I don’t know about you guys, but if that was me, I’d have the same reaction as her and run out the castle.
I’d then come to my senses and apologize for pushing the old women and kids out the way.

There is something slightly unnerving about being dispatched to the dungeon immediately after drinks.

“Everything’s ready for you … downstairs,” an attendant says as we sit around in the library of Dalhousie Castle, the ancient, supposedly haunted Scottish fortress that is now one of Britain’s most elegant small hotels.

It sounds ominous; the sort of thing a matinee-movie medieval torturer might say, just before the hero is dragged below, strapped to the rack and introduced to the red-hot pokers.

Dungeon delights

So we clatter down the stone stairs and emerge into a torture-chamber straight out of old Hollywood: there’s a vaulted ceiling; a few sinister crevices just perfect for housing whips and thumbscrews; a ghostly suit of armour; a collection of battle-axes displayed in a jaunty fan arrangement on one wall.

We dine on smoked duck and delicately grilled aubergine, chocolate crème brulee and local cheeses – and there’s not a single howl of agony.

No ghosts either, although Escape video-journalist Helen Parker later returns to the dungeon to scare the wits out of herself by attempting to conjure up the ghost of Lady Catherine – a lovelorn young woman who supposedly starved herself to death.

The next morning, in the sanity of daylight, Dalhousie seems not scary, but thoroughly romantic. The castle has its own falconry, housing the birds of prey that once served as a hunting aid and pastime for the Scottish aristocracy. Guests can learn how to handle hawks, falcons, buzzards and owls, and participate in Dalhousie’s Hunting With Hawks days in the surrounding countryside – or, for a memorable wedding, arrange to have one of the owls deliver wedding-rings to a ceremony in the castle grounds.

There’s an aqueous spa where guests can plunge into saunas, steam-rooms and thermal pools pre- or post-dungeon, and upstairs, every suite is different, from the twisty garret with its own internal water-well to the suites with antique furniture and tasselled four-poster beds.

It’s also the perfect place to indulge fantasies of sweeping about in long dresses – which brides do regularly, at the frequent weddings hosted in the chapel downstairs. The scent of lilies floats out from the chapel, where a couple is to be married later today.

Scotland’s greatest natural beauties

Dalhousie has been home to the Ramsay family since the 13th century, frequently besieged and contested in the battles for Scottish independence that have raged around these borderlands.

Since the family moved to another castle a century ago, the castle has been a boarding-school and, since 1972, a hotel. It has been carefully modernised over the years, with ensuite bathrooms and heating added to soften the austerity of Scottish winters.

It is 12km from Edinburgh, and a couple of hours’ leisurely drive from one of Scotland’s greatest natural beauties, Loch Lomond. The giant lake is right on the border of the lowlands and highlands, and part of the West Highland Way, a 150km trail that brings bushwalkers through the heather over several challenging days of walking.

Earlier that day, we had trotted along a tiny section of the walk; a little hill overlooking the loch where our tour-guide whipped out his bagpipes and played a summery air.

MacKenzie Dalrymple is the sort of man who is never caught without bagpipes in an emergency; a bluff thirtysomething whose pride in Scotland is intense.

Indeed, Dalrymple is like a cartoon Scotsman, with floppy ginger hair, a bright red kilt and a dagger in his socks. He belongs on the front of a biscuit tin; a giant shortbread prince, iced in tartan, with kippers for hands.

Guiding tours is the perfect job for indulging his theatrical tendencies: as we drive along, he’s been telling the stories of Scotland’s bloody history with aplomb, brandishing an imaginary battleaxe in the air with his left hand as he drives the Rabbie’s Trail Burners tour bus with his right.

Full source: News au