June 4, 2019
I am a lucky woman! After several months of planning and
rearranging schedules, I am once again in Scotland! This time around I am
traveling with my dear friends Joan and Dana, a mother/daughter duo. I met Dana
in 2014 at my first Thru The stones convention. Our mutual love of Outlander
precipitated our relationship and I traveled with Dana and some of her family
and friends during June of 2015 on my first trip to Scotland and this was where
I met Dana’s mom, Joan.
Fast forward to February of this year and a wedding
invitation! A lovely couple I met during that first trip to Scotland was Chris
and Christie. They both worked at the spectacular Uig Lodge on the Isle of
Lewis where we stayed. Chris and I kept in touch and when I found myself again
in Scotland later that year this time with my sister Ginny. Gin and I stayed
with Chris & Christie for several days and could tell they were in love!
Soon an engagement was announced ad then in February of this year I received
their wedding invitation! What a wonderful excuse to head back to Scotland and
share their joyous day! I started planning and asked Dana if she would like to
join me and happily she said yes! Lastly, Joan was on board for another trip
and the planning began!
Now we are only a couple of days away from Chris and
Christie’s wedding day and I will be lucky enough to be in attendance! I
boarded a plane on Monday, June 3, bound for Chicago, meeting up there with
Dana and Joan, for the following overnight flight to Edinburgh. The flight was
uneventful enough and we arrived in Edinburgh with sunny skies for our first
day! We first had to do the immediate vacation needs of picking up our rental
car – Joan is driving, not me! – buying Sim cards for our phones, and hitting
up the ATM for British Pounds. Now we were ready to explore!
Our first stop was the fictional ancestral home of the
Outlander Frasers, Lallybroch! In real life its name is Midhope Castle and in
spite of my having visited twice before, the sight of walking up the pebbled
drive to the stone building built in 1458 never disappoints! It is like coming
home for true Outlander fans and I savored the moments taking lots of photos
and imagining what it may have been like living here over 500 years ago. The
castle now is unsafe inside and used only for exterior shots in the television
series. But it is quite fun to sit on the same steps where Claire waits for
Jamie to come home and gaze at the building where so many iconic Outlander
moments occur and presumably will again take place as the story continues to
unfold in the coming years. The day was sunny and beautiful with brilliant
colors – blue skies with a few grey and white clouds and we found ourselves
lingering, hating to leave. But we must move on and as we prepared to depart we
walked the short distance down the fern, ivy, and evergreen tree lined path into
the woods to the stream and location where the infamous cave scene was filmed. Breathing
in the pine fragrance I could almost imagine what the area may have been like
when first settled and deer were the main mammals
to walk this area. Ahhhh, Lallybroch! I hope to return! You are in my soul!
After a few wrong
turns – Google maps is not perfect here in the backwoods of Scotland – we made
our way to Hopetoun House which is quite near Midhope Castle and actually on
the same estate property. Hopetoun is still a working estate and the house is
still inhabited by a family. The Earl of Hopetoun, his wife and children live
in one wing of the massive estate home and the rest is open to the public. These
huge castles and estates find themselves needing to open to the public to earn
the extra coin to maintain these massive structures and grounds. We first
enjoyed a stop at the Stables Kitchen. A fruit filled scone covered with cream
and hot ginger tea really hit the spot to this weary traveler. We joined a
guided tour of the estate house learning its history. Quite interesting to us
Outlander fans was Hopetoun House’s connection with the Outlander production.
The estate was featured in many scenes in the show including the Duke of
Sandringham’s residence, some of the Parisian scenes and several scenes from
the Helwater and the Elsmere estates. Some Paris street scenes were filmed here
as well as the attack scene on Mary and Claire. Jamie chased Fergus here and
sword fought with the McDonalds here. Hopetoun House was used for filming the
scene where Jamie saw wee Willie in a pram and where he dropped Geneva in a mud
puddle plus several more. We actually see it quite a lot of this property in
the show only we don’t realize it because it is portraying several sites.
As all these great estates are, it was opulent and over the
top in decorating. Rich colors are used and the ceilings are covered with
beautiful plaster work designs. A circular staircase boasts richly carved
designs in the woodwork and huge pictures flanking the walls. It was truly
beautiful!
After touring the house interior we went outside and walked
around the house and found huge purple rhododendrons. They were in full bloom
and attracted dozens of large bumblebees. We loved watching these winged
wonders with their fat little bums covered in pollen. We took lots and lots of
photos here trying to catch the bees in a good shot but they are fast little
buggers and it was challenging. Of course, here was a great opportunity for a
pretty backdrop for pictures of us and we hammed it up for the camera. We also
peered down into the growth structure of the trees and considered how
challenging it would be for Roger in Outlander to navigate through the “Rhododendron
Hell.” As we moseyed on we ran across a big patch of the all-important to the Outlander story, Forget-Me-Nots!
Walking back to our car we enjoyed seeing numerous black
sheep browsing the grounds. They were kept in place by a five foot Ha-Ha. What
is a ha-ha you ask…well I did not know either and looked it up. A ha-ha is a
type of sunken fence forming a dry ditch that was commonly used in landscaped
gardens and parks in the eighteenth century. There ya go! You learned something
new today and so did I!
It was a short drive to our night’s lodging apartment in Linlithgow.
After we took our luggage into the flat and finally figured out how the locks
work, we went to a local pub called the Four Mary’s where I ate scampi and
chips (fries). Yum yum! By now it had been about 30 hours since we have slept
and we were eager for our beds. As we went to our car we dodged raindrops and
were happy to be calling it an early night. After all, there are more
adventures in store for these Illinois travelers tomorrow!
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