go on the small bus with many of the workers from the event back to town. I had mentioned that I worked for the Ocean Exploration program of the US to one person and he introduced me to everyone on the bus. I told them what a wonderful exhibit it was. It was fun!