Dunnottar Castle

Dunnottar Castle is a guaranteed an exciting experience. Dunnottar Castle is located on an exceptionally beautiful rocky promontory on the northeastern coast of Scotland. Impressive and impregnable, today the castle Dunnottar has sunk in ruins with the sketchy memories of its former greatness, but at that expense it has become very attractive for tourists from around the world. The view of the nose, which upon Dunnottar rises has the background of the sea water and is incredibly beautiful and fascinating.

Dunnottar Castle is situated in the central part of the eastern Scottish coast, about 3 miles south of the Stonehaven town which is in the County of Aberdeen. Some interesting information is that the castle arena has been used for images of several Hollywood productions such as Hamlet which had starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close in 1990. In the summer of 2009 the American company Microsoft decided to include a picture of the castle as wallpaper to the new Windows 7 operating system.

The very name of the Dunnottar Castle comes from people who inhabited the lands of eastern and northern Scotland during the Roman Empire. They named it and converted it to Christianity sometime in the 5th century. In their language the word "dun" is translated as "castle on the hill" or "place of power".

In the 12th century the castle became a Catholic Center, the first chapel there was consecrated in 1276. Since the 14th century Dunnottar Castle had been a family owned castle. One of the most powerful Scottish families was that of the Earls Marischal. The stone fortress c was built probably by the first Earl Marishal - Sir William Keith. Counts Marishal had very important functions and responsibilities to the Scottish King James II.

They had to take care of the safety within the parliament for ceremonial events and more. Therefore the huge closeness between the monarchs and representatives of Marishal is not surprising. In Dunnottar, Mary Queen of Scots was often a guest.