6 April 2001
The sixth of April started a minor nightmare that was to continue up until 11th of June. My contract at NEC had finished. I had been lucky in that they had extended it by two months to work on an extra project but it had finally run it's course - that's the problem with contracting, by completing my work on time I had put myself out of a job. The only reason I found this a nightmare was because I found myself jobless at the end of the financial year. This is the time companies are awaiting their budgets and therefore are not hiring new contractors, not to mention the general economic downturn. I rang around the small number of contacts I had made in the industry and the words were always the same. "There's nothing out there yet, it's very slow but it should pick up eventually".. Not exactly music to my ears.
You would think that having a forced holiday would be a good thing. I can assure you, however, that it is not. Simply breathing over here ultimately costs money and being jobless for the first time didn't appeal to me at all. Fortunately I had just put in a large invoice - enough to carry me (on a budget) for two months. So I did what anyone would do in my situation - I went on a holiday.
Actually that makes me sound more reckless than I was, I had some money left over from my last pay and Lucy needed to take some of her annual leave (or else she lost it!) so we decided to head off to Edinburgh in Scotland. My idea of Scotland was largely based on the film Highlander with a bit of Braveheart thrown in for good measure. Just about everyone I spoke to told me the Edinburgh was fantastic but I couldn't help feeling that it would be boring - surely it was just another capital city with the obligatory Marks and Spencer and Boots shops. I couldn't of been more wrong (well they did have a Marks and Spencer and Boots but the city is amazing).
We had booked our train tickets using the rail company's "super friendly online system" (read as incredibly slow and painful electronic pain in the arse). When they finally arrived we set off for Waterloo station to begin the five hour train trip to Edinburgh. I like traveling by train, if you get the right seats it's great. I can read a book without getting that annoying motion-headache and talk to the person next to me without worrying about losing control of a vehicle. In most countries you have a better chance of being killed by lightning than being in a train crash, here in the UK your chances are more like those of being involved in an automobile accident. Still I like to live on the edge...
As I mentioned earlier, I had five hours to do some reading on Edinburgh and figure out what we should see and do whilst there. It had all been such short notice that we didn't really have time to make a plan at all.
We arrived in Edinburgh late in the evening, just after the peak hour traffic had passed. What an amazing city!! As soon as you come out of the train station you are greeted with the Scottish Monument and Edinburgh Castle which is set high up on top of an extinct volcano, it certainly beats Windsor Castle in terms of sheer presence. I would have hated to have been an invading army and trying to climb the cliffs whilst dodging hot tar and arrows. It's amazing that this castle had been captured more than six times during it's active history. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to take all this in at first as we saw all this while riding in a taxi to our hotel. After checking in we immediately walked back to the city centre and up towards Edinburgh Castle.
Looking towards the New Town with the Scottish Monument on the right.
At the bottom of the castle's cliff is a church yard, we poked around there a bit to get a better view of the castle from a "commoner's" perspective - if you're ever visiting Edinburgh, this is probably one of the best places to view it from. We then walked around the base of the mountain and walked up the southern side. The castle is the top end of what is called the Royal Mile a road that is considered the world's best example of the geological feature known as 'crag-and-tail'. It's about 340 million years old. You see, the mountain where the castle now stands is the solidified core of an extinct volcano, the rest of it has been eroded away by glaciers during the last ice age, however the core managed to protect the soil that was immediately behind it - the sloping part now referred to as the Royal Mile. As it was getting late by this time and we were tired from the journey we decided to leave the Royal Mile and tackle it and the castle tour first thing in the morning.
As we were heading back for dinner (towards what is known as the "New Town"), we noticed a strangely familiar structure on the hill. It appeared to be the ruins of a famous Greek building, Not fully understanding what we were seeing I later turned to the Lonely Planet guide book which explained the phenomena as follows:
"The largest structure on Calton Hill is the National Monument, an over-ambitious attempt to replicate the Parthenon, in honour of Scotland's dead in the Napoleonic Wars. Construction began in 1822, but funds ran dry when only 12 columns were complete."
The following morning we headed out to explore the Royal Mile, we started with the tour of Edinburgh Castle which was amazing. The castle rock was first visited by humans' approximately 3,000 years ago (during the late Bronze Age), it was a thriving hill-top settlement when Roman soldiers marched by in the first century AD. It first became a defensive position in AD 600 when the 'war-band' of the local king 'Mynyddog' pledged themselves to die in the service of their lord. It became an important Royal fortress by the time of Queen Margaret's death there in November 1093 it remained so until the Palace of Holyroodhouse was built in the early sixteenth century. During the castle tour I noticed that there is a small garden called the Dog Cemetery which since the 1840s has been used as a burial place for officers' pet dogs and regimental mascots. It has a curved wall around it which they believe to be a surviving piece of a tower from the original medieval castle.
