Goodbye Scotland - An Ayrshire week

A week in Ayrshire, the south west of Scotland. We have been combing graveyards again for S and T's ancestors. We also went to Wigtown - Scotland's book town.

Most of the shops in Wigtown are second hand book shops! There are 13 of them!

Real bookshops!

Full of books!

Hidden away.

And there was a library as well.

More castles. Culzean Castle is an impressive country home over looking the sea to Aran. Its early nasty owners once kidnapped, oiled and roasted a neighbour alive until he relented and gave them the land they wanted. I always knew the real estate business could be cut-throat but that was a bit extreme!

Even the cow and pig sheds where we ate lunch and watched a pipe band from Canada, look like a castle.

Drumlanrig Castle has over 300 years of history and still belongs to the same family. Several years ago one of their paintings was stolen during a guided tour. The thieves took it from the wall while the guide was not looking and passed it out of the window! It was a Leonadro Da Vinci painting worth over £100 million! Unlike most historic homes which are furnished in a style to suit their age, house is filled with original treasures belonging to the family. They did get their Da Vinci painting back.

We hopped on the ferry for a day trip to Aran. Aran was beautiful.

Did you know that the granite discs used in the sport of curling are all made from stone from Ailsa Craig off the west coast of Ayrshire?

The week ended a little sadly as we had to return Tanya to her friends for their return to Tassie.  Lucky, we had a dozen rolls of toilet paper in the boot of the car, in case of teary goodbyes. (We bought way more toilet paper than we needed)

Sadly, tomorrow we say goodbye to Scotland. (We are going down to the Lakes district in England.)We might need that toilet paper after all.