We departed the village of Gardenstown in a drizzle, boarding a bus for Banff with water squishing out of our shoes. In Banff, we caught a cab to the train station in Huntly. We had learned from our lesson the previous day and booked the cab in advance. The train arrived on time. We spent the relaxing ride reading and playing cards.

Schlepping my suitcase around while using a hiking pole for my broken ankle wasn’t easy, but my ankle, despite its deep purple, green, and sickly yellow hues, was no longer swollen and it felt pretty good. About five hours later, we arrived in Edinburgh.

Our destination for the next six nights was the Angel’s Share Hotel. I chose it because it was only six blocks away from the station (so we could walk there) and because I liked the name. If you’re a whisky drinker, you probably know that it’s named for the small amount of whisky that evaporates while it ages in a cask. It’s thought that the angels drink it, and thus get their share. The hotel’s bar and restaurant offer a wide range of whiskies and each room features large images of famous Scots. The singer Lulu Kennedy-Cairns graced our room. She’s best known for her song, “To Sir, With Love.” She looks like Olivia Newton-John.

After settling in our room, we popped down to the restaurant for a meal. The restaurant and bar are combined. The place was packed, and a soccer game was on (England vs. Sweden), plus a birthday or two were being celebrated. The decibel level was high! We assumed the crowd would be rooting for England, since it is geographically closer to Scotland, but they seemed to be cheering Sweden. I guess that even when it comes to sports, old grudges and rivalries die hard in Scotland.

Staying at the Angel’s Share ended up being a superb experience. It’s in a great location for walking to Edinburgh Castle, the Royale Mile, and many, many wonderful restaurants. We ate at a different place almost every day and never had a bad meal. Most were only a few blocks away. The rooms were quiet, and I loved the ambiance of the lobby with its dark wood paneling and fireplace.

We rose early the next day for a tour I’d been eagerly awaiting for months: sites connected with my great-grandfather to the 21^st power and first king of Scotland, Robert the Bruce, including Broomhall House, the current home of the Bruce Family.

I was most excited about Broomhall House. It only recently opened for tours, which are led by Charles Bruce. I had contacted Broomhall directly through their website inquiring about a tour over six months before our trip but I never heard anything back from them. Then I contacted a tour company that listed Broomhall on its website as a tour option. I did not hear back from them, either. A few months before our trip, I tried the company again and they said they were all booked. By this time, I’d made arrangements for a different tour with Tartan Viking Tours (an Outlander tour. More on this in a later post) I contacted them and asked if I could “build a private tour” with them that included Broomhall. They said they could do it, which delighted me to no end. Later, they told me the private tour would cost $1,500. This gave us pause, but not for long. We figured this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and that it would save us having to return some other time to do it, so we said “Yes!”

Calum was our guide. Sporting full Scottish regalia, he picked us up at our hotel in a van. Our first stop really didn’t have anything to do with “The Bruce,” but I had wanted to see it because I love Scottish myths and the images I’d seen of this attraction. Besides, The Kelpies were on the way to the other things we wanted to see.

The Kelpies are two giant horse heads surrounded by a moat of water. In Scottish myth, kelpies are shape-shifting water spirits that lure humans to their deaths by drowning. They were built by Andy Scott and unveiled in 2014. The Kelpies have royal names: Duke and Baron. We saw more of Scott’s smaller sculptures in the middle of round abouts along the way. Also, Minnesota just got one of his giant sculptures in the form of a loon in St. Paul. It was just put in place last week!

Our next stop was Stirling Castle. If you only have time to visit one castle in Scotland, I suggest this one. We liked it because it just seemed like a castle should be. Built on a volcanic crag, the castle has a great hall, a palace with impressive bedrooms, a chapel, pretty gardens, and great views of the surrounding landscape including the Wallace Monument. Live actors worked in several of the rooms. One thing I learned was that the impressive bedrooms were mostly for show. Castle royalty actually slept in smaller, more modest rooms off the showy bedrooms.

Throughout his reign Robert the Bruce was known for destroying castles. He did this so that they couldn’t fall into the hands of the British. He also never settled in one place long himself to avoid being killed. Stirling Castle was one of The Bruce’s castle casualties, but it was rebuilt later. Even so, The Bruce is honored with a statue outside of it. While we were admiring the statue, Calum and his kilt created quite a stir among a group of Asian tourists. They were so excited, they were taking photos of his back! I mentioned this to Calum, who graciously posed for some full-frontal photos with the group. 😊

Next was the Wallace Monument. Although it was built to honor William Wallace, a heroic Scottish warrior, Robert the Bruce is honored in it, as well. A spiral staircase leads to the top of the monument. Several floors on the way up offer exhibits (and a rest from stair climbing). I learned that climbing spiral staircases with a hiking pole and a broken ankle is tricky. We encountered MANY spiral staircases during this tour and others, but in case you were worried, I’m happy to say, I emerged unscathed.

Our next site offered a much stronger connection to The Bruce. Dunfermline Abbey is where Robert the Bruce was buried. Actually, his alabaster tomb was destroyed during the reformation in the 1500s, but his body (along with alabaster fragments) was found in 1818 when the abbey was being renovated. His new tomb is done in the Scottish royal colors of red and yellow/gold. A wooden pulpit was built directly over it, so it’s as if the minister is channeling the king during his/her sermons! The abbey is still in use.

The whole structure honors the former king. As we walked toward it, Russ noticed the words “King Robert The Bruce” are spelled out at the top of the abbey’s square spire. Before his body was reinterred, five plaster casts were taken of his skull. One was on display at the abbey. Another one is in Broomhall. For me, this was perhaps the most moving of all the places we visited. Something about the silence and the reverence impacted me.

Then came the piece de resistance: Broomhall House! Calum had never been there, so he had to look it up on his mapping app. As we drove up to it, I noticed signs for a restaurant and hotel. The research I’d done on Broomhall had not mentioned anything like that. Curious.

We hopped out of the van and went to the reception desk. Calum said, “We’re here for the tour.” The receptionist looked at him blankly. Uh oh. As it turned out, we were at Broomhall Castle, not Broomhall House.

After discovering the error, we sped back in the proper direction. This time, the place we approached looked much more like what I was expecting. We stayed in the van while Calum knocked on the door. A woman came out from a different door, and they chatted. She looked worried and took up her phone. Uh oh. Eventually, both of them approached the van.

The gist of it was that we were not expected. My heart bottomed out right there but I tried to keep it together. The woman who was speaking with us was Antonia Bruce, Charles’s sister. She had tried calling Charles, but he wasn’t picking up. She was willing to go into the house with us but she wasn’t really up on giving tours and besides, she was taking care of her parents, 100-year-old Lord Elgin (Andrew Bruce) and Victoria.

Antonia was verra verra nice. We apologized for interrupting her and said we’d try to come back another day. We had two days open on our itinerary and hoped that one of them would work. Somewhere there had been a communications breakdown. (Hint: it wasn’t on the tour company’s side.) I was hugely disappointed but realized that shit happens. I was just glad we were staying longer and might have time to for the situation to be rectified.

So, with fingers crossed, we drove away.

Did months of planning go down the drain? Did we just throw away a bunch of money? Did we ever get to tour Broomhall? Tune into the next exciting installment!

If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love my book! Meander North showcases 51 of the best stories from this blog about my quirky life in northern Minnesota and my writerly pursuits. It earned a silver Midwest Book Award for nature writing and was published by Nodin Press in Minneapolis. It is available for $19.95 through their distributor at this link.