Road Diary
June 1999 -- Part VIII
Gardens, Dracula & Dunnottar Ghosts
By Dick Sutphen

JUNE 16, WEDNESDAY: For several days, Tara has been saying, "It would be nice to visit the Royal Botanic Garden."

"The garden? Right, but let's wait for a sunny day," I say. Or, "Sure, we could go today, but we'd miss seeing pipers eat lunch in the park."

This morning the sun is shining.

"No more excuses," Tara says.

"The garden," I say, thinking, Let's just get it over with. Shouldn't take long. After all, how big can a garden be?

Well, I'll tell you. DAMN BIG! This garden covers the northern half of Edinburgh. Twenty-seven hectares, whatever they are.

Once you're inside the front gate, they give you Disneyland-like choices. "Gee, where do we start? There's the 'Glasshouse Experience,' 'Woodland and Peat Gardens,' or 'Alpine Courtyards.' They're all in this section."

Tara and Cheyenne are excited. Hunter asks me how I let this happen.

Judging from the map, the real E-ticket ride is the Chinese Collection. "We'd better build up to that one," I say.

"Because we wouldn't want to become overly excited," Hunter says.

Tara looks at us out of the corner of her eye.

"We could get lost in here. People will say, 'The last we heard of the Sutphens, they were going to the Royal Botanic Garden.'"

"Richard!"

Admission is free, but once they have you drooling over green things, they hit you with fees. The Glasshouse Experience is a greenhouse filled with palm trees for only £2.50 -- $4.33 US.

"I'm not paying to see palm trees. I'm surrounded by palm trees at home," I say.

The girls have the Glasshouse Experience. Hunter and I sit on a park bench and do our best to terrorize pigeons and intimidate squirrels.

Who comes to the garden? Elderly women and young women with babies in strollers. I think every stroller in Edinburgh is here today. Men are outnumbered thirty to one. And I will go so far as to state, not one of the few men in attendance awakened this morning and said, "Wouldn't it be nice to visit the Royal Garden today?"

I would be surprised if in the entire history of gardens, a single male ever suggested visiting such a place unless he had ulterior motives. Maybe if I take her to the gardens, I can get laid. Sure, there's always that.

This garden, if you're into such things, must be the alpha and omega of gardens. Everything on the planet that grows in the ground is here and properly labeled. Think a combination of golf course, a well-kept cemetery and garden, with cafe and souvenir shop. Royal Botanic was founded in 1670 -- in its present location since 1820 -- so they've had a little time to get it right. Given 300-plus years, maybe even I could come up with a spectacular garden.

As an interesting aside, a brown and pink pigeon falls in love with Tara and starts to follow her through the garden. She talks to it. The bird ruffles it's feathers, does a little sideways dance and keeps pace a few feet behind. Finally, when we sit on a parkbench, the bird moves to a position directly in front of my wife.

She talks to it.

The bird shits.

"Oh, that's a good omen," Tara says.

"Oh, come on?" I say. "You just made that up. No way a pigeon taking a dump can be considered a good omen."

"It is."

"According to what cosmic-foo-foo thinking? All pigeons do is peck, peck, peck, shit. That's it, over and over."

"You'll see."

Later, as I'm writing this, I realize I didn't get hit by a Black Cab on my way home. We timed our dinner at Scottish Bistro to coincide with a torrential downpour. Then we walked off our dinner on George Street and found James Thin Bookstore open for browsing.

Tara's right, pigeon shit is a good omen.

Back to Dinner at A Room In The Town Scottish Bistro: Not only does this restaurant offer palate-pleasing gourmet fare, you get to eat it beneath a kinky mural. First, in case you didn't know, if you wear a kilt, you're not to wear anything beneath it. No jock strap, no underwear. To in any way impede the natural swing of things is very unScottish. Back to the mural. Our table sat beneath the portion of the painting in which a Scot in full Highland dress is dancing on top of a table and lifting his kilt to flash the waitress. The woman is shocked. Two women sitting on chairs are pointing at what the waitress is seeing.

When we go back, I want to sit two tables down, beneath the man holding a woman's breast while he talks to her.

JUNE 17, THURSDAY: I get up at 6:30 AM to do my work, run it to the post office and do some grocery shopping before 10 AM, which is when the Theatre Royal box office opens in Glasgow. The Northern Ballet Theatre group is presenting Dracula. The ad quotes a reviewer's words: "Successful, cracking good theatre ... as chilling and flesh crawling as one could wish."

