Day 5 Scone Palace & Pitlochry

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Day 5

Scone Palace & Pitlochry

We leave Edinburgh and head north towards the highlands. Crossing the Forth Bridge we head for Perth.

First stop is Scone Palace (pronounced “skoon”) Why skoon you ask??? I did ask. Not very good answers. It would appear that early in history the names were passed on phonetically and not written down. Most people could not read. This is why there are so many weird pronunciations. We actually did have a scone at Scone Palace.

Scone Palace has a multitude of stories but 2 are most prominent.

1- The Crowning place of most of Scotland’s Kings. It started out as the home of an Abbey which covered a huge portion of the property. The palace today started out as the Abbot’s Palace and remained after the main portion was destroyed during the reformation of the 1500’s when crazed protestants destroyed the Abbey itself. All the while Moot Hill was the place where the Stone of Destiny was used as a seat for the kings during their coronation.



2- The Earl of Mansfield took under his wing a slave girl who was with his nephew and was later raised as a free woman. Considering the year was 1793 it makes for a fascinating story. Watch the movie “Belle”



Next we are off to Pitlochry, Edradour distillery and the Fisher Hotel.

Forgive me while I go on a bit of a rant. When arriving at Edradour we discovered that they don’t have tastings without going on a tour. The tour costs 20 GBP per person. Seriously??? Even after letting the 2 attendants know how many tours we have been on we still were not allowed to walk the 20 yards to the tasting room. How many people out there will spend $100.00 or more on something without knowing what you are buying???

Finished up at the distillery and headed for the hotel, then a little shopping, dinner & the Whisky Bar.



Tomorrow into the Highlands

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Photos

Moot Hill
Stone of Destiny(copy) in the foreground

Peacocks
Noisey creatures all over the grounds

Fortingall Yew
5000 year old tree