A photo of me standing in front of the 'New Town' from the top of Edinburgh Castle,
you can see just about all of Edinburgh from up there!
We walked around for some time, making sure we stopped to see the Honours of Scotland. These are the Crown, Sword and Sceptre that were shaped in Italy and Scotland during the reigns of King James IV and King James V and have been used together as coronation regalia from 1543 up until the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England in 1707. After 1707 they had been locked away with walled up doors for 111 years, when Walter Scott with the permission of the Prince Regent (future King George IV) had the room unblocked and the chest forced open.
Also on display was the Stone of Destiny, this was a stone that served as the seat on which the Scottish Kings sat while they have been inaugurated for over 400 years. Stolen by Edward I in 1296 it was incorporated into the Coronation Chair and used for nearly 700 years by the monarchs of England. However, on Christmas Eve 1950, a group of Scottish students drove down from Glasgow, jemmied the door of Westminster Abbey and made off with the Stone. The English were outraged and immediately road blocked all border roads (for the first time in 400 years), however the Scots managed to smuggle the stone back to Scotland. King George VI was 'sorely troubled by the loss', but the students issued a petition affirming their loyalty to him, stating they would give the stone back so long as it could remain on Scottish soil. The authorities refused but despite this the stone turned up three months later on the alter of the ruined Abbey of Arbroath (where the Arbroath Declaration was signed in 1320 - reaffirming the right of Scots to self-rule and independence from England). The stone was returned to Edinburgh castle in 1996 although some people insist that it is a fake, the original being safely hidden somewhere in Scotland having never been returned to the English in the first place. After viewing all this we left the Castle and gradually made our way down the Royal Mile which my guide book explained as:
"... a ridge that runs from Edinburgh Castle Castle to Holyrood Palace, the Royal Mile is one of the world's most fascinating streets. From the west end you can look past craggy Arthur's Seat and over the waters of the Firth of Forth, with tantalising glimpses of the Old and New Towns through the closes (entrances) of wynds (lanes) on either side. Although there are tourists and shops stuffed with tacky Scottish souvenirs aplenty, the street still feels a real part of a thriving city. It's lined with extraordinary buildings, including multistoryed lands (apartment buildings) dating from the 15th century."
A photo of me standing in front Edinburgh Castle, we spent most of the morning in there
Hollyrood Palace; the Palace itself was a little boring but the Abbey next door was fantastic!
We walked down the mile and ended up at the Palace of Holyrood (the Queen's official residence in Scotland). The castle tour wasn't very different from any of the others I have visited but when we finished with the indoor tour we walked out into what was one of the best ruins I have seen to date (well equal to Old Sarum that I spoke about in June last year), the ruins are of the old Holyrood Abbey.
It was totally out of this world, the roof was completely gone and most of the floor had been replaced by pebbles, scattered almost randomly were tomb stones that originally formed part of the floor. There were two open granite coffins (obviously without bodies), I found these very interesting as you could see how they had carved out space for the body, leaving a surreal looking granite outline of the original inhabitants - very spooky. We walked around while I took a hefty portion of video and then strolled out through the above mentioned door into the gardens before making the long walk back to the hotel (which was on the other side of the city by now). We did this via the the 'Old Town', you see Edinburgh city is divided into two sections, the 'Old Town' which is the original city from around the 11th Century (although a town has been here pretty much since 850 BC), and the 'New Town' which was created during the population explosion of the 19th Century (where Edinburgh quadrupled in size).
We walked up into an area known as Grassmarket. Today it is one of Edinburgh's main nightlife areas, with heaps of pubs and restaurants. It was named Grassmarket as it was the site of a market that existed from at least 1477 to the start of the 20th century, Grassmarket was always the focal point for the 'Old Town'. However of particular interest to me was the fact that this was the main place for executions and the notorious murders Burke and Hare operated from a now vanished close off the west end (In around 1827 they enticed at least 18 victims here, suffocated them and sold the bodies to Edinburgh's medical schools - sounds like a movie script to me!). We walked around the area and saw the spot where the gallows used to be, today there is a plaque and little monument there to the 100 odd people who lost their lives for the Protestant faith. Like in France it's a little surreal to stand at the spot where all this took place. We stopped off for dinner (after I had staked out at a bus stop trying to take a photo of buses with my brother's movie poster on the side) before walking back to our hotel to get an early night. We had to get up early the next morning as we were due to pick up our hire car. We were about to set off for a place I've always wanted to see since I was a kid - Loch Ness!
