Wallace is da Man

A trip to Stirling was on the cards today. Stirling is a town about one hour on the train outside of Edinburgh. It is quite well known for various historical points in time which is why i headed there. I got the train from Waverly in the morning and luckily Dad organised a off peak ticket as the prices are a riiip offf. 7 pounds one way, so it's about triple what we pay for CityRail to Blue Mountains for example. I'd heard about a quilting shop in Linlithgow (through my 'crafting contacts') that i wanted to check out so i got out at Linlithgow before getting back onto the train for Stirling. I was after a particular Beatrix Potter fabric and thankfully whilst they hardly had any, they had that print! Excellent. That will be shipped home with Dad for me to eventually use when i get home.
Back on to the train and off to Stirling. Once i got into Stirling, we made the uphill walk to Stirling Castle. You know if you are heading to a castle you are going to have to walk some hectic hills. After sweating up a storm getting to the castle we were there and it was surprisingly crowded.
I checked out the castle and again is amazed to be walking the same ground as someone such as Mary Queen of Scots or Robert the Bruce. Crazy. It has been beautifully restored where needed to get an idea of what it would have been like. After a look around the castle it was time for a tour of the Argyl's Lodgings. Argyl's Lodgings were just down the road from the castle and is an example of a 17th century mansion owned by aristocrats. Our tour guide was soo Scottish. He was short, had red hair, pink toned skin, blue eyes and a thick accent. He reminded me of my grandmother actually! We could walk around the lodgings as not much apart from the bones of the mansion are original. Most of it had been restored to reflect what it might have looked like.
After checking that out it was back to the main street to find lunch. As always we are after something cheap we we hit up Greggs, which is a UK version of subway and very cheap. Love it! We were a bit on the clock so we had only a quick lunch to then navigate the buses that got us to Bannockburn. Here there is a monument to Robert the Bruce because he won some war against England here with William Wallace. They were THE DUDES of Scottish in the early days. It was only a small museum and i wasn't particularly impressed with the monument. I guess once you've seen the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Monument in DC it is hard to find something better.
After waiting for the buses FOREVER we made our way to the William Wallace memorial. I was really keen to see this as i reckon he's pretty cool. And it's not just because he's Mel Gibson in Braveheart! The guy was like Dick Winters, and totally beat armies triple the size of his own. The monument was quite impressive on top of a mountain top with views over to the castle. It was a killer to check out though as it was three floors of stairs and 240 odd to get to the top. Typical monument with small spiral staircases. The museum within the monument had on display what people believe to be Wallace's actual sword. I'm sceptical but for no reason other than it would be amazing if it were true. One thing that goes against the Braveheart movie is that Wallace was a 6-7 foot ranga with a beard. Not very Mel Gibson.
So the monument rounded off the day and it was a easy train trip back to Edinburgh and into the apartments at about 8pm. I enjoyed another Marks & Spencer frozen dinner of spag bowl. It's not too bad but i don't think I'd want them every night. Mum - could you cook up some meals and ship them over???

View of Stirling from Sitrling Castle



The Palace within Stirling Castle & the Royal Lawn



Robert the Bruce Monument at Bannockburn



The William Wallace Monument