Last Saturday we stopped off at Cramond after spending the afternoon at Ingliston Antiques Fair, near Edinburgh. Cramond is a wee coastal village near Edinburgh and we pass it on the way home to Fife. It was a favourite destination when our boys were wee.
The photo above is of the hotel at Cramond, the village is almost a suburb of Edinburgh now but at one time it was apparently popular with Edinburghers looking for a weekend getaway from the city, of the ‘dirty weekend’ variety. I haven’t read Muriel Spark’s Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, mainly because I’ve seen so many different dramatised versions of it, but I remember distinctly the actor Gordon Jackson in the 1969 film trying to persuade Jean (Maggie Smith) to go away with him for the weekend to Cramond – so naughty!
Most of the buildings have been whitewashed, as is traditional with coastal houses. These buildings are actually by the harbour just where the River Almond flows into the Firth of Forth. Cramond is thought to have been first inhabited in 8500 BC which makes it the oldest settlement in Scotland. The Romans settled there around about the year 142 but only stayed for 15 years or so, after which they retreated back to Hadrian’s Wall.
The photo above was taken from Cramond, looking over the Firth of Forth to Fife, the village of Aberdour is more or less in the middle of the photo but most of it is obscured by an island, the bigger island is called Inchcolm and we had a great afternoon out there last year, if you want a closer look at it take a peek here.
You can clearly see some wind turbines which have been popping up in quite a few locations. They’re controversial but I quite like them although I don’t suppose I would want one on my doorstep. That well known pain in the neck Donald Trump has been trumpeting on about them just today on the news as there are plans for some turbines to be built in the sea near his golf course north of Aberdeen. Apparently he hates them and thinks they will kill tourism in Scotland, and he would have built his golf course in Ireland if he had thought that his view was going to be blighted by turbines. If only we had known then and we could have waved him cheerio as he departed in high dudgeon for Ireland, and the people in Aberdeen wouldn’t have to put up with yet another golf course!
I love Cramond! The pub there used to do great meals. Haven’t been there for long enough. Time for another visit! When I was a kid I had a friend who stayed near the Almond and we often took ourselves off on journeys of exploration along the river and through the woods to Cramond.
I think wind turbines are breathtakingly elegant, though I know many people would sit on me for saying that. I’m not up on the pros and cons – particularly the cons – of wind turbines, but we do need to find additional sources of energy for the future and Scotland does get a lot of wind!
Evee,
Ah those were the days when youngsters could take themselves off for an adventure and just go home when they were hungry. I was always up the hills!
They are elegant and they aren’t as intrusive as pylons but I even don’t mind them much. It seems a waste not to harness the wind energy if we can.
What a lovely little village! It looks so innocent – I guess that made it the perfect, unassuming spot for the naughty weekends.
My desire to visit Scotland grows with every beautiful post you write on your beautiful country!
Anbolyn,
I imagine a brass wedding ring would be required, just for the duration of the stay.
If you are going to England at some point you’ll have to come here too! Honestly you won’t have to pretend to be Canadian!
Beautiful photos – especially the first one. I saw the Jean Brodie film with Maggie Smith years ago – I’d forgotten it was Gordon Jackson in it as well – and it’s nice to put a ‘face to a place’, as it were.
I cannot stand that man Trump – talk about blighting a view! did you see that TV programme about what he did to get his golf course built? Absolutely disgraceful.
Margaret,
I did see that programme, it just shows you what you can get away with if you are loaded. Why Salmond bothered to sook up to him to get him to build a golf course is beyond me. Some people don’t seem to be able to think beyond golf – when there are so many reasons to visit different places in Scotland.
A beautiful little village. I think the wind turbines are elegant, too. Much nicer than high tension stations and wires. The only concern that I’ve heard, other than appearance, is that they apparently kill birds. I don’t understand how that happens because the blades turn so slowly, not chop, chop like a propeller. If they can eliminate that, I’m all for them.
Joan,
They are elegant. They are a danger to some birds, I think they must get sucked into the blades, almost as if they are in the equivalent of a whirlpool in the sea. I’ve only heard of it happening to seagulls and pigeons and to be honest they are out of control population wise at the moment. The rarer birds probably steer clear of turbines, I like to think that anyway!
We’ve made a couple of stabs at wind energy here – up on the North Shore. Similar controversy. Cracks me up that the people who fuss about the windmills are the very same folks who fuss about our dependence on fossil fuels. I think some people are just given to fuss and that’s that.
The hotel looks like a nice quaint spot for an assignation, but the rest of the whitewashed stuff looks a bit institutional.
I’ve never personally experienced any animus because I’m an American when I’ve traveled – in fact the most gracious reception we’ve ever received was on our trip to Vietnam – and we used to bomb the heck out of them!
I’ve only felt like lapsing into French on one occasion overseas – when another American tourist was acting like a complete b*tch towards our guide in Rome. But other nationalities produce their share of ungracious tourists too – living all my life in vacation meccas, I’ve run into enough.
Pearl,
I suspect that that complete b*tch would also have been the type to moan about wind turbines too, it’s being so grouchy that keeps them going!
I wonder if the Vietnamese are similar to the French with the Germans then. The French hate Brits but particularly the English, we were told that Scots aren’t so bad (shucks!). But they seem to like Germans, I think they are just terrified to get on their wrong side!
I think that with the Vietnamese, we were just the latest in centuries of warring factions. The French had at them as well…colonized the place for a while.
We were just there trying to “help.” We need to stop helping – there’s no good deed goes unpunished.
Pearl,
there’s no good deed goes unpunished. I think it was Oscar Wilde who first coined that phrase and he was absolutely right. The trouble is one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist.