Sterling Castle

Morning arrives and we all have a nice breakfast of porridge and jump in the rental cars to start the drive to Stirling. Stirling is home to Stirling Castle, which played an important part in Scottish history. According to George at the Old Corn Mill we visited, Edinburgh Castle was just a vacation home...Stirling Castle was where all the real work was done.
Once we arrived in Stirling and found a place to park, we walked up a hill past the Church of the Holy Rude and through its impressive cemetery.
I've always been fascinated by cemeteries. Not for any "gothic" or creepy satanic reasons, but because of the beauty that can be found there. For me the old cemeteries with lots of statuary and gravestones which really honor and respect and tell you something about the person buried within. Unfortunately, in this day and age, this is becoming a rare thing as cemeteries are commercialized and designed to be low maintenance for caretakers. Such ideas as "remembrance gardens" and uniform headstones are just poor excuses for making mowing easier.
We have only ourselves to blame as peoples ideas about cemeteries have shifted from being a place to have a picnic on a sunny afternoon to ghosts, goblins and ghouls...some place you rarely visit unless on a dare. I'll step off my soapbox now.
I spend a while walking through the rows of very old headstones and sculpture snapping a few photos along the way. I spot my father who has discovered a hilltop overlook with a nice view of the surrounding country side and Stirling Castle up on an even higher hill. He warns me that the wind is pretty vicious.
He wasn't kidding. The wind whipped up and over this little hilltop with gusts, there is nothing to block the wind and no railing to keep one from tumbling over the hillside. Of course, I take this as a challenge and jump up on a short bench to get a little higher to get a better shot of the castle.
Just keeping steady enough to take the shot was a real challenge. I finally decided I'd risked enough once wind kicked up a little more.
I scramble down the hillside and through the rest of the cemetery and work my way up to the parking lot and entrance to the castle.
The parking lot is the home to a regal looking statue of William Wallace appropriately looking across the countryside at his monument in the distance.
We storm the gates with our Explorer Passes in hand. The Scottish military had used the castle as a headquarters and barracks for some 150 years. The castle has been undergoing restoration for many years since then and various sections are closed off as the archaeologists try to peel back many years of alterations to try to figure out what it really looked like and how it might have been built. Wandering around you can't help but imagine what it might have looked like in its prime.
Some of the buildings like the Great Hall and Chapel have already been pieced back together. Looking up at the beams holding up the roof of the Great Hall you see the incredible workmanship that went into rebuilding it. These great beams around the size of railroad ties are pieced together to form kind of a skeletal arch maximizing the vertical space of the room. I learn later that the whole thing is built without using any nails or screws...just dowels and joints and other carpentry wizardry.
The wind starts to pick up outside and I can hear these beams start to creak and moan. I'm seeing visions of newspaper headlines proclaiming the crushing death of a bunch of stupid American tourists when the roof of the Great Hall at Stirling Castle fell in during a bout of heavy wind.
They've made a kind of creepy exhibit out of what used to be the castle kitchens. I say it's creepy because they've tried to make it look like a working kitchen complete with mannequins dressed in period garb frozen in a chaotic kitchen moment (complete with spilt milk). Various types of fake plastic dust covered dead animals and fish in various stages of being prepared for a feast. At each little scene there are little backlit plaques that point out interesting facts. I had no idea that in that time the kitchen was men's work...women were not allowed in the kitchen.
I look above my head and there are fake salamis and hams hanging from the ceiling by a single fraying piece of string swinging precariously in the wind.
I see flashes of newspaper headlines again about some dumb American tourist being maimed by a falling fake salami.
On my way out I'm further assured that I'm not the first to be freaked out by the creepy kitchen. There a small child pleading with her father "please don't make me go in there!" I don't blame her in the least.
Another interesting spot is the Highlander Regimental museum which is housed in a couple of floors of one of the castle buildings. Lots of displays and men in kilts showing the history of the Highlanders and the various wars and battles that they have been through. Starting with early sword and musket soldiers and leading up to modern day high-tech warriors.
Another building that had been restored was the chapel. I'm assuming that they actual use it as a chapel for various reasons on occasion, since there were chairs set up and some audio gear.
The interesting thing here was a couple of hand made replica tapestries depicting the Unicorn Hunt. These beautiful things were dyed and woven by hand using techniques that would have been used to create the originals.
I spent some more time walking the along the walls taking pictures. The castle is up on a high hill so there are areas where you can just look out at the countryside where William Wallace fought famous battles.
I drifted into the gift shop to buy some souvenirs. This is our last real day in Scotland and I'd held off buying anything up until now mainly because I haven't seen anything I really wanted to buy. All these gift shops all stock the same crap and I really wanted to find something unique. I did manage to buy a few things from the 3 different gift shops at Stirling Castle. Now I'm just hoping my luggage isn't soaked with Scotch from a busted bottle by the time I get back home.
We regrouped as our family members had scattered in different directions.
The next challenge was finding some grub. It's Good Friday and it seems as though every restaurant in town is locked up. Rob goes out on a reconnaissance mission to see if he can located any place in walking distance to eat. After several minutes he returns proclaiming that the only place open was an Indian restaurant. We wander down there and practically take over the place. There is no one else in the restaurant so we make ourselves at home. The food was great, the naan bread they brought out was huge. Everybody got a something a little different. We had a good time. Before we left I decided to visit the bathroom before the trip back to the B&B. The bathrooms were three floors up...over 60 some odd steps to reach them.
Tomorrow we'll leave early, early in the morning in order to drive the 2+ hours to get to Manchester airport the requisite 2 hours early in order to catch our 9:30am flight. Now I have to figure out how to bend space & time to get everything crammed back in my suitcase.