While heading for Loch Ness, I found myself wondering what I was expecting to find. I had plenty of time to do this as the foot and mouth crisis was in full swing. We had been told by just about every politician that could be jammed on TV that "Scotland was open for business" and that we would only have to take minor precautions when traveling to country areas. What we weren't told is that they would attempt to disinfect every single car traveling though the area. I had never in my life found myself in a eight mile traffic jam before, nor had I ever taken four hours to cover that distance in a car. I could of put the whole experience down to the price we pay to keep the animals healthy had it not been for the fact that by the time we had reached the "decontamination tent" they had decided that they wouldn't wash any more cars. FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC! Not only had they wasted four hours of my life to NOT get my feet washed and our car decontaminated, but they had (by this time) managed a twelve mile queue that would take the better part of the evening to clear!!!
Loch Ness - I had to take four shots to fit it all in, it's that massive!
On the way to Stirling we decided to have a look at Moot (or 'Boot') Hill, this was the site of the coronations of the Kings of Scotland and of Scottish Parliaments. It got it's name as it is said it's an artificial mound created by the earth brought in the boots of lords swearing loyalty to their King. At the hill (which is quite large and therefore impressive if created the way the legend says it was) there is a replica of the stone of destiny. We took photos and video's of each of us sitting on it before walking around the grounds, the foot and mouth precautions were in full swing so we had to get our car decontaminated along with our boots before entering and leaving the premises.
Stirling was formerly known as "Central Region", a name appropriate not only for its location but also the role it has played in Scotland's history. It has been Scotlands administrative capital and has a suburb castle at the head of the Firth of Forth and is the main route into the Highlands. In fact Stirling is considered the most strategically important spot in the country, as such there has been a fortress there since prehistoric times. It was said that whoever held Stirling controlled the country. The castle is high up on a rock and it dominates the town. Two miles north of Stirling, and visible for miles around is the Wallace Monument dedicated to William Wallace who was hung, drawn and quartered by the English in 1305. From the top you can see seven battle ground's one of them at Stirling Bridge, where Wallace defeated the English in 1297.
We didn't make it to Stirling until late in the afternoon, this was a shame as I was very keen to see two things, the first being the Wallace Monument, the other being the castle. As the first turn off was for the Wallace Monument we headed there. The Monument was erected in 1869 using stone from the Abbey Craig's own quarries and occupies the former site of a Pictish hill fort. Raised by public subscription it commemorates Sir William Wallace. Inside the monument is the massive sword that the real William Wallace used, the whole structure is really impressive! Perhaps the only thing that lets it down is the statue in the car park, it's of Mel Gibson in his Braveheart gear, it's been protected by fencing (my guess is the locals are keen to smash it to bits). I felt it really doesn't have a reason to be here, it should be displayed in the local shopping Mall not put out the front of a massive shrine to a real national hero. The plaque in front of it says it was carved by a guy who overcame his illness after being inspired by the movie Braveheart - which is great and all, but it doesn't justify placing the statue here.
We didn't get to go inside the second thing I was keen to see (Stirling Castle) due to the lateness of our arrival, so we had to make do looking at it from the outside, as luck would have it the souvenir shop was open so I managed to grab a copy of the souvenir book so I could at least read a little about it. We walked around the castle forecourt before having to head back to Edinburgh, we were due to return the hire car and get the train back to London early the following morning so we needed to get a hotel as close to the station as we could. In the end we stayed at the Travel Lodge at the very end of the Royal Mile, a much, much better hotel then the original hotel we stayed in a few days earlier. As we boarded the train back to London I couldn't help feeling like I would be back before too long.
You would think that having a forced holiday would be a good thing. I can assure you, however, that it is not. Simply breathing over here ultimately costs money and being jobless for the first time didn't appeal to me at all. Fortunately I had just put in a large invoice - enough to carry me (on a budget) for two months. So I did what anyone would do in my situation - I went on a holiday.
Actually that makes me sound more reckless than I was, I had some money left over from my last pay and Lucy needed to take some of her annual leave (or else she lost it!) so we decided to head off to Edinburgh in Scotland. My idea of Scotland was largely based on the film Highlander with a bit of Braveheart thrown in for good measure. Just about everyone I spoke to told me the Edinburgh was fantastic but I couldn't help feeling that it would be boring - surely it was just another capital city with the obligatory Marks and Spencer and Boots shops. I couldn't of been more wrong (well they did have a Marks and Spencer and Boots but the city is amazing).
