Hope ye are having a good Monday :) As far as Mondays usually go for me, they may be depressing if you have to get up early but I think overall they tend to be no worse than any other day #mondayblues However, being honest I didn't even realise it was Monday today until about dinner time, all day I was sure that it was Wednesday :P That's the holiday spirit for you though, never keeping track of the days :D
Well yesterday I very excitedly told you all about my plans to visit Fyvie Castle, and I did so today and I had such a great time! :D The weather was quite chilly today and a bit overcast and gloomy but still some brightness broke through the clouds and it was perfectly good for a day trip.
The castle is situated in the village of Fyvie which is just a half an hour for where I am staying so it was nice and handy to get to :) Once you go through the gates there is a fairly lengthy drive that has beautiful views of the castle's lock and its wildlife and the surrounding fields, with glimpses of the gorgeous castle in the distance as you drive up to the car park.
The car park is a good size and is pay and display (I believe it is just £2 for the day, which isn't too bad). Once we parked up we decided to take the walk around the loch as the car park is right beside it. The walk ways are clearly marked and are mostly clear so walking doesn't consist of tripping over branches and going cross country. There is no lack of nature at Fyvie Castle and Gardens. The loch walk was lined on either side with trees and bushes of all kinds and the canopy cover is lovely, especially good for blocking the breeze and I imagine some rain too :P The views of the loch are lovely as you walk around it and you are right at the loch edge for most of the walk. There are loads of ducks on the loch and they seems to be well used to people as when I went to take pics of them they started coming towards me (perhaps they were looking for some bread :P ), there was also a pair of swans and their babies and a few birds and also lots of lily-pads :)
The loch walk if you follow it right around brings you up to the side of the castle. We decided to go for the full Fyvie experience and take a tour of the castle interiors. It cost i think around £18 pounds for our tickets in as I had my student card with me so I could get a cheaper ticket at £9. I also got a guide book as a little memento for myself. The book had an info filled guide for going around the castle and some lovely pictures of the castle and it cost £3.50. There were no guided tours on today so we were in charge of bringing ourselves around, which is where the guide book came in handy :P
The interiors of the castle are stunning and it is clear to how the castle changed throughout the centuries with each new owner adding and changing to their tastes and how the castle progressed, improved and modernised. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take any photos of the inside so I can not show you the historical rooms. In most of the rooms there are assistance who have plenty of knowledge on the castle and who are all so friendly. I think my favourite thing of the inside was the amazing great wheel stairs case which is one of the original features form when the castle was first built. It is a huge spiral staircase made of stone and it is just so cool :D Another thing I forgot to mention about the castle is that it is supposedly haunted by two lady ghosts which I tried to keep out of my mind for the duration of the visit :O Thankfully, there was no spookiness while we were there. Being honest I have no idea how long it took us to go around the castle but I guess it was maybe around an hour.
At the end of the tour you end up at the tearoom and so of course we stopped for a quick refuel :P We had tea for two, a plain scone and a shortbread biscuit and it was all quite nice. Altogether it cost £7.50 which I suppose isn't too bad for a touristy place. We then moved on to the gift shop :D It's only a small enough shop with a couple of shelves with the usual suspect gifts; postcards, magnets, bookmarks, tea towels, foody bits, candles and a few little things for children. I got a magnet for my fridge at home which cost £2.85 and five postcards (all of the same :P ) which we on offer for £2, so altogether my spend was £4.85 which I thought was alright.
We then had to detour back to the tearoom as I had left my guide book at our table (I can't be trusted to remember to bring things with me :P ). We then walked around to the front of the castle, which is what I had been waiting to see all day and I was not let down! :D The front of the castle is nothing short of stunning! What ever stone the castle is made of and whatever way it has weathered over the hundreds of years the castle now has a pinkish tint to it, and as we all know I am an avid pink lover so I was delighted :D The views of the front of the front of the castle were so picturesque and so lots of pics from different angles were obviously necessary :P
Over the weekend I bought myself a Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 after wanting one for so long and after much consideration. I figured that my trip to Fyvie Castle would be the perfect opportunity to put it to use and I was not disappointed :D I won't go into depth here about my latest love as hopefully I'll do a post about it, but instant cameras are the coolest things ever!! Anyways after the photo shoot at the front of the castle it was time for us to head back to the car and head to for home once again. On our drive out, we had a close up encounter with the loch's geese - another photo opportunity :P
Overall, I had such a fantastic time at Fyvie Castle and I couldn't speak highly enough of it! It is now certainly top of my list of my favourite castles, well almost at the top (I'll tell you again about my favourite castle!) :P I will definitely be returning to Fyvie Castle in the future without a doubt and I can't believe I've gone all these years every summer only being a half an hour away from it and not knowing it was there :O The castle is so well maintained by the NTS (National Trust Scotland) and it just adds to the whole experience as the castle and grounds are flawless. I will certainly be doing some further investigation of the loads of other local castles for sure for my next trip :)
So that's it (at last :P ), I hope ye enjoyed the rather long post about Fyvie Castle and Gardens and that it didn't bore ye out of yer minds (the pics do add to the length though :P ) ;) Well I think it's time to sign off now and move onto a new post :)
Thanks for reading,
Kate! Xx
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