Backstory: My wife abhors violence and refuses to watch most scary movies. But she loves Dracula -- loves all things vampire. "They're highly erotic," she says, raising her eyebrows.

Being bitten on the neck and forced to live in a coffin is far too kinky for me, but to each his own -- or her own.

I call the Glasgow box office. They have tickets for today's matinee.

"Yes," says Tara.

"Yes," says Cheyenne.

"A ballet?" says Hunter. "Not after yesterday's garden torture."

"Think vampires and scantily dressed women," I say. "We have to get to Glasgow and be in our seats by 2:15."

Living in Scotland means cultural over-choice in an environment that allows you to be spontaneous. Sure, living in Los Angeles we have the same kind of choices, but the distances and hassle are not conducive to participation. If we want to attend a popular concert, we have to call Ticket Master the exact minute the tickets go on sale. The line will be busy, but you hit redial 50 times until they finally answer. "Sorry, it's sold out. You should have called earlier." 

I'm not exaggerating. Concerts often sell out in five to ten minutes.

Of course, greater Los Angeles is home to seven to fifteen-million people, depending upon the boundaries you include in your count. But smaller American cities, where distance and hassle would not be factors, do not offer the range of activities available here.

We take the 11:22 AM train to Glasgow, walk out of the train station and a few blocks up the street to Theatre Royal. Tickets are advertised at £27.50, and I'm hoping they will be less for the matinee. I ask the ticket lady what seats she has available.

"Let's see. We've closed the upper balcony, but I'll give you that price for four tickets right here," she points. "Five pounds each."

This is in keeping with our Scottish-theater-ticket karma.

Tara and the children are sitting in the Theatre Cafe having tea. I wave the tickets. "Fifth row, almost center."

The performance is nearly full, so to obtain these seats is a stroke of luck.

"The ticket lady thought you were cute," Tara says.

"Scottish-ticket karma," I say. "We must have provided people with free plays in past lives."

"Nah, ticket lady thought you were cute."

Dracula is presented with a full orchestra, large cast and is an awesome production. "Chilling and flesh crawling" for sure! When the door to the tomb explodes, Tara and I nearly jump out of our seats. Hunter wakes up. Jonathan Harker and Dr. Van Helsing rush down the stairs holding crucifixes, a hammer and wooden stake. Dracula dances all over on his tippy toes to avoid being dispatched to vampire hell. And all the while, the orchestra overly dramatizes the events on stage. Da-boom, da-boom, da-boom! Wow!

I don't want to pretend to be a connoisseur of ballet. You could fit all I know on the subject on a single page in my shirt-pocket notebook. But when in Scotland, we do ballet. I don't know why this is. In 1996, we watched the NBT perform Cinderella. We hope to see Carmen in a week or two.

Let's talk about Glasgow. My previous visits have been dashes through town to catch a train. Today, we won't have a chance to see much more. But we seek out the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. "I have a daughter who wants to be an actress. Do you have a school catalog I could have?" I say to the matronly woman at the administration desk. She scowls at me as if I'd lifted my kilt. Begrudgingly, she gets up, walks three feet, retrieves a catalog and flicks the book across the counter without a word. This, from a school that charges tuition on a level with Harvard. Maybe I should have lifted my kilt.

There is a sense of hustle/bustle here that echoes New York City. In a seafood restaurant that will remain nameless, the waitress is surly, displays a sense of desperation and brings Tara's meal five minutes after I've finished mine. In paying her, she short changes me £1.50.

Gillian Anderson of the X Files is in town making a movie. Glasgow is doubling for turn-of-the-century New York. But from what I see of downtown, they will have to do some very selective camera work. Beautiful Victorian buildings stand side by side with structures I'd call 1960s dreadful.

According to the book, Scotland the Facts, 1998 edition, the population of Glasgow is 662,954 while the capital city of Edinburgh is 401,910. Glasgow receives over twice as much annual rain as Edinburgh, although Glasgow somehow manages a few more sunny days. The natural assumption is that instead of the spitty rain we experience so much in Edinburgh, the people in Glasgow get downpours.

