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2001-11-26 - 11:36 a.m. U.K Day 11: Let's not go to Camelot ... it's a very silly place Days of rest are good. Days of rest are wonderful. Days of rest get rid of cranky Theo and bring back the adventurer, Map-Girl. Away we go down the long Loch Tay, and southward to Stirling. We pause partway to stop at Doune castle. Doune castle was built between approximately 1380-1420, and it's still the same. The lord's hall has been restored slightly, used for weddings and such and the Victorians put the roof back on in the 1800s, but other than that, it's the same castle from the 14th century. Fantastic place. Take a torch (flashlight) because they will let you climb up the narrow, tiny, unlit staircases, up the turret, into the guardhouse, out onto the battlements. The private hall (lady's chamber, probably something like a solar) is above the lord's hall. You can see the corbels where supported the missing ceiling. In fact, you can see where there should be two more levels of private apartments above. You grope up and down the stairs and wonder how the hell anyone did this in slick turn shoes and two-three layers of skirts. The curtain wall is still intact, though the postern gate is bricked up - but it's perfectly positioned for sallying out around the back. The kitchens are still intact with the spiffy guest suite over the warm bread ovens. The fireplace really is big enough to hold three oxen without even trying. Handy built in slop drain that pours down the same system as the garderobes (latrines). The kitchen staff had a two-seater garderobe, I guess to increase the sociablity of, um, events. It also doubled (once you put the lid down) as a stand for archers. The great hall has a back entrance to the lord's apartments and a discrete passage to another private garderobe - just in case you need a break during those long feasts. Very convenient. The back of the hall, as far from high table as possible, is the vestibule entrance, which was screened off with a buttery/serving area. The trapdoor for pulling drinks up from the cellars is still there. And after trying to get myself safely up those stairs, I really understand why they up in trapdoors for hauling stuff between floors. I cannot imagine climbing the backstairs with a cask of ale. God, I sound like a guidebook, but it was just a nifty place, a slice of history.
Well, except for the scaffolding all around the kitchen tower. You see, when the Victorians put the roof back on (copied the hammer and beam roof from Edinburgh castle) they also re-chinked the place/replaced all the mortar. And they used the best hard-set of their time. One problem - the castle was originally built with limestone mortar. Limestone is soft. I know - I had a huge limestone rock formation in the front yard of my childhood home. An eight-year old (who wasn't supposed to go in the cave in the rock) could crumble it with bare hands. So, as the earth shifted and the walls moved, the rock and limestone mortar shifted accordingly. However, the Victorian hardset didn't bend with the environment, so it's all chipping out. The mortar stays in place, the rock falls out. They'll be at it about a decade, slowly re-chinked each elevation around the castle. We stop in the gift shop to talk to George a bit - on cold November days he's lucky to see ten people, so he had plenty of time to chat. You ever heard of a movie called "Monty Python and the Holy Grail?" He hands over a book of movie stills. Stunned, I was stunned - we were in the castle from the movie. The turret, where the French knight blows his nose; the courtyard for the wedding feast; the great hall for the 'singing and dancing very-silly-place Camelot scene'; Guess what they used for Castle Anthrax, home of Zuit and the fair maidens? The kitchens. The impressive looking windows behind Zuit are actually the passthrough between the kitchen and the vestibule/buttery. We munch our picnic lunch in the car, because it was a damp Scottish day and the picnic tables were drenched. Then it's on to Stirling Castle. Stirling was lovely. But it's a late Tudor castle, with most of it actually 17th century or later. They had an excellent display on the court painters of the Stewarts. The view was stunning - you can still see the outlines of the royal game preserve below the castle. They're systematically working on restoring/recreating the place. They've finished the great hall, and they're working on the royal apartments from the era of Mary, Queen of Scots and James VI (James I of England). Come back in a few years and you'll see a Tudor noble's opulent suite. The chapel and kitchens are open for view, and you can walk the length of several series of battlements. But I truly enjoyed Doune more. George, of the Doune gift