Sunday 11 October 2015

A Country House Hotel

A good part of travelling with a local in Scotland is that they can whisk you away from the cities and towns and have you in a remote location is an hour or so.  It seems strange to me that the wilderness can be within an hour of a major city.  A good sort of strange.  We took a little side road close to the country house hotel where we were to spend the night to see the little railway station of Achnasheen.  How cute is that?  I didn't notice at the time but the Wet Paint sign is still out.


The exterior of the Ledgowan Lodge Hotel looked almost as austere as Fort George had but only from a distance.
 

Just outside the front door sits a rather lovely fairy surrounded by pretty flowers in pots.  Look closely, she has horns.  I'd like to know more about her.


I was a bit blown away by the inside of the hotel.  It was very "how the other half lives" to me.  Very pukka sahib.  I wonder if it is typical of hunting lodges in Scotland?  All that beautiful wood panelled walls, wide sweeping staircase, stained glass windows and luxuriously draped windows!



On top of that, the service was friendly and efficient and the food first class.  I had a beetroot and brie pie for dinner and have been looking for a recipe for it ever since.  Damn, it was good.

Graham took a lot more photos here than I did.  He also got up a lot earlier in the morning to catch the early morning mist.   Take a look at his photos on his blog here.

6 comments:

  1. They are in a bit of a time warp. I like them once in a while.

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  2. I like old remote places. I looked at the photos on GB's blog and they are wonderful. It sounds like you two had a nice adventure.

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  3. I often watch a British TV show "Escape to the country" and I'm always amazed at how much open countryside there still seems to be in Britain in spite of the population density being so much higher compared to both Sweden and New Zealand.

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  4. I do like it when food, decor and environment all work out so well!

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  5. So nice to be able to get out into the country! It looks like a lovely place to stay.

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  6. I'm astounded Pauline: I don't even recall seeing the figure. It's beautiful. I shall try and find out more next time I'm passing! There are still many old hunting lodges etc where the decor is from a time past. 40 years ago I stayed in such a hotel in the Outer Hebrides which was pretty much as it had been when the aristocracy used it. What threw me was the fact that the surrounding were beautiful in the public areas but the bedrooms were cold and spartan and there wasn't even heating in the bathrooms. They may have been wealthy but they were more hardy than I was 40 years ago. Our bedrooms in that hotel with their superb en-suite bathrooms were a far cry from the 'old days'.

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