Time Out is a slick kicky magazine offering events listings in major cities. I wouldn't think of going to New York or London without picking up the current issue. They're also in the guide-book business and I have the new Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lothian, Fife edition. Here's a quote:

"Glasgow and Edinburgh traditionally 'enjoy' the splenetic relationship of warring neighbours. Denizens of Edinburgh refer to 'Weegie soap-dodgers"; Glaswegians trumpet their city's friendly reputation -- in contrast to Edinburgh's aloof coldness. And so the sweeping generalizations persist."

 Weegie or weedgie (pronounced wee-gie) is a derogatory Edinburgh name for a person from Glasgow. "Us against them," clan mentality is still evident. Historically, if the clans didn't have a common enemy to bring them together, they fought each other. 

A few years ago, I was in a discussion with a Scotsman and I asked him why they didn't allow Catholics to serve in the Scottish military.

"Because they're Catholics," he said.

He might just as easily have said, "Because they're Campbells," or "Because they're Glaswegians."

Back to the Time Out quote: Just for the record, never have I experienced "aloof coldness" in Edinburgh.

The train ride back to Edinburgh takes an hour. Between the two cities are green rolling hills dotted with cattle and sheep. Hedgerows or ancient stone walls divide many fields, but post-and-barb-wire fencing is more apparent. Stone-house farms can be spotted on occasion, but most are stucco square boxes with steep roofs to displace heavy snow.

When the train stops at small towns, I read the newspaper. The Scotsman reports on the need to replace the wooden benches in Princes Street Gardens with plastic or concrete benches. Councillors say they can no longer justify wood "because of the environmental impact of industrial forestry."

Give me a break. By canceling production of the five Scottish tabloids for just one day, you'd save enough trees to have enough wood to place benches from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

JUNE 18, FRIDAY: Living simply wasn't so bad until Tara and Cheyenne went to the stamp store. Up until then, I could set up my computer, printer and papers on half the dining room table. The children did homework on the other half. However, the stamping and embossing business has now grown into calligraphy carrying on. And the female half of the family has taken control of the table.

The girls have become professionals at creating embossed Celtic stationary and envelopes. But when one has a lot of stationary, it follows that one should write a lot of letters. It also follows, that with such impressive stationary, one can't write with a plain old pen. So Tara and Cheyenne visited James Thin book and stationary store and purchased calligraphy pens, different colored inks and a big book on how to write like King Arthur.

Here is how it works: To create embossed stationary with rubber stamps, you press the stamp on the paper, then flick fine metallic dust on the wet ink. The next step is to cook the paper above the toaster until the dust bubbles into embossing. The early experiments resulted in a lot of strange smells wafting out of the kitchen, but thankfully, that learning curve seems to be mastered.

The big problem is the dust. Lighter than air, microscopic flicks of red, green and gold glitter have permeated the apartment. If you make a sandwich and set it down, it sparkles when you pick it back up. My wife sparkles. It's hard to take someone seriously when you look into their eyes and are distracted by a glittering nose. And I hate to think about what's going on in our lungs. Second-hand smoke is one thing. Second-hand embossing dust is probably far worse.

We're trying to kick-start this day and force it into gear, but it never happens. I get a good deal of work done. So does Tara. But our goal is to get to Zeffirelli's new film at the Lumiere -- a theater at the Royal Museum. The movie shows once at 3 PM. The rating allows the children to attend, but they mutiny. Hunter thinks his mother has terrible taste in movies. He can list every art film he has had to sit through for the last four years.

"You can stay home and write in your journals," I say. They're fine with that. One of Hunter's teachers wants him to send an e-mail describing the best places to visit when she comes to the UK this summer. "Input your suggestions on the laptop and we'll send a document tomorrow."

Tara and I are late leaving, it's raining and traffic is heavy. We miss the movie. In checking the schedules of two nearby art houses, we've also missed the afternoon showings of other foreign films we'd like to see. "Let's go to the cyber cafe and check on e-mail," Tara suggests. Having perceived psychic impressions of a problem with her sister's pregnancy, she wants to see if there are any messages. Sure enough, an e-mail informs us that the birth may be premature.

An hour later we linger over coffee in Starbucks and read a leftover copy of the Guardian. A little more time is spent looking at old photos and art prints in a gallery. Eventually, we make it to a delightful movie filmed in London. At the concession stand, we're asked if we want our popcorn from the sugary or salty barrel. For an extra pound, we sit in the comfortable seats with extra leg room. I think both options would fly in America.

