Day tripper

Amongst the many perks of studying in Edinburgh is our proximity to other really cool stuff. For instance: this past Saturday, we hopped on a train (for just under an hour, and costing 4 pounds/$8 round trip) to Stirling, a small city situated right between the Highlands and the Lowlands, home to a rather impressive castle, and setting of great clashes between the Scottish and the English. Click here for a little backgrounder courtesy of Wikipedia.


Like Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle is built upon a crag in the middle of the city.





Though the weather was typically Scottish (read: drizzly, windy, and cold), it didn't bother us to much, if only because it meant we could take brooding landscape shots such as this one:

The weather did, however, keep us from hiking up to the nearby Wallace Monument, which can just be seen on the distant hill in this picture.


Here's a better view of the monument, complete with rolling mists and creepy graveyards:


Robert the Bruce watches over the land:



The following shot was taken inside the Great Hall of the Castle - look carefully and you'll notice that the man on the far right is dressed as a knight:


They're in the process of restoring the palace itself, so unfortunately we couldn't go in and see the royal apartments etc. However, we did get to tour a nearby restored 17th century townhouse called Argyll's Lodging. Apparently the man who founded Nova Scotia once lived here:




The castle as seen from a nearby graveyard:


Below is the Church of the Holy Rood, which, according to my sources (i.e. Wikipedia) is the only surviving church in the UK where a coronation has taken place, apart from Westminster Abbey in London. Unfortunately, it is closed from October to April - being in town on October 4th, we just missed our chance. This just means that I'll have to come back next summer (and hopefully do the Wallace Monument while in town).



And here is Stirling proper, as well as the only glimpse of blue sky we had all day:



The last thing we did before heading home was visit the old Stirling Bridge, site of the famous Battle of Stirling Bridge in which William Wallace fought (hence the nearby monument). This is me (in case you couldn't tell), on the bridge, with the castle (the beige-ish building on the hill) in the background:


This weekend we're doing a bus tour to some other castles nearby, and hopefully sometime this week I'll finally make a visit to Edinburgh castle, as I am now a member of Historic Scotland, which means I paid 29 pounds and now have "free" entry to a large number of historic sites around the country. Woot! Expect more castle pictures next week.