Water, wildlife and wonders... a road trip around Scotland COMPLETED 11/6 - Page 54 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Love the mirror reflections of the trees on the lake! Breakfast looked very good but not only did they leave out the hollandaise sauce but they didn't include any smoked salmon either as that's a must!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Monday 19 June – part two: finding Royal warrants…
We stopped in the town of Ballater, which is famous for its shops having lots of Royal warrants. These are given to suppliers to the Royal family, and as we’d find out later at Balmoral Castle, there are three – one from the Queen, one from the Duke of Edinburgh, and one from the Prince of Wales. We only found the first and the last on our travels. Of course, a lot of places here have the warrants because it’s the closest town to Balmoral Castle.
We spotted some…
… then walked over to the bridge over the River Dee…
We then headed back through the town, plaque spotting, and getting some other general shots on the way…
Once we were done with photos, we made our way over to Balmoral…
When we got there, the GPS was still telling us we had a mile and a half to get there, but I guess it was trying to take us to the castle itself, rather than the car park, as we were right by it, so we parked up. You head over this bridge…
… and then the ticket office is just over the bridge.
Beautiful river photos. And the town is so cute! Very picturesque. I love how the signs list the things that they sell. More than just one specialty!
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Tanya
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Ballater looks like a lovely town, plaques and all. The Balmoral Castle photos are looking familiar because of all the shows I've watched recently commemorating Princess Diana.
Great photos and Balmoral Castle already looks amazing even from the introduction! Looking forward to full coverage of the castle during your tour! I expect nothing less from you!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Ballater looks like a lovely town, plaques and all. The Balmoral Castle photos are looking familiar because of all the shows I've watched recently commemorating Princess Diana.
Same here. Every time we've watched one of those programmes, we've been saying to each other "I remember that"!
Great photos and Balmoral Castle already looks amazing even from the introduction! Looking forward to full coverage of the castle during your tour! I expect nothing less from you!
You'll get as much coverage as I can give you, but as you'll find as we go through this, we didn't get to see as much as we were hoping to.
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Monday 19 June – part three: the highlight of my day!
We bought our tickets for Balmoral, but we’d just missed the land train that runs up there. However, Mari called me over for what was definitely the highlight of my day – a red squirrel sighting! He’d just been fed, and they have a webcam set up where you can see him. I really wanted to see one this trip, and this was just amazing.
The time passed quickly until the land train arrived, and we got on. While we were waiting to leave, I got some photos of the birds at their feeders…
With hindsight later on, I think this is what caused me problems, as we were sitting side on, and I think I got motion sickness, but more of that to come…
We arrived here, and got our audio guides for this. In truth, I wasn’t that impressed with it. I only listened to the first couple of instalments, and it just wasn’t telling me much.
We headed into an exhibition first, and the first thing we saw was this, which was ironic, given we’d just been seeing them first hand!
This was an introduction to Balmoral, and contained an eclectic collection of items, and photos, as you can see…
I was particularly taken with this bit…
I was a bit staggered by all the wildlife here, as shown in this display…
It does stick in my throat a bit that some of this gets shot on the estate though. I guess it’s life, but I just find it a bit hard to deal with – and yes I know that with some animals, such as grouse, it does help to control the population, but even so…
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Breakfast looked very good but not only did they leave out the hollandaise sauce but they didn't include any smoked salmon either as that's a must! 
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Pixie Dust
That view would definitely spoil one to hang around longer. 
PassPorter Guide Author
I checked last night and it's not a million miles from Aberdeen, so maybe we can get back there for a quick weekend at some point... 
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