After a wonderful night on the royal Yacht we had to get up bright and early to change hotels. We are off to Inverness. Along the way we are stopping off to visit Scone Palace (pronounced scoon/scune not scone like the pastry). Scone Palace got its start as the location where all Scottish Kings must be crowned and all were until James IV in 1488. It was the site of a priory as far back as 1114 and became an Abby before the turn of the century. Kings were originally enthroned at Scone on the Stone of Scone before they were also crowned in 1249 with the crowning of Alexander III. After Robert the Bruce’s crowning in 1306 when the English seized the stone and took it to Westminster. It has now been returned to Scotland but it is in a museum in Perth and not back on Moot Hill at scone Palace.

The Abby was eventually raided during the reformation and burned. There are no traces of it today. The current palace was built in 1803 on the grounds of the medieval manor house and has a more modern feel. It is a beautiful home used by the current Viscount Stormont the son of the Earl of Mansfield. We actually saw him wandering the grounds while looking for the maze. Before I knew who he was I thought he was the most quintessential modern Scotsman I had ever seen. It was like he walked right out of central casting. He had on a plaid quilted vest with a padded shoulder I assume for his hunting rifle and a dog, he perfectly fit the setting.

The inside of the house was more Victorian and was mainly filled with family portraits. The first Earl of Mansfield was involved in the abolitionist movement and ruled on several cases that helped end the slave trade in England. The movie Belle is about his younger brother’s daughter Dido Elizabeth Belle whose mother had been a Cuban slave. There is a portrait of her and her cousin in the house hanging beside one of her father.

No photos were allowed in the house so I have nothing to show from the insides but the outsides were lovely. Several peacocks were roaming around but sadly never caught one with its feathers up.

We had a great lunch of soup and sandwiches in the old kitchen that displayed more cooper pots than I have ever seen. After lunch val and I headed off to try the star shaped maze and ran into Julien also looking for it. I had thought to take a photo of the map of the grounds but neither Val or Julien would listen to me and we had to backtrack several times to get to a trail on the right side of the fence to get to the maze. We passed by 2 before eventually having to come back and use the second one. Of course they both said they knew that was where we should have gone but yet we still walked way out of our way before turning back.

The maze was pretty simple and we used the all left turn rule and made it to the center with no dead ends. So it took us 3 wrong turns about 10 minutes backtracking to find the maze and about 2 minutes to do it. I did feel good when the little girl who entered after us didn’t end up beating us through the maze. It looked close for a while but she missed a turn at the end and we swooped by for the win.

From there we headed up through the highlands to Inverness. The scenery was lovely. The hills turned into mountains and the trees to heather. Sadly heather blooms in July and August so we didn’t see it at its best but still quite beautiful in its harshness.

We arrived at our hotel after a long day on the bus. The room is a bit funky with the toilet in a separate room from the shower and the mirror. There are sinks in both rooms but they didn’t put a mirror in with the toilet which seemed like poor planning.

Dinner tonight was at the hotel and it was sadly not a repeat of the superb service we had received the night before. We sat down at 7:30 and were still waiting for our dinner after 9. There were not a lot of options and I went with the venison which I can’t say I enjoyed. The first course had been a piece of salmon which might have been smoked or might have been raw I am not sure. I took a few bites but that was all I could do. The venison was basically the same. It was so dark I couldn’t tell if it was raw or just really gummy. Again a few bites and done. Dessert however was delicious. By the time we were finished everyone was really tired and Alison and Sarah raced through their talk on MQS in film and TV. It got a bit racy so not sure if they were tired or had a bit too much of the free flowing wine.

A good time was had by all.