The Winter Sea

This month for book club we read "The Winter Sea" by Susanna Kearsley.  It's a historical novel set in Cruden Bay, a city 30 miles from Aberdeen.  The fact that the novel took place so close to home, it goes without saying that we all wanted to visit the castle & hotel that was central to the story line.

Cruden Bay is a coastal city with famous attractions including Slains Castle, a golf course & St. Olaf Hotel.  Slains Castle (aka inspiration central) was also where Bram Stoker visited and created Count Dracula.  We set out on the road yesterday morning with the sun shining and blue skies.  Unfortunately as we got closer to Cruden Bay, the nasty haar (fog) hovered above and obstructed our views on our accent to Slains & Bullars of Buchan (a massive blowhole created by natural arches).  Luckily, I managed to get a few good pictures but not sure if we actually saw the Bullars of Buchan.

The castle ruins sit on cliffs overlooking the North Sea.  It was a beautiful sight and I'm sad the city has not maintained inspiration central.  The won't even mow the grass in the castle or surrounding area.  Even the footpath to the castle is not maintained, but that's another issue.

After working up an appetite we headed to St. Olaf hotel where the author stayed when she was writing her novel.  Of course, the meal would not have been complete without the infamous sticky toffee pudding.

After lunch, the hotel allowed us to go and see the room in which the author stayed for several weeks.  Though I feel a bit stalker-ish, I headed straight up the stairs.  No point in coming all this way and not seeing her room! Sure enough the view from her room was none other than Slains and it was an awesome feeling getting to experience what the author experienced.  As we were leaving, a hotel employee flagged us down and showed us the book where the author signed in back in 2006.  Talk about icing on your sticky toffee pudding!

Room 4

View of Slains from the room

In awe...

Star Struck!