Our morning was pretty smooth. We got out of The Craigellachie just after breakfast and headed down the road to the first planned castle of our trip: Balvenie Castle.

Because the Craigellachie is in the heart of the Speyside region, we drove by something like 4 distilleries and one cooperage over the 5 minute drive to Balvenie Castle. We actually ended up parking in the Glenfiddich visitors' parking lot because it was a larger lot about 200m further away from the castle.

It's pretty clear that Balvenie Castle is now just an afterthought with a whisky named after it, but it had seen use for several centuries, roughly during the same times Stirling Castle was in its heyday. It's fallen in and out of repair, as different nobles used it over the centuries for different purposes. One of the most interesting parts of exploring the castle was seeing all the different additions and repairs in evidence in the stonework.

The main bailey was at one point a 3- or 4-story section made up of the main hall and the nobles' bedchambers. All the levels are accessible from stones spiral staircases in two separate towers, but there's nothing to walk on. The wooden floors have long since rotted away though you can see the doors and fireplaces that were intended to be used at each level. In some places there are stone braces for the large joists that would have supported the ceilings and floors.

We were very impressed with the focus on sanitation and privacy for such an old castle. We counted 8 latrines, all of which had private stalls and their own chutes. Even the servants and guards had en suite latrines, and there were a few for more general use accessible from the courtyard. The central well was far away from the latrine pits, so in times of siege the water supply would have been left relatively clean.

Also, even though we'd gone through the reconstructed kitchen in Stirling Castle (and this kitchen was in ruins), the kitchen at Balvenie Castle felt more well planned and lively. The larger kitchens here were probably part of the 15th century reconstruction that turned this from a fortress into a residence, since by that point hostilities in this region were mostly settled. Stirling Castle was certainly more palatial, but I think Balvenie Castle would have felt more homey.

We opted not to do the Glenfiddich tour, but I couldn't resist getting a picture of the pagoda roofs above their malt drying chimneys. This is a (now mostly traditional) feature at all Speyside distilleries.

We had another uneventful drive to Aberdeen. This is very much the winding down part of our trip, so we're likely to take it easier from here on out. Susan and I are both getting a little homesick at this point, and we're both tired from many long days of exploring tons of history, scenery, and whisky.