We had booked our train tickets using the rail company's "super friendly online system" (read as incredibly slow and painful electronic pain in the arse). When they finally arrived we set off for Waterloo station to begin the five hour train trip to Edinburgh. I like traveling by train, if you get the right seats it's great. I can read a book without getting that annoying motion-headache and talk to the person next to me without worrying about losing control of a vehicle. In most countries you have a better chance of being killed by lightning than being in a train crash, here in the UK your chances are more like those of being involved in an automobile accident. Still I like to live on the edge...
As I mentioned earlier, I had five hours to do some reading on Edinburgh and figure out what we should see and do whilst there. It had all been such short notice that we didn't really have time to make a plan at all.
We arrived in Edinburgh late in the evening, just after the peak hour traffic had passed. What an amazing city!! As soon as you come out of the train station you are greeted with the Scottish Monument and Edinburgh Castle which is set high up on top of an extinct volcano, it certainly beats Windsor Castle in terms of sheer presence. I would have hated to have been an invading army and trying to climb the cliffs whilst dodging hot tar and arrows. It's amazing that this castle had been captured more than six times during it's active history. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to take all this in at first as we saw all this while riding in a taxi to our hotel. After checking in we immediately walked back to the city centre and up towards Edinburgh Castle.
Looking towards the New Town with the Scottish Monument on the right.
At the bottom of the castle's cliff is a church yard, we poked around there a bit to get a better view of the castle from a "commoner's" perspective - if you're ever visiting Edinburgh, this is probably one of the best places to view it from. We then walked around the base of the mountain and walked up the southern side. The castle is the top end of what is called the Royal Mile a road that is considered the world's best example of the geological feature known as 'crag-and-tail'. It's about 340 million years old. You see, the mountain where the castle now stands is the solidified core of an extinct volcano, the rest of it has been eroded away by glaciers during the last ice age, however the core managed to protect the soil that was immediately behind it - the sloping part now referred to as the Royal Mile. As it was getting late by this time and we were tired from the journey we decided to leave the Royal Mile and tackle it and the castle tour first thing in the morning.
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| Edinburgh Castle dominates the town, it was the first thing I noticed when coming out of Waverley station! | |
As we were heading back for dinner (towards what is known as the "New Town"), we noticed a strangely familiar structure on the hill. It appeared to be the ruins of a famous Greek building, Not fully understanding what we were seeing I later turned to the Lonely Planet guide book which explained the phenomena as follows:
"The largest structure on Calton Hill is the National Monument, an over-ambitious attempt to replicate the Parthenon, in honour of Scotland's dead in the Napoleonic Wars. Construction began in 1822, but funds ran dry when only 12 columns were complete."
The following morning we headed out to explore the Royal Mile, we started with the tour of Edinburgh Castle which was amazing. The castle rock was first visited by humans' approximately 3,000 years ago (during the late Bronze Age), it was a thriving hill-top settlement when Roman soldiers marched by in the first century AD. It first became a defensive position in AD 600 when the 'war-band' of the local king 'Mynyddog' pledged themselves to die in the service of their lord. It became an important Royal fortress by the time of Queen Margaret's death there in November 1093 it remained so until the Palace of Holyroodhouse was built in the early sixteenth century. During the castle tour I noticed that there is a small garden called the Dog Cemetery which since the 1840s has been used as a burial place for officers' pet dogs and regimental mascots. It has a curved wall around it which they believe to be a surviving piece of a tower from the original medieval castle.
A photo of me standing in front of the 'New Town' from the top of Edinburgh Castle,
you can see just about all of Edinburgh from up there!
We walked around for some time, making sure we stopped to see the Honours of Scotland. These are the Crown, Sword and Sceptre that were shaped in Italy and Scotland during the reigns of King James IV and King James V and have been used together as coronation regalia from 1543 up until the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England in 1707. After 1707 they had been locked away with walled up doors for 111 years, when Walter Scott with the permission of the Prince Regent (future King George IV) had the room unblocked and the chest forced open.
