The road was crap and the people drive fast and are impatient with tourists.   Can’t blame them with being impatient but geez give me a break, i’m driving on the opposite side of the car and the opposite side of the road.   Not to mention the road is crap, did i say that already?

rough section of road. we are sitting in a pull out. It was also foggy for a good portion of the morning.

The roads are very narrow and a stone curb just jumps out at you once in a while to try and screw up your tire.

Dunvegan Castle

The current chief still lives here part time so the top floor and actually most of the castle was off limits.  We got to see a good portion of it but again per the usual we were not allowed to take pictures.

original sea gate back when the main way to access the castle was from the water. Kind of sad they have covered it up with plywood instead of there still being an actual gate there.

back court yard of castle

The most photographed castle in the country.  You know exactly which one it is as soon as you see a picture.

Per the usual we were not allowed to take pictures inside the castle.  But I have to say if was very pretty inside and cool to see fully furnished.  In the kitchen they have wax statues of people in the period dress showing what went on in the room.

So the only pictures i have are of the outside.

main entrance to castle and inner bailey

the usual wall walk. i love these because you get to walk where people hundreds of years ago walked.

view from the back side of the castle

the bridge in the back is the one we drove over to get out to the isle of skye

The road we traveled on started out as a standard two lane road.  No bid deal.  But when we started going over the mountain it became in places a single track road.

LOL….mom was definitely not fond of these sections of the road.  I had to learn to ignore her because she was always jumping in her seat.

I love how Scotland does traffic stops for road work.  There are no flagers on the roads, they have a stop light on each end of the road work area.

you can see just the red light on the traffic light here.

our little car pulled over in one of the many pull outs on the road

The single track road portion of the road.

I’ve seen pictures of this one and the grounds and they were fantastic.  So I made mom take the hour long drive with me to go and see it.

It certainly makes a grand impression when you pull up.

Per the usual the wind was blowing.  We made our way inside to get our tickets.  Pictures were not allowed so I couldn’t get any photos inside.

I did get this one though before we got to the sign that said no photos.  Lolol

And that is the only picture taken inside.  They have the whole place monitored with security cameras.

The furniture and artifacts they have on display are impressive.  All items that belonged to the family.  The rooms they let you go through are all decorated and there is a person in each room to answer questions.  The ceilings were the most impressive part I thought.  Such detail went into them.

One of the workers let me take a picture of the garden from inside the castle since I wasn’t trying to take a picture of the inside.  It’s actually one of the better places to get a good shot of the gardens.

Mom and I went outside onto the balcony at the back and got these shots.  Goodness the wind was blowing and it was COLD.  Needless to say we didn’t last long.  Lol

There are three sections to the garden.  The one above with the entry through the bushes and the two above pictures.  The middle section used to be where they played croquette and form picture’s I’ve seen there were numerous large trees as well.  All the trees have been cut own and the grass is dying.

I left my coat in the car like an idiot, not knowing just how cold the wind would be.  So needless to say I did not walk down into the gardens to get a picture looking back at the castle.

I’m always impressed when they huge castles are still standing and you can go through them.  The upkeep on them is insane but I was a little disappointed with the gardens.  For this castle that seems to be the big draw and found it a little lacking.  It could also be that I have looked at to many castles on this trip that I’m also burning out a little.

Overall though it is impressive and worth the drive to get there.  The walled dive to get out was also pretty impressive.

Getting into the castle is interesting.   You pull into the parking lot and see a wall on one side and a small building on the other side.

You go into the small building to either buy your ticket and present your pre purchased ticket.  Walk around the counter and down a spiral set of stairs.

The stairs of course deposit you into the gift shop which also has a quite large cafeteria right next to it.

Before you go out to view the castle it’s recommended to watch their short movie on the history and how it came to be the way it is.

Once the movie is done they open the drapes on a large curved window and the only thing you see is the castle (reminds me of when we were at Cape Canaveral viewing the space shuttle).

On the walk down they  have a Trebuchet set up (looks original) like one that was used in a siege on the castle.  Thing i thought was interesting was the wheels.  They have Celtic designs cut into the stone.

Man there were people everywhere when we got there.  Signs are posted to keep off the grass and of course people are walking straight across the grass.  Don’t think any of them know how to read a sign.  Lol

This castle is a complete ruin which you can see from looking at it.

If you look at the picture above you can see the stones sitting down on the ground in front of the main entrance.

That piece used to be part of the wall on the upper portion of the entry.

The last family to reside in the castle must have gotten tired of people trying to raid and they made the decision to leave and blow up the castle.

The main keep is still pretty much standing.  You can also walk through it.  I made it up to the second level but decided not to go any further because the stone stairs are just too narrow and shallow for me.  Lol.

View of second floor of main keep.

I took the below picture from the oldest section section of the castle.  This is looking back at what’s left of the rest of the castle.

Sadly not much of what originally was there remains and some of the building are gone altogether.  Leaving you to use your imagination as to what it would have looked like.