Since this is a non-event day, I'll use a little time pointing out some of the other differences between the way things are in Edinburgh and Los Angeles. Let's start with toilets. Scottish toilets have a flush handle just like ours. At home you snap the handle. That's all. Here, you prepare to flush by focusing your attention upon the task at hand. In our apartment the flush handle is behind the toilet seat, so first you must put down the seat. Then when ready, pump the handle up and down as fast and hard as you can. Anything less will generate an incomplete result, if you get my meaning.

Money buys only about half what it does as home, but Edinburgh is not as expensive as London. Some of the differences seem ridiculous. I buy a ream of medium quality paper at home for $2.50. Here the same paper costs $8.23 at Comet -- a discount store that claims it won't be undersold. A matinee movie in Agoura Hills is $3.50, here $6.43. The Los Angeles Times, a huge newspaper in terms of size and content, costs 25 cents. The Scotsman  is 78 cents and only a third as thick.

One of the big stories in the papers is about Wal-Mart coming to Britain and how panicked all the English retailers are. If Wal-Mart can maintain American prices, retailers have good reason to worry. British people, on the other hand, will be able to stretch their paychecks a bit further.

A difference of note: Scotland has McVitie's HOBNOBS and we don't. "One nibble and you're Nobbled!" it says on the package. And if that doesn't tempt you to purchase, in smaller type it says, "Nobbly, oaty biscuits."

"I can't stop eating them," Hunter says.

"Me either," I say. They're made of rolled oats, wholemeal and some other addictive things. We'll be buying an extra suitcase for Hobnobs and Tara's "Wild Blackberry & Nettle" herbal tea.

Without the Blackberry & Nettle, she has to remain in Scotland.

JUNE 19, SATURDAY: This is Gay Pride Day in Scotland and gays are coming from all over to celebrate in Edinburgh. The letters LGBT are an abbreviation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender. And LGBTness is everywhere -- certainly on an equal PR/promotional footing with heterosexuality, or so it seems.

Tara enjoys a TV quiz show with a Queen as host. He spends most of his time being bitchy to his hetero-couple contestants and spinning their comments into gay-sex innuendoes. It is funny. If this show were aired at home, I can't even imagine the reaction. The TV preachers would raise millions from their homophobic flocks to fight such encroachment into American living rooms.

Our plan is to be LGBT-supportive and attend the Gay Parade. I walk a few blocks to the post office to mail some material to English publishers and pick up a paper. On the way home, I decide to surprise Tara by stopping at a small cafe offering five-course Scottish breakfast "take aways" for £2.50.

The temperature has to be near 70 degrees, but it's raining and the wind whips beneath my jacket hood. By the time I get home I'm soaked.

Tara looks at me, says, "Are we sure we want to go to the parade?"

"You have gold glitter on your nose and beneath your left eye," I say.

"Your chin is flashing red sparkles," she says.

"If we go to the parade glittering, they'll ask why we're not marching."

Hunter and I venture out to replenish groceries. The rain is worse.

"We could stay home and watch the royal wedding," Tara says. Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones will be married in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle at 5 PM.

We stay home. Tara and Cheyenne enjoy watching the TV coverage of the wedding.

In a modern age, it seems to me the only value of a royal family is to generate the sale of tabloid newspapers.

Tara disagrees. She likes the tradition.

Our "royal" attitudes are reflected in our historic interests. Tara reads books on the rein of Queen Victoria through the rein of Edward VII. I study the Scots intent upon overthrowing the monarchy: Andrew de Moray, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

"The Royal family adds to the culture here," Tara says. "Culture is important."

Well, I guess so.

JUNE 20, SUNDAY -- FATHER'S DAY: Tara fixes morning coffee and breakfast in bed. We nibble while pondering maps of Scotland and a dozen event guides. "Nibblies" is another Scottish expression we've incorporated into our language. "Do ye wanna stop for some nibblies?"

The sun is shining, which expands the number of ways we can spend this day. Before leaving the apartment, I open hand-made cards and presents -- wonderful Scottish treasures from the Museum of Scotland, plus bagpipe music, and a Billy Connolly album.

