Craigievar Castle – The Perfect Pink Fairytale

We live in such a beautiful country with so much to see and do outdoors. Although we don’t always have the best of the weather, our little family try and make a conscious effort to discover new places and also re visit our favourites from time to time.

Set on our quest to visit as many castles as we can in Scotland, we took a fun family trip to Craigievar Castle in Aberdeenshire on Sunday. Situated a few miles from the village of Aboyne, its backdrop provides the most spectacular countryside scenery and woodland. The ididlic castle is said to have inspired Walt Disney’s design of Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World and it certainly had a magical feel about it. The magnificent pink colour certainly stands out and created the perfect fairytale scene. I would say its my favourite castle I have ever had the chance to visit!

My Little Peter Pan was very surprised to find we lived so close to such a beauty and set off to explore the castles surroundings. Part of the castle walls still remain and he took great delight running around and hiding the first of his “Little Peter Pan rocks” in the doorway. Quinn started painting rocks last year and hiding them at various location after finding some around our village and at Walt Disney World. He decided that he would like to carry it on into this year and see how far the rocks travel. Last week one was found 108 miles away in Perth which was amazing! Sitting just outside the castle walls are two canons which Quinn was delighted to find. He spent some time acting out his favourite scenes from Peter Pan and questioning what the canons would have been used for in the “olden days”!

We set off on a two mile hill trail into the woods and as there weren’t many people around, it was very quiet and peaceful. Quinn was absolutely delighted to find a ready made den to play in and even Diesel dog joined in the fun!

It was the perfect Sunday adventure and we cannot wait to explore inside the Castle this spring. Craigievar Castle is cared for by the National Trust for Scotland and we plan on becoming members to enjoy as many new locations as we can and to play our part in protecting Scotlands history.

Alannah x