Our cruise aboard Ambassador Ambience in 2025 had now reached its final port, bringing it back to the UK after a fabulous couple of weeks along Norway’s gorgeous coast, and it would be another new port to round off this excellent trip too. It was only the year before that we’d first visited any Scottish ports and it was Aberdeen that was now being added to that small list.
In an ideal world, Ambience would have docked right in the middle of the city and we’d have had a decision about whether to take a tour at all or simply walk straight into the city for a good look around, but we’d been told ahead of time that it was far more likely that we’d be at the South Harbour port instead, about three kilometres away. That’s not too far to walk but it did mean that we paid more attention to whether there were any excursions that might interest us instead, using the reasoning that if we really, really wanted to look around Aberdeen we could always drive up this way at some time. We probably wont, because there’s a good chance that a car drive to Scotland will find itself low down the list of Things That Might Be Enjoyable, but we could.
Aberdeen’s South Harbour is not the most thrilling of cruise ports.
It was handy, then, that we’d booked ourselves on a trip to visit Crathes Castle. The excitement began before we’d even arrived at the historic site – and, indeed, that arrival was in some doubt for a while – when our bus suddenly came to a halt on a long road somewhere along the 25 kilometres route from Aberdeen. The traffic had stopped and it wasn’t clear what was happening so the guide eventually got off the bus and made her way up the road on foot to see what the problem was. What had occurred was that a farm vehicle had tipped over off the side of the road and was leaking fuel. Traffic couldn’t go past it for safety so cars were being told they needed to turn in the road and head back the other way. But there wasn’t enough room for the bus to do this and reversing several kilometres was out of the question. In addition, there was no phone signal where we were so nobody could get in touch with the cruise line to let them know what had happened. To say that our guide was panicking would be an understatement, even though we were mostly all calm and telling her to not worry about it.
But, as you already know because this write-up isn’t titled “That Day We Got Stuck On A Road And Didn’t Go On A Tour And Got Left Behind By Our Cruise Ship“, the problem was resolved. At some point a determination was seemingly made that the leaking fuel wasn’t that dangerous after all, or it had stopped, or a bus of tourists were expendable, and we got the okay to proceed, even if would now reduce the amount of time we had at our destination. We’d still have more than enough, though.
The land at Crathes had been given to the Burnetts of Leys family by Robert the Bruce in 1323, and wooden fortifications were built on it, but it wasn’t until the second half of the sixteenth century that the present tower house was constructed. Additional wings and improvements were made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What you can see now if you’re visiting isn’t a castle in the traditional sense and it wasn’t a building that saw any action of note, but it does have some lovely interiors and gardens, as you’ll see below. One thing to note, though, is that accessibility is somewhat limited with very narrow staircases and small rooms, plus a decent slope up from the car park to the building and again down to the gardens. One of the women on our tour was restricted from seeing much of anything inside as a result and needed quite a bit of assistance just to get her to and from the gardens.
Crathes Castle has quite a few original pieces of furniture on display, but the ceiling decorations in places were more interesting to me. Alcoves in the grandly-named if not grandly-sized Grand Hall were particularly interesting. In here, over the fireplace, we could also see the Horn of Leys which, in addition to being a great euphemism for an erection is also reputedly another fourteenth century gift from Robert the Bruce.
The narrow stairwell in the photos below should give you some idea of what you’ll need to be capable of climbing if you visit this Scottish site although there were some routes that were less constricted.
A design fad in Scotland in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was “Scottish Renaissance Painted Ceilings” and the ones that survived later renovations in Crathes Castle are very good examples of this type of decoration.
That covers the interior, and we were fortunate enough to be visiting Crathes Castle on a very sunny day in April so we then had plenty of time to explore and enjoy the walled garden area too. We’d have probably done so even if it was tipping down but we’re rather glad it wasn’t. The garden is split into eight sections and some of the yew trees and topiary were planted in 1702 but the majority of the work involved in laying out the garden in this attractive way is more recent, generally from the early parts of the twentieth century.
And that’s some of what you can see inside Crathes Castle and its walled garden. Where else are you going to be able to make comments about the Horn of Leys and nicely-trimmed bushes and get that level of eye-roll from your wife while protesting your innocence?
The journey back to Aberdeen was without incident and we were offered the chance to be dropped off in the city in order to look around and make our own way back. We’d only have an hour or two there, partly due to the reduced time at the castle, and all the walking up and down slopes and steep, narrow staircases had aggravated my wife’s knees a little so we decided we’d leave Aberdeen for another day. Maybe.
A quiz was won by us back on the ship and we swapped our bottle of fizz for a luggage tag, but you probably only want to see what we ate in the dining room aboard Ambience that evening instead. You and your cruise ship food obsession.
This penultimate night of the cruise was spent in the Observatory nightclub until the early hours once again.
All that remains of this cruise is one more sea day heading down the east coast of England before arrival in London the following morning, and that will all be covered in the next and final post from this Ambassador Ambience cruise series.