castle #1!

Our dinner avec Calvin. A touristy plan is hatched.

The weather this weekend was really great. No clouds, wildly pleasant temperatures, lots of shirtless Scottish people getting burned- we thought maybe this was like the normal start to summer but people on the radio were talking about how crazily nice it was, so this is probably an UnScottish anomaly. Whatever's in the future, this weekend we decided to try a touristy trip out with Calvin. Our target was Glamis castle, which is only twenty minutes or so from Dundee.

Our destination: Glamis castle.

People still live here, and the castle grounds are the kind of thing that makes you think it might have been nice to have been idle, rich and British at the turn of the last century. The late Queen Mother spent her childhood here, they tell you all about it on the tour. Before seeing the castle we wandered the grounds, were surprised to see a Giant Redwood this far from California, and took in the Italian gardens.

Wandering around the gardens.

Taking shelter from the famously harsh and unrelenting Scottish sun in a gazebo.

The tour had us a little worried- there's no option to walk by yourself, so you're stuck on a 50 minute guided deal. Calvin made a few noises but he pretty much slept through the whole thing, so he earned all the 'Future Champion' and 'Little Star' onesies that he's been wearing. Anyway, his first castle is in the books, succesfully, and now he's tuckered out.

Calvin thinks that castles that ban photography are stupid.