We decide to explore more of the city on foot, with Craigmillar Castle as our general destination. Today, we take a round-about way to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. We've taken the palace tour before, but enjoy browsing the two gift shops. In the bookstore, I find Queen Victoria's Highland Journals -- the Queen's diaries of her visits to Scotland. Tara is delighted.

We proceed on foot into Holyrood Park where Arthur's Seat is an extinct volcano 823 feet high. The section of Arthur's Seat facing Old Town is a dark curve of sheer dark rock called Salisbury Crags. The crags can be seen from every Edinburgh vantage point. We walk the lower path above Queen's Drive, which encircles the 650-acre park.

Finally, far off in the distance, we can see what looks to be a castle on a hilltop. We've already walked many miles and the structure looks to be many miles away.

"We can do it, can't we?"

The children are especially agreeable because it's Father's Day.

"If we see a cab, I'll hail it," I say.

"Okay."

Our path descends past Duddingston Loch, down the road between rock formations named Lion's Haunch and Samson's Ribs, into the Village of Duddingston.  Duddingston in Gaelic means "the house on the sunny side of the hill." This area has been settled since the twelfth century. Old Church Road is breathtaking. A high stone wall topped with ivy runs along one side of the street -- on the other side, quaint stone houses.

Clouds come and go, it rains, the sun comes out, rains again. We walk and walk and walk until we see a directional sign: Craigmillar Castle 1 Mile. "One more mile." Climbing the last hill to the castle, the structure comes into view, silhouetted black and looking ominous against the now cloudy sky.

Since Edinburgh Castle is such a huge tourist draw, Craigmillar, sitting atop a hill only three miles away, is almost ignored. Indeed, only a couple cars are in the parking lot. We have the visitor center to ourselves, and relish sitting down and having tea made in a strange do-it-yourself tea machine. We've walked at least seven miles, maybe more.

For the next two hours we explore the castle, which was built in the fifteenth century by the Preston family, who were the lairds of Craigmillar for almost 300 years. Today, Craigmillar is a section of greater Edinburgh. The castle's primary claim to fame is that Mary Queen of Scots spent time here.

Mary's husband Henry, Earl of Darnley had Mary's friend David Ricco murdered before her eyes at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Upon receiving the news, Simon Preston of Craigmillar Castle rushed to protect the Queen with a body of 500 men. Soon after, Mary stayed at Craigmillar to recover from illness and depression. Here, a group of her advisors made the decision to eliminate Lord Darnley. How much Mary knew of the plot is not known, but the general intention was certainly clear to her.

February 10, 1567, Darnley's house was blown up with gunpowder. When they found his body in the rubble, he had been strangled. Five months later, Mary abdicated in favor of her son, the infant James VI.

Craigmillar Castle has an outer courtyard, curtain wall, tower house, dozens of rooms, chapel, church, and a garden with a huge fish pond. Many of the rooms offered an innovative latrine system. We climb the narrow stairs up several stories in the tower house. Standing in a room overlooking the banquet hall, our imaginations run wild. What feasts must have been enjoyed here. At the far end of the hall, someone has placed greenery before the great fireplace.

Outside, Tara is fascinated with the dovecot -- a circular stone tower to keep and breed birds for food.

Thankfully, at the bottom of the castle hill, a cab appears out of nowhere.

"Thank you for stopping," Tara says, relief in her voice. She was convinced we were destined to walk back into the city.

"Back into town. High Street," I say.

High Street is the name of one of the streets on the Royal Mile between Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The sun has returned. Chairs and tables sit on the sidewalks in front of the bars and cafes. Most seats are filled with happy people.

Our destination is La Rusticana Ristorante Italiano on Cockburn Street -- our favorite Italian restaurant. On the way, we're sidetracked by a New Age bookstore and a block down the road, a FOPP record store playing loud music over the sound system.

"Is that Nancy Sinatra?" I ask the young clerk, surprised at the choice.

"Oh, yes," he says, obvious affection in his voice.

I like some 30-year-old music myself, but I'm wondering if Scotland has just discovered Nancy.

Shortly after being seated at La Rusticana, a woman comes to the table and says, "If you are who I think you are, I've used your tapes for years."

We talk. She's an American. Her husband waves from across the room. He's a Navy man. They're now living in London.

Our meal is incredible. The children think I should get a big dessert, because it's Father's Day. This means they would enjoy a little dessert themselves. "You guys have dessert and mom and I will have Cappuccino."

