Dunrobin Castle

On Saturday, we drove north of Inverness across the Cromarty Firth.  Such lovely farm fields in this area!  (There's a bit of glare on some of these photos from the bus windows).


Lush fields of ripening grain!  Lots of barley in this area for the making of Whisky!


When we arrived at Dunrobin Castle, we were welcomed by this young piper!  She played almost non stop the entire time we were there!


I headed straight for the gardens on this lovely morning!  The view of the formal gardens from the Castle terrace was amazing!


It was hard to decide which way to look as it was all gorgeous!


I must admit that I got sidetracked for a time by the way the ivy was growing over the stone railing of the terrace.


The Castle itself was pretty spectacular.  I heard more than one person describe it as a fairy tale castle!


When viewed from below, it's easy to see why people call it that!  It's pretty spectacular!


I loved this section of the gardens with lush bushes of lavender growing in the box lined sections.  Between these and the castle, there is a section known as the Pyramid Garden with large wooden pyramids covered in climbing roses and sweet peas!


In each garden I've visited on this trip, I've found some new plant that I've never seen before.  I have no idea what this one is, but found it quite intriguing!


There were lovely flower borders tucked here and there.  This one leads to an ornate gate, which looks out over the sea.


Eventually, I made my way over to the falconry display.  There was a wonderful program featuring this Harris Hawk, a Peregrin Falcon and an Eagle Owl.


The Falconer was fabulous ~ so interesting to listen to, and the display that he and the birds put on was something to see!


This Eagle Owl sat down right in front of me once he was done displaying.  He was literally less than 2 feet away from me!  How wonderful to have the opportunity to get up close and personal with such a magnificent animal!


After the falconry display, I headed back towards the castle, discovering more beautiful flower borders on the way!  Unfortunately, like so many places here, I was unable to take photos inside.  It was filled with magnificent floral tapestries that I would have loved photos of!


The ride back was lovely as it was apparent that the heather is starting to really come into bloom!


We had a free afternoon in Inverness.  I was getting desperate for clean clothes, so I spent a portion of it at the local laundrette!  The remainder of my free time was spent looking through a wonderful used book store!  I could have come home with a huge box of books, but reigned myself in and only purchased two small ones!