shop, says their aim is to preserve the place exactly as it is, close as possible to the original, rather than trying to recreate it. As much as I'd love to see the place in it's glory, plaster and painted walls, wood beam ceiling and private apartments back in place, I see their point. We left Stirling. Having had enough castles for the day, we took the more easterly route back to Kenmore, passing through Crieff, home of the Glenturret distillery (see previous rhapsodies about their '66 single malt.) Glenturret is Scotland's oldest distillery. They've been making whisky on that site since 1715. Dating back to the days when it was an illegal operation - the site was picked because of the excellent Loch Turret water - and because of the two hills, which make excellent lookouts for spotting the King's Custom and Excise men. They're also famous for their former distillery cat - Towser - who's in the Guinness book of records as the best mouser ever. She lived to nearly 24 years, her owners credit the whisky fumes for preserving the feline so long, and killed 28,899 mice. We took the distillery tour - because it's cool to see how they make single malt Scotch. Seven men run the entire operation. The barley's malted near Banff and the malt is trucked in. They grind it to grist, which they mix with hot water to extract the fermentable sugars. They add yeast to the wort (the liquid sugar stuff), which ferments for a couple days producing a weak beer like thing called the wash. [Nobody light a match in the wash room - geeze the fumes.] The wash is twice distilled in tall pot stills, shades of high school chemistry. Finally, the spirit is casked and warehouse to age until it's mature. I petted the cask of '66 with great longing. There are four casks left in the world. They were bought by private concerns from Sweden about a decade ago, when it was the thing to do - have a bunch of friends pool money and buy a cask. They've never contacted the distillery, so there the casks sit, neglected. Legally belonging to someone, so they can't bottle the spirit. And, while the spirits in cask, you loose 2% volume a year to evaporation - the Scot's call that bit the "angels' share." The gift shop manager and I had a moment of silence for the tragedy of it all. After the tour concluded, we retired upstairs to the tasting bar. For an extra 3 pounds 50, they'll pour you an expanded tasting tray. The tour includes a dram of the 12 year (nice enough) by the tasting tray including the 15, the 18, the distiller's cask strength and their malt liquer. As promised by the guide, the nice bartender, Eric, fixes us right up. We fall into conversation. It unfolds that Eric is very bored, just moved from Belgium, and is watching his older daughter (who's collecting the bags from the crisps we're eating, so if we wouldn't mind donating them when we're finished snacking, thanks awfully...) while his wife is at the hospital with his other daughter. (Broken foot, probably, nothing serious). Most of all he is desperate to have someone who knows something about whisky to talk to. It turns out, Eric has the discretion to give out free drams of everything except Glenturret products. The more we chat, the more he nips in the back room with one more thing we just have to taste. A nice 15 Bunnahabhain; oh, really - they've put Bruichladdich back in production - well, of course I'd like to try that. An 18 year Highland Park? Just as fine as I remember. Eric leaves us to our own device, while he takes the last tour group of the day round the distillery. We obtain sandwiches, because we really need food in this land of free flowing whiskey. He comes back and we discuss the embarrassment that the best selling malt in the U.S. is young Glenfiddich. My tray of glasses is *very* full by the time the distillery crew drifts upstairs for a pint or a dram after a long day. Let me interject that if you think adapting to foreign accents is a challenge, try holding a lively conversation with a stuttering Scot after 11 drams of whiskey. We had a long, fascinating chat about the whisky industry on both sides of the Atlantic before we finally decide we'd better drive home. I think Disney's inspiration for Space Mountain came from the Scottish Highlands. When it's dark, you see nothing but the bit illuminated by your headlights. And the roads twist and wind and bend, jerking you side to side without warning. We take the road to Aberfeldy slowly because it's dark and we're tired and that was a lot of whiskey even over a sandwich and a couple hours. A leisurely late dinner at the hotel rounds out the sandwich snack nicely. Scones with cream and jam for the sweet (dessert) and ... yawn ... nothing like good whiskey to make you sleep like a rock. � � � 
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