From the restaurant, we wander down into Princes Street Gardens. The lighting is so perfect, I take video of all the sights along the street. We end up walking the full-mile length of the garden. The kids enjoy rolling down steep green lawns. Beneath the golden naked-women statue, I tell Tara, "There's a 8:30 showing at the Royal Museum theater. We could still catch the Zeffirelli flick."

Hunter smells entrapment.

"I don't want to see Tea With Mussolini," he says. "You can send me home in a cab."

In the end, the four of us hike two more miles to the Lumiere theater, see the movie, enjoy it (well, two of us enjoy it), and afterwards catch a cab back to the apartment. We have walked about 12 miles today. As I sit reading Scotland on Sunday, my body attests to this fact. When Tara gets up out of her chair, she groans.

"Tomorrow we could walk out to the fairgrounds," I say.

No response.

 JUNE 21, MONDAY -- SUMMER SOLSTICE: I'm writing on my laptop when a sleepy-eyed Tara pads into the living room in her T-shirt, holding the now cold cup of coffee I left on her bedside table.

"It's summer solstice," she says. "We should participate in a Pagan ritual,"

"Or create our own," I say.

This is a stay-at-home work and research day, for which my feet are grateful. Tara goes off to a cyber cafe. The kids play with their Scottish friends who are now out of school. I play bagpipe music as loud as the volume allows and plot a rough itinerary for the next couple weeks. Although we have six weeks left to explore Scotland, this is not enough time to do half the things we want to do. Central to my planning are the ScotRail trains and the limits of our rail passes.

For the best price, you purchase the passes in America, prior to your visit. There are many options. We picked passes allowing one child to travel free with each adult, and offering unlimited train use for any 15 days in two months. With this in mind, we pay cash for short rides and use our train days for major trips.

In a mental state of "itinerary overwhelm," I begin making lists of the places we must visit. There are hundreds of major castles in Scotland, so we can't see them all. Damn! But we can see some. Dunnottar is at the top of the list. The Royal Highland Show is like a state fair for the whole country. We have to get to the Standing Stones of Callanish on the outer Isle of Lewis, which will be a three-day trip. The spiritual Isle of Iona is high on our list. There are a couple plays. Folk music. I have to get to Dunfermline Abbey, where Robert the Bruce is buried, and there's ...

Tara returns from the world with tales of her contacts. The man in the post office is getting to know us as regular customers. Today he asks Tara, "Are ye here on holiday?"

"We're here for most of the summer," she says.

"What summer?" he says.

At the grocery store, she asks an employee for Mexican salsa -- a staple at home. "All I have is some dip for crispies," he says.

It is salsa ... but not quite.

She shows me a new find, "Rhubarb & Ginger Jam."

"Ice cream?" I ask.

"Of course."

For summer solstice, Tara and I planned to climb Calton Hill after dark. The site overlooks all of Edinburgh. We've experienced New Year's here -- the burning of a Viking ship and a hilltop Pagan frenzy. I've read of the all-night fertility rites that take place here on Beltane (Spring Equinox) -- the ritual procession of the May Queen, followed by the death and rebirth of the Green Man. So although there are no announcements of activities, we suspect there will be Pagan activities on the hill top.

Only problem, it's now midnight and the rain hasn't let up for six hours. Tara creates a ritual in the middle of the living room with four candles and raven feathers. The four of us hold hands and express our wishes for this summer. Nice.

JUNE 22, TUESDAY: This is Dunnottar Castle day -- a site that relates to several Scottish heroes and two branches of my family. We catch an early Aberdeen train, cross the Firth of Fourth bridge and shoot up the east coast of  Scotland -- north through green rolling hills -- the North Sea appearing and disappearing through the train windows. The trip takes two-and-a-half hours. We disembark at Stonehaven.

Stonehaven is a coastal town of 8000 people. Originally a fishing settlement, there are few working boats in the harbor today. We hope to come here someday for Hogmaney and observe the Pagan rituals in which the participants swing balls of fire as part of a parade and festivities.

A cab takes us the three miles to the car park on the edge of the castle grounds. The elderly driver is friendly -- born in Stonehaven, he had a long career as a fireman in nearby Aberdeen. "Got a good pension, but I couldn't retire. Would'a been bored," he says. Six days a week he makes a 5 AM run to the Aberdeen airport, 22 miles away.

