Kingussie

 

Kingussie is in the Cairngorms National Park which is Scotland's largest national park.  While technically we are still in the Highlands, the landscape has changed.  There are trees here - I can tell you are going big deal Carol.  Well it kind of is.  You see 90% of the trees we have seen so far in Scotland were planted as part of a tree farm.  The Highlands are rolling hills and mountains with heather and grasses or moss growing on them and occasionally a patch of trees.  Oh don't forget the sheep too.  We have now hit an area with trees so yes it was a big deal to us.  We are here only one night and at dinner that night we realized the reason we were in Kingussie was so that we could eat at The Cross our hotel and our dinner spot. 

The Cross is described as a restaurant with rooms.  It is a former tweed mill that was built in the late 1800s to try and diversify the local economy to assist it in growing.  The walls are thick and made of stones.  I was surprised how far back the second floor, where are room was, went.  There were a total of 7 rooms and the restaurant had a firm limit of 12 guests per night.  Yes you read that correct - 12 people per night.  So the night we were there everyone in the restaurant was a guest staying at the hotel.  It was a long train ride from Thurso so we got in and our dinner reservations were about an hour later.  

The Cross from across the river

We wandered down to the lobby which included some nice chairs and little tables and were encouraged to have a seat which we did.  We were then brought the dinner and drinks menu for the evening. We had the choice of pre dinner drinks so we each chose a different type of gin for gin and tonic.  From there we chose the regular dinner versus the tasting menu since that came with our tour.  We saw prices and thought they were reasonable.  When I later saw that this was a Michelin recognized place, and I had enjoyed a very nice dinner I decided it was a great price!  After we chose our dinner choices and the proprietor assisted us to chose a wine, we enjoyed some small appetizers and sat and talked with another group of people.

Then we were taken to the next room for our dinner to start.  We both ordered the same dishes.  We had an appetizer of scallops and langoustines (which is similar to lobster but much better than the lobster we had in Maine last year) and followed that with a main course of halibut with our half bottle of a very nice French white wine.  We followed that with a chocolatey dessert - chocolate fondant with raspberry sorbet and were going to order a port wine to accompany it but were talked out of the port by Joe, the proprietor.  He talked us into a red wine that is from a winery on the French/Spanish border.  It is made, casked and then kept in a sealed room in the hot Mediterranean weather to basically cook off some of the sugar.  They decide when each cask is ready by taste.  It is like an ice wine, but not nearly as sweet.  He serves it warm to go with a cheese course and chilled to go with chocolate like we had.  It was a very nice meal.

breakfast in the morning

The next morning we had another multi course breakfast and then some free time before our next train ride.  Since Jeff's knee was bugging him we opted for a gentle walk into town.  We walked out the back of the property and crossed a bridge over the river and through some nicely flowering trees and into town we went.  We saw a nice photography gallery in town and wandered some before we headed back.  Joe was there and we got talking and next thing I know we are tasting the local distilleries whiskey and another nice bottle he had.  One of the gins the night before was from same local distillery as this whisky.  Both whiskeys were nice.  We decided we liked the local one better.  The other one smelled fantastic, but was a little strong (?) for us.  As we sipped, we talked and found out Joe had been a pilot in the RAF and then later became an executive with an IT firm.  He and his wife had just bought the Cross last year and moved there from the Island of Guernsey.  He had trained as a chef years ago so now was the chance to use that knowledge some - he does the wines  and morning meal and a chef does the cooking for the evening meal.  This is one place Jeff and I would love to visit again!

One other thing I want to mention is peat.  It was not so much a topic here, but it was elsewhere in the Highlands.  I had heard that at one time people in Scotland had used peat to heat their homes.  Well truth is a few still do.  I had guides point out what peat was and how you cut it out and then let it dry out before you can use it as a heating source.  Additionally one of our taxi guides had made a passing comment about how it helped the climate.  Did not think much about it till I saw this article in the New York Times.  It seems that peat absorbs carbon dioxide and thus reduces our carbon footprint just like the Amazon rainforest   Unfortunately the best of intentions is having an adverse impact on the locals. It seems that rich people are buying up the land and reinstalling peat and jacking up the price of the land for the locals.  If you want to learn more here is the article.

The Climate Profit Buried in Scotland's Bogs - The New York Times (nytimes.com)