A 9-year-old’s view of Scotland? Awesome!

Our son Ewan saw it as high adventure.

My wife and I secretly called it “the test.”

That is, could we visit Scotland with a 9-year-old for a little over a week — and all have fun?

I don’t want to jinx us for future family trips, but the answer was a resounding yes. Let me put it this way: At one point he even described a visit to a garden as “awesome.”

And no, we didn’t drug him.

To be fair, we did let Ewan tote along his Nintendo handheld video game. But he played it so rarely that we often forgot that he had it.

In recent years, we’d stoked his interest in Scotland, leavening lessons about where our Abercrombie family clan hails from with legends of mythical water monsters. (He can pretty well recite the dialogue to the movie “The Water Horse.”)

So when we began tossing around the idea of a vacation out of the country, Ewan suggested Scotland. It had been a dozen years since Gail and I had visited. We’d talked about taking him there one day. And let’s face it, folks who name their son Ewan are bear-hugging their Scottish heritage.

Details, Scotland

We settled on an itinerary that promised something for us all. Castles, falconry, spook tours, fantastic food and whisky, a pony ride, even a little fly-fishing and a visit to a spa. We’d see both country and city, including a visit to the ancestral hamlet of Abercrombie. We decided to start with the farthest afield and work our way back to Edinburgh, where we landed one day in early August.

Maine on steroids

A goof-up with the GPS in the Peugeot we’d reserved wins us a free upgrade to a sleek six-speed BMW sedan. Throw in an uncharacteristically sunny Scottish sky, and we’re off to a fine start.

We’re making a beeline northwest to the highlands city of Inverness, at the mouth of the Ness River, which flows into the loch famous for a certain fanciful resident. Along the road, we play a literal game of counting sheep, which dot the rolling hillsides. Ravenous and starting to feel the effects of an overnight flight, we stop for lunch in the town of Pitlochry, halfway into our three-hour drive.

At the Auld Smiddy Inn, Ewan boldly orders haggis, which he abandons after a few bites. Still, Gail and I marvel that he even tried it. A bottle of crisp muscadet, assorted smoked, poached and peppered fish for Gail and me, a toffee pastry for Ewan, and we’re ready to stretch our legs with a walk to the nearby hydroelectric dam and salmon ladder. Ewan bounds up and down hills, joining other kids sliding down a grassy embankment. To a family used to life in subtropical Florida, it’s dramatic topography. Or as my wife puts it, “Maine on steroids.”

In the early evening, we arrive at the Rocpool Reserve hotel in downtown Inverness. Like many hotels in the neighborhood, this was once a house. Eager to get to bed early, we have dinner in the hotel’s cozy, six-table Chez Roux Restaurant, where Ewan discovers how sublime real bread and butter can be. I only hope that our ecstatic groans over the food didn’t scare the other diners.

Turndown service apparently includes installation of an Xbox video gaming console, which we discover when we return to our room. “Awesome,” Ewan says, the first of many times he’ll utter this word over the week.