The Scottish Borders

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Melrose & Melrose Abbey

I woke mom up around 8:00am and we went down for breakfast at the hotel about 9:00, almost all of the places we’re staying at have breakfast included in the room rate, which is very cool. I had a fried egg, bacon and a potato scone. Not bad, but the potato scone is a little weird. Mom wanted to buy some stamps to mail postcards. She got directions from the hotel to the post office, but couldn’t remember where to cut through to the next street over, so we walked all the way around the block.

Stopped at a little store and bought some water, then we got in the car and programmed Melrose Abbey into the GPS. Okay - it turned out that Melrose Abbey was only about 100yds from the hotel! It was literally at the end of the street where the post office is - Duh! We could have easily left the car at the hotel and walked there in less than five minutes. So we spent about an hour or so walking around the Abbey ruins and the graveyard around it. The Abbey is a very beautiful ruin - it’s just amazing the scale of it too. The Abbey was built around 1136 and was enlarged and embellished later. There’s quite a bit of the Abbey still standing. The Abbey is thought to be the burial place of Robert the Bruce’s heart, marked with a commemorative carved stone plaque within the grounds.

The sun was out and the sky was a gorgeous bright blue, it was maybe 20 Celsius, not terribly hot, but the sun was really warm and we were sweltering in jeans and sturdy shoes. We found out at Melrose that sturdy shoes are a must for touring castles, ruins and such as many places have cobblestones or just uneven stones that are treacherous to walk on!

Abbotsford House

Back to the car and off to Abbotsford House, Sir Walter Scott’s home which is located close to Melrose on the south bank of the River Tweed. There were hardly any visitors there so mom and I got our own personal guided tour, which was pretty cool. The guide’s last name was also Scott although he was not a relation of Sir Walter. He was really knowledgeable about Sir Walter and Abbotsford House. He had some great stories and anecdotes. For instance I hadn’t known that Sir Walter wrote ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive’ in one of his poems - Marmion. People have mistakenly attributed this to Shakespeare. The front room was really like a museum of all the things that Sir Walter had collected over the years and was filled with armor and all sorts of things with historical importance. The study was left basically the same as Sir Walter left it with all his books, his desk and his chair still in place. He actually has a little bedroom off the study reached from the 2nd floor gallery of the study so he could spend as much time as possible writing at the end of the day. The gardens were just stunning also with a lovely view down to the River Tweed. I got some beautiful photos of the house from the garden. Loved this place and could have spent hours there if not for wanting to see a few other properties as well this day.

Floors Castle

We left Abbotsford House about 1:30 and headed to Kelso and Floors Castle. Floors Castle is the largest inhabited castle in Scotland and the Duke and Duchess of Roxeburghe and their family are still in residence. Luckily we were able to use the British Heritage passes there because I thought it was a bit disappointing, there really weren’t very many rooms open to the public although the castle is just immense. We were famished when we go there so first we went to the castle café and each got a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and a piece of lemon meringue pie plus water, a soda and a tea. It cost £19 (about $35 US)! The sandwiches were called toasties and they were delicious, I think mostly you get cheddar cheese in the UK when you order a grilled cheese sandwich. We then did the castle tour and took some photos of the outside of the castle. I think some of the disappointment in the castle tour was because the guide just wasn’t that interesting compared to the one at Abbotsford House. The exterior is just gorgeous with amazing views of the River Tweed. We stopped to visit some really friendly horses on the way out.

Dryburgh Abbey

We ended up turning the wrong way out of the castle exit (it’s not the same way you come in) as I couldn’t figure out which way the GPS wanted us to go. Anyway since the GPS recalculated quickly I figured we would continue on in the direction we were heading instead of turning around. The error of this logic would quickly become apparent as the GPS then sent us down several single track roads. That was interesting and not in a good way! At one point we were driving down a muddy single track road that would have been perfect for the quads! Luckily we only ended up meeting one other car and they pulled into their passing place - whew! We got to a junction in the road that had a sign - to the left was Dryburgh Abbey and to the right was Scotts View. We decided to go left to the Abbey as it was closing at 5:30 which was only 45 minutes away. This Abbey is where Sir Walter Scott is buried

Dryburgh Abbey was also really beautiful. There was a wedding rehearsal going on for a wedding ceremony the next day. This kind of made it hard to see the Presbytery, the east end of the Abbey Church which was really nice. The attendants said we should have just gone wherever we wanted at the Abbey regardless of the wedding party as the Abbey is open to the public even when a wedding is in progress. But we didn't want to intruded so we walked around everywhere else. The day was just spectacular weather wise, some clouds but also times with the bluest sky. There were the coolest blonde cows in a field near the car park too!

William Wallace Statue & Scotts View

On the way back to the hotel we wanted to stop at the William Wallace statue and at Scott’s View. The GPS didn’t recognize either of them, but I remembered seeing the sign back at the junction when we turned left for Dryburgh Abbey. So I backtracked and actually managed to find the sign I remembered! It was only about 2 miles back the way we came, so it probably wasn’t all that amazing!! We almost passed the sign for the William Wallace statue, but saw it at the last minute and pulled into the car park. At first we couldn’t even figure out how to open the gate to the trail! Finally I figured out the mechanism. The statue is on private land and is reached via a fairly long path through the woods. The path gently sloped upwards for about a quarter mile and we came upon this enormous statue - it was about 30 feet tall!! Mom stood next to it so I could take a photo with her as a scale reference. Vandals have painted the statues shield in blue and white, it doesn’t look horrible, but it’s not supposed to be painted at all. Another lovely view from here is of the River Tweed.

Finally we made it to Scotts View and of course the view was facing west into the setting sun (it was now about 5:45). So I snapped off a few photos anyway and we chatted with a nice family who were picnicking there. The view is beautiful and I can see why Sir Walter would stop there whenever he passed by.

Burts Hotel

We must have gone in a giant circle as it turns out we were only about a ten minute ride from the hotel. We got up to the room and it was like an oven! We decided we should prop open the windows (they opened out from the bottom maybe 3 inches) and go out to dinner. We stopped at the desk and asked for a recommendation on places to eat and a fan! The desk clerk looked a bit unhappy that we weren’t eating at the hotel again, but she did recommend a fabulous Italian place right around the corner called Monte Cassino. I had spaghetti napoli and mom had fettuccine with sausage and cream sauce - oh and we had some garlic bread with mozzarella cheese too. The food was really delicious!! We got back to Burts and checked on the fan - the desk clerk promised to look for one and bring it up and she did!

Now we’re starting to get a feel for how much can be done reasonably in a day of sightseeing and how many things we are not going to be able to get to see! We wanted to repack every thing so we could have one small bag each to bring into the hotels the next couple of nights since we were only staying one night each at the next two hotels. It took quite a bit of time to redo everything and get organized. We were both exhausted from our busy day so I finished this journal entry around 11pm and put on the arm brace and went to sleep!

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