Today we ventured to a few castles and a garden.

1st up is the Ardmaddy Castle & gardens a short trip from where we are staying. The drive up to the castle and gardens is quite stunning as we pass moss covered stonewalls on both sides and the canopy seems to close in on us. We pull into the car park and immediately a young timid female Labrador comes out to greet us. Well off to a pretty good start I’d say. The gardens opens up into a wonderland of native plants and flowers. I must say I have a weakness for some gardens and this one gets me buckling to my knees. I’m not a big fan of the typical English gardens with their topiaries & their manicured look, well this one has very little of that. Plants are left to their own natural shapes and sizes but not overly crowded as to seem unkept. My eyes seem to dart from one side of the paths to the other and I do recognize a large majority of the plants which pleases me to some degree. We walk through a few gates to even more areas that call out to spend more time there with them. Unfortunately, it begins to rain a little harder and we vow to leave but to come back and explore further before we depart this part of Scotland.

5 Stars for sure.

Oh yes the Castle was pretty nice too, although it’s apparently a private area under some renovations so we didn’t get very close.

Next up is the Dunstaffnage Castle and Chapel it is a partially ruined castle in Argyll and Bute, western Scotland. Pretty interesting castle that we were able to walk through and learn some of its history.

Tomorrow’s original trip to the Isle of Mull has been postponed due to the possibility of nasty weather. We have been told that when the weather gets bad (windy) they sometimes suspend ferry service to & from the island and we don’t want to get caught over there. So tomorrow we plan on going to Kilmartin.

“If you want to be happy, be.” – Leo Tolstoy