Hannah and Stonehaven/Dunnotter Castle

Alright. Well my mom harassed me and told me via skype that I better hurry up and write this so she could read it (why I couldn't tell her about it via skype is a mystery...oh well). At any rate, this has been by far my favorite thing so far here in the UK. It was absolutely beautiful, I would say probably the most beautiful place I've ever been and if not, definitely in the top three.

We headed off to Stonehaven early on Sunday morning. The 'we' I will be referring to on this particular outing consisted of all the K people (we organized ourselves into a little field trip, it was kind of cute actually) plus a very nice German student who is also studying at Aberdeen for a semester. So there were 13 of us in all.

The first task was finding the train station in Aberdeen, which is downtown (or in town, apparently 'downtown' is not a thing here). We walked from from Hillhead to the train station, which took a little under an hour and got our tickets without much hassle. I even scored a map of Stonehaven (a photocopied one, but good nonetheless) from the very nice conductor who sold me my ticket.

It was only a twenty minute ride from Aberdeen to Stonehaven on the train, the trains are very efficient at least from what I saw of them. They remind me of the Metra in Chicago. Nice and clean and fast. So basically the opposite of the 'L' (even though I love the 'L' because it gets me where I need to go most of the time, it can also be ridiculous).

Once we were in Stonehaven we walked into town which was very nice and cute. It only took us a few minutes from there, to find the trail that goes up to Dunnotter Castle. This castle is quite famous as it is very beautiful and the ruins are fairly well intact. So we set off on this trail, which took us past the beach: 

The harbor:

Some beautiful gardens:

Up a fairly steep path:

There we go like duckies in a row

Up up up

And up some more

 Until we reached a field at the top of the hill/cliff thing.

Lots of fields on one side

And the sea on the other

We also came upon a war monument at the top of this cliff

 Then we passed some cows:

 Made our way around the edge of the cliff:

 Until we caught sight of Dunnotter Castle!

It was very windy up there

 It took us quite a while, but we finally got close to Dunnotter Castle.

 We headed down many, many steps until we were at the foot of the castle. Then we climbed up the steps towards the castle and entered into the first of the old buildings:

We went through a passage, paid the fee for entering the castle, and came out into a wide grassy area that had more than a dozen ruins spread out across it.

The views from the castle were absolutely spectacular, especially of the sea. 

There I am creeping in the darkness off to the side

We could see part of the path we had take to get there

The sky and the water were both so blue, and the grass so green. The colors were incredible.

We had a good time wandering around all the different rooms

And finding what we assume were places for soldiers to look out of and perhaps shoot out of when defending the castle.

This is what I'm talking about. Amazing. This is the kind of castle I had in mind when I came here.

One of my favorite views, if I could wake up and see that, I would be beyond happy.

We got really lucky in that we had what I would call the perfect weather for this trip, not only was it sunny, it was also breezy and not too warm so when we were doing all that walking we didn't get too hot.

Another one of my favorite views. This is looking straight down from one of the windows.

It was very breezy up here as well, I felt like I was going to get blown out a window.

I honestly have never seen anything like this. This was the day that I was picturing when I decided I wanted to study abroad in Scotland.

Once we had satisfied our curiosity about the castle we headed back towards Stonehaven. Although, I could have stayed there forever and still have been overwhelmed and happy to have been there, and there is no hyperbole intended here, it was that amazing. By this time we were all quite tired and hungry. When we finally made out way back to town we found a restaurant willing to deal with our large group and had a tasty lunch. Sitting down at that point was fantastic. Then we had to walk back to the train station to get back to Aberdeen. We determined that we probably walked over ten miles (much of it uphill) that day. Lots of walking. I found myself back at my flat later that afternoon with sore feet, a tired body, a camera full of beautiful pictures, and a head full of amazing memories. It was definitely worth the effort. If ever any of you are in Scotland I highly recommend a visit to Dunnotter Castle, I can't put into words nor can pictures do justice to the feeling and look of that place.

Up next: I've had my first week of classes. How did it go you ask? Well I'll tell you, in the next post!


Didn't get enough of Stonehaven and Dunnotter? Visit my facebook to see some more pictures! http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150318277321236.359516.693511235