Our stay in a castle and meal in a dungeon: A Dalhousie Castle review

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Obviously the key to travelling abroad when you’re poor is to stay in hostels and eat light. You’ll see a whole lot more of that on this blog in the coming months, but for Casey and I’s first anniversary we decided to splurge a little and celebrate in Scottish style. So we booked a stay in the 13th century castle, the Dalhousie, about a half hour drive outside of Edinburgh.

I really wanted, specifically, the “Castle Rock Suite” which included a bed, sitting room and luxurious bathroom in a mysterious stone room beneath the rest of the castle. It looked cool, and like something a princess might have once slept in. #Disneydreams #Belle

Our deal included dinner in the dungeon as well as breakfast in the “Orangery.” Dinner was super-fancy. Casey and I are always the simple and cheap types when it comes to food – a hearty burger and fries, please. But we were in Scotland – in a castle – might as well go all-out?

First we went to the library to order our food. It felt perfectly “Belle” with old books, a fireplace, leather chairs and yes, a secret bookcase door. A sweet older man came out to offer us menus and take our orders, but I could hardly understand a word he said – which was awesome and authentic.

I settled on rabbit for an appetizer and beef for my main dish. Obviously, the meals had really fancy names and explanations, but I was just trying to pull off looking “old enough” to eat food with such sophisticated terms, so I forget the specifics.

Breakdown: the rabbit was cold (intentionally) and came with some kind of savory gelatin (not my cup of tea), but the beef was delicious and included tiny fried onion flakes and mashed potatoes in the most beautiful little cylindrical shape. Presentation? A+. Dessert was a raspberry mousse (with a giant raspberry on top), raspberry sorbet in a tiny white chocolate shell with some basil “gel” dribbled on the side of the plate. This was amazing, and was worth trying to remember how to put fancy silverware on the plate when you are done eating to indicate you are, in fact, finished.

But the structure takes it toll! At one point during the meal I told Casey that our next meal needed to be a burger.

It wasn’t.

We tried haggis and black pudding for breakfast. Yep. Less than 24 hours in Scotland and I tried sheep’s stomach. It really wasn’t that bad, but it also wasn’t something I’d like to eat again. Same with the pudding. Thankfully, there were eggs, toast, ham, sausage and fruit, so we didn’t go hungry.

And the room? It was magical and mysterious and perfectly-princessy! We passed out on the king size bed to try and get more than the three hours of sleep from the night before and it was excellently firm and cozy. The bathroom deserves highest praise because of the GIANT Jacuzzi tub, which is just what you need after 26 hours of travelling. It also had a giant rain shower head with amazing water pressure, so the luxury was real.