Balmoral and Craigievar Castles :)

Hi guys,

I hope you all had a good Thursday :) Friday tomorrow so almost there! :D #weekendlove As Thursdays go I had a pretty good one, even if I was wrecked for a large majority of the day :P Remember how I said in my post last night that I needed to have an early night?..... Ya well that didn't really go to plan :P Needless to say was I regretting it when my alarm went off at 8 this morning D: But yano, I survived the day, even if I was doing my best in the car not to fall asleep going to and fro :P And well what do you know, looks like it's going to be another late night tonight. However, I don't feel too bad about it tonight as I have no reason what so ever to be up at any time tomorrow so I feel a good long sleep in coming on :D

 Ok, so you're never ever going to guess what I did today :P I went to not one, but TWO castles today :D Bet not one of you saw that coming at all, hehehe ;P  Yup, surprise surprise my castle visiting continued today :P As we had planned from earlier this week, today was our day for visiting Balmoral Castle, one of the Queens official residences :) We had been researching Balmoral at the weekend at the weekend and we saw on the TV and on their website that the English TV show 'The Antiques Roadshow' was being held at Balmoral today, however, that completely went out of our minds until yesterday evening when we saw an ad for it. We decided that since we had the plans made that we might as well just go ahead and just go for it and see how we got on and sure if worst cam to worst we would just do something else :)

We set off for Balmoral Castle at about half ten I would say and we had a satnav in the car to help us with directions. The journey took about just short of an hour and a half I would say. The satnav took us on a route that mostly consisted of backroads/rural roads for the majority of the journey. Even though that meant small and windy roads the scenery was nothing short of stunning!! The Scottish countryside is beautiful in general, there is just so much greenery and forestry it's amazing. The mountains are equally magnificent, most of them are coated in trees and it's just so cool :D

Anyway, we arrived at Balmoral some time shortly after midday I think. As the Antique Roadshow was on the normal car parks we not bring used. The grounds of the castle were used as massive car parks due to the masses of cars that had arrived. There was no cost today to go to the castle due to the Roadshow, just a parking cost of £5. That was pretty good as I think it's usually around £12 per person to go in. When we got our space we had our lunch/picnic in the car :P Before we left the house my aunt packed us lunch (rolls, buns, tea, etc....) and we ate that in the back of the car before setting off to have a look around :D Can I just mention how cold of a day it was today?! I was absolutely freezing for the whole day! D: I mean my hands and nose were just I don't know, numb? It was just just too cold for a summer day even though it was fine out :(

The first thing we noticed (obviously) were the crowds, and was there a lot of people. Most of them with bags and trolleys full with antiques. We strolled across the front of the castle just taking it in. We then made a bee line for the ladies and then we went into the gift shop (a danger place for me :P). As you well know by now my usual choice is a magnet, however, as Balmoral is a royal spot the gifts were a bit more pricey than the ones that would be available at castle that are run by the NTS (National Trust for Scotland), like all the other castle I have been to this week. Baring that in mind I just got a little plastic/rubber coaster for myself as a memento and then a small jar of hard sweets for my dad :) Those two things alone cost almost £6 :/

After our little shop we decided to take a look around the castle. As the castle is regularly used by the royal family, it is not open to the pubic to go in and around. However, on a normal day you can get audio guides to bring you around the castle grounds and that provides good insights to the castle, I would imagine. Since the Roadshow was on however, there were no audio guides been given out during our visit. One part of Balmoral Castle that is open to the public to take a wander into is a ballroom at the side/back of the castle. It's a hall/room with artifacts from the castle, like some of the Princes' and Princess' toys from when they were young, and we were allowed to go in there for a look around. When you are going to the Ballroom you pass a lovely sunken garden which is very nice and it is mostly a rose garden :) The grounds also have other gardens and the castle also grows their own fruit and veg but the only time we saw these gardens was when we were driving out (but I'm sure if you followed an audio guide it would bring you to them).

We then went for a little walk around the forest area. The trail we followed was right alongside the River Dee so we had a nice view :) Now, Balmoral Estate covers over 50,000 acres so we decided not to venture too far into the forest walk :P We returned to the castle main grounds and looked into some of the exhibitions that were open to the public and they were really nice. We then made our way back to the castle front and took a wander through all the stalls that were there for the Roadshow. After that it was almost three o' clock so we decided to head back the car and head for home. But before we could leave my aunt had to have a quick cup of tea in the car from her flask before we set off :P

When we were driving to Balmoral I spotted another castle from the Castle Trail on one of the hill/mountain sides. We were on the same road on the way home so we decided to stop in their for a quick look seeing as we were passing :P This castle was Craigievar Castle and omg is it beautiful! The castle is pink in colour just from whatever stone it is made from and its gorgeous <3 (you know me, anything pink and I'm practically in love :P) We parked up and went for a walk around the castle. Craigievar Castle has a real fairytale look to it, I suppose it's what you might call a 'romantic' castle. It is just so pretty I think any girl would want to be a princess there :D

The Castle is situated on what you would say is mountain side and the views from outside the castle are stunning looking out onto to vivid green and golden fields and the other tree covered mountains - just breath taking really :) Like I said we were just stopping in to look at the castle and take a few pics of it so we didn't go for a tour or a look inside or for a walk around the grounds, but from what we did see it looks to be a really lovely place to visit. Hopefully next time I'm over I can go for a proper visit there :D Being completely honest we did go into the gift shop for a little snoop around but this time I just got a bookmark magnet thing, nothing major! :P I think that cost around £0.99. After that we went outside and took a few pics and special one with my Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 camera which I also used at Balmoral aswell btw :)

Then it really was time to head for home and I think we were in the door at five o' clock and I headed straight for a heavy duty dressing gown :P Even though I was tired and EXTREMELY cold for the day I had a really good day, I enjoyed our road trip and I would definitely recommend both Balmoral and Craigievar Castles! :)

Anywhoo my eyes are almost falling out of my head at this stage so it's defo time to sign out for tonight :) I have no exciting plans for tomorrow as I mentioned at the beginning (which I know feels like a whole different post ago at this stage :P) but I am going to the cinema in the evening with my cousin, We are going to see Hot Pursuit with Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara and I am really looking forward to that, it looks like a good laugh - perfect for my last night :)

Oh, p.s. I will also being doing a blog/review post thing on my new Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 soon so keep an eye out for that :)

Night now and I'll chat to ye soon :*

Kate! Xx