This is becoming a pattern for our travels. We went at it pretty hard the last 10 days with adventures that were demanding but tremendously rewarding. But these adventures were a wee bit tiring for a couple of old people.
So this next phase consists of most small day trips. This second day trip was to a small Scottish town called Elgin that had many hidden treasures.
We had a little time before our train to Elgin so we checked out a the renowned Leaky’s Bookstore. Stepping into it was like time travel. It was so charming and quaint that you almost expect to see C.S. Lewis sitting in a puffy chair smoking his pipe.
It was hard to resist the temptation to just hang out in the fellowship of the literary treasures of the ages. Richard Rankin, one of the actors from Outlander said he often spent time at Leaky’s to “soak up the magic”. After spending a half hour there, we felt that magic.
After enjoying a browse in the cool bookstore, we were off to our next destination to explore.
Elgin is east of Inverness about half way to Aberdeen. In light of our previous experience with potential bus unreliability (that’s right. I went there) we took the train there. SUCH a more relaxing and enjoyable experience.
Like many of the smaller villages not on most tourist itineraries, Elgin turned out to be interesting to explore and well worth our time. Based on archeological finds, Christians were in this area centuries before Elgin was established as a market town in the 12th century. Not much is left of the castle, but the town shows evidence of a thriving economy in later centuries.
Our first stop was a Cathedral with a history going back to the 1200s. And like so many magnificent ancient castles and cathedrals, its history was tumultuous.
There is enough left of the Cathedral to see what it looked like before it fell into ruin after the Reformation. There is something about viewing a 800 year-old Cathedral that, even in ruins, is awe inspiring.
The Scots are meticulous in preserving their history and talking to natives of Elgin as we walked around, you sense their pride.
You also see that attention to detail in exhibits posted around the grounds of the Cathedral. One detail that stood out was the faces in many of the accents to the rooms.
As we left we looked at some artist rendering of what the Cathedral looked like at its zenith. It was quite striking.
We had been told that the cashmere mill had a lovely tea room, so we enjoyed some tea and scones there before returning to the train station and heading back to Inverness.
Malcolms in Scotland 23 