We walk several blocks down hill from the car park before the castle comes into full view -- a huge seemly impregnable fortress perched high on an enormous flat-topped rock with sheer cliffs on three sides jutting out into the North Sea. From our first vantage point, it seems the castle is on a tall island, but as we get closer, a thin land connection comes into view.

My first reaction is, "How in the hell did Wallace do it?"

In 1297, at age 21, William Wallace besieged the castle with an army of untrained highlanders, killing all 4000 English soldiers garrisoned here. The castle is many separate structures. When some of the terrified garrison took refuge in the sanctuary of the chapel, Wallace barred the door and burned them alive. (This historical act inspired a similar scene in the film Braveheart, in which Mel Gibson plays Wallace.)

Following Wallace's death, Robert the Bruce took up the struggle. Fifteen years after he beat the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, Edward Balliol, pretender to the Scottish throne invaded Scotland with English support and seized Dunnottar. It was soon recaptured by the Scots and went on to change hands, back and forth between England and Scotland for 500 years.

To enter the castle you climb a steep hill through an outer gateway, past dungeons and a den that once housed a lion. There is a multi-story keep, and north, east and west ranges of buildings. In the center is the chapel, a smithy's building, stables, storehouse, and priest's house. In what is called the Whigs' Vault, 167 Covenanter men and women were jammed into one room and left for nine months with little food and no sanitation. Those that didn't die were shipped to the West Indies where most succumbed to fever. Their crime? They were Presbyterians from south-west Scotland who refused to accept the Episcopalian religion of the English King.

The castle is said to be haunted. Tara goes off by herself to "open" psychically. She wants to tune into the vibrations and to blank her vision and stare into the dark places.

"But thousands of people died on these grounds. They even burned witches here at one time," I say, thinking she is asking for an overwhelming psychic jumble.

When we meet again 30 minutes later, Tara has had two experiences. "In the gallery, I felt like a dog was biting the back of my leg. It was weird and it really hurt. The moment I left the room, it stopped."

She turns and points to the brewery (kitchen), "And down there I perceived a young woman holding a bird and wearing a green tartan wrap. She was scared and hiding. They found her and killed her."

(NOTE: Later we find out that many people have seen this young woman in green tartan.)

We talk about the apparition. "Do you think she's earthbound or did you open a telepathic door and perceive the lingering energy?" I ask. Great fear or suffering can psychometrically impregnate an area, which an empathic person can read even centuries after the fact.

Tara doesn't know, but she did send the woman impressions about going to the light.

Genealogists say that virtually all Grahams (a branch of my mother's family) are descendants of Sir John de Graham, who was second in command to William Wallace. This also makes Robert the Bruce a likely ancestor through his descendant's marriages to both Grahams and Campbells. But if this is so, I also have to claim James Graham, First Marquis of Montrose. In the mid 1600s, when James realized that Oliver Cromwell threatened the existence of his monarchy, he switched sides to command the King's army in Scotland. He was responsible for the burning of Dunnottar Castle during that action. When Charles I was executed, James escaped to Norway. Upon his return to Scotland, he was hanged, drawn and quartered in Edinburgh.

The "Honours of Scotland" -- the sword, crown and crown jewels, were hidden at Dunnottar when Cromwell advanced on Scone. Dunnottar then managed to hold out against the might of Cromwell's Roundhead army for eight months. I guess Cromwell needed highlanders.

In the Stonehaven railroad-station cafe, we meet two young American women, Kristen and Kim. They've both just graduated from college and are celebrating by touring Scotland. They carry huge backpacks. We trade stories about different places we've visiting. Kristen is from Ohio and will begin a career as a small animal vet on July 1. She's a student of Scottish history and is in love with the country. Kim, her college roommate, is from Pennsylvania and admits to being the less adventurous of the two. We continue our conversations on the train all the way back to Edinburgh.

Over the last five years, we've had many castle experiences in Ireland. England and Scotland. But after today, I have to place Dunnottar Castle at the top of my list. Why? It's a combination of the incredible setting, the castle itself, and the history. If you ever plan to visit Scotland, don't miss Dunnottar.

The children want to know why, if our ancestors fought to take the castle from the English, another ancestor burned it down.

"There's an asshole in every family tree," I say.

"Richard!" Tara says.

To be continued ...

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