Also on display was the Stone of Destiny, this was a stone that served as the seat on which the Scottish Kings sat while they have been inaugurated for over 400 years. Stolen by Edward I in 1296 it was incorporated into the Coronation Chair and used for nearly 700 years by the monarchs of England. However, on Christmas Eve 1950, a group of Scottish students drove down from Glasgow, jemmied the door of Westminster Abbey and made off with the Stone. The English were outraged and immediately road blocked all border roads (for the first time in 400 years), however the Scots managed to smuggle the stone back to Scotland. King George VI was 'sorely troubled by the loss', but the students issued a petition affirming their loyalty to him, stating they would give the stone back so long as it could remain on Scottish soil. The authorities refused but despite this the stone turned up three months later on the alter of the ruined Abbey of Arbroath (where the Arbroath Declaration was signed in 1320 - reaffirming the right of Scots to self-rule and independence from England). The stone was returned to Edinburgh castle in 1996 although some people insist that it is a fake, the original being safely hidden somewhere in Scotland having never been returned to the English in the first place. After viewing all this we left the Castle and gradually made our way down the Royal Mile which my guide book explained as:
"... a ridge that runs from Edinburgh Castle Castle to Holyrood Palace, the Royal Mile is one of the world's most fascinating streets. From the west end you can look past craggy Arthur's Seat and over the waters of the Firth of Forth, with tantalising glimpses of the Old and New Towns through the closes (entrances) of wynds (lanes) on either side. Although there are tourists and shops stuffed with tacky Scottish souvenirs aplenty, the street still feels a real part of a thriving city. It's lined with extraordinary buildings, including multistoryed lands (apartment buildings) dating from the 15th century."
A photo of me standing in front Edinburgh Castle, we spent most of the morning in there
Hollyrood Palace; the Palace itself was a little boring but the Abbey next door was fantastic!
We walked down the mile and ended up at the Palace of Holyrood (the Queen's official residence in Scotland). The castle tour wasn't very different from any of the others I have visited but when we finished with the indoor tour we walked out into what was one of the best ruins I have seen to date (well equal to Old Sarum that I spoke about in June last year), the ruins are of the old Holyrood Abbey.
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The Abbey was founded by David I in 1128, it was most likely named after a fragment of the Cross (rood is an old word for Cross) that was supposed to have belonged to his mother (St. Margaret). As it was built outside the original city walls it was very vulnerable to English attacks, so every time the English invaded (and they did this relatively often) it had to be rebuilt. This was done until it collapsed in 1768. Most of the ruins that are there now date from the 12th and 13th centuries, although a doorway in the far south-eastern corner survives from the original Norman Church. |
 The Abbey when viewed from the Royal Gardens |
 More of the Abbey - taken from my extensive video footage! |
 It's spooky to think a body was here once... |
 Showing the inside of the abbey as it is today |
It was totally out of this world, the roof was completely gone and most of the floor had been replaced by pebbles, scattered almost randomly were tomb stones that originally formed part of the floor. There were two open granite coffins (obviously without bodies), I found these very interesting as you could see how they had carved out space for the body, leaving a surreal looking granite outline of the original inhabitants - very spooky. We walked around while I took a hefty portion of video and then strolled out through the above mentioned door into the gardens before making the long walk back to the hotel (which was on the other side of the city by now). We did this via the the 'Old Town', you see Edinburgh city is divided into two sections, the 'Old Town' which is the original city from around the 11th Century (although a town has been here pretty much since 850 BC), and the 'New Town' which was created during the population explosion of the 19th Century (where Edinburgh quadrupled in size).
 Another shot of the Abbey |
 Here's one for my older brother. Proof that his movie advertising made it onto a double decker! |
We walked up into an area known as Grassmarket. Today it is one of Edinburgh's main nightlife areas, with heaps of pubs and restaurants. It was named Grassmarket as it was the site of a market that existed from at least 1477 to the start of the 20th century, Grassmarket was always the focal point for the 'Old Town'. However of particular interest to me was the fact that this was the main place for executions and the notorious murders Burke and Hare operated from a now vanished close off the west end (In around 1827 they enticed at least 18 victims here, suffocated them and sold the bodies to Edinburgh's medical schools - sounds like a movie script to me!). We walked around the area and saw the spot where the gallows used to be, today there is a plaque and little monument there to the 100 odd people who lost their lives for the Protestant faith. Like in France it's a little surreal to stand at the spot where all this took place. We stopped off for dinner (after I had staked out at a bus stop trying to take a photo of buses with my brother's movie poster on the side) before walking back to our hotel to get an early night. We had to get up early the next morning as we were due to pick up our hire car. We were about to set off for a place I've always wanted to see since I was a kid - Loch Ness!
 Grassmarket looking across the square at the former site of the gallows |
 A close up of the memorial that is on the site of the former gallows |
While heading for Loch Ness, I found myself wondering what I was expecting to find. I had plenty of time to do this as the foot and mouth crisis was in full swing. We had been told by just about every politician that could be jammed on TV that "Scotland was open for business" and that we would only have to take minor precautions when traveling to country areas. What we weren't told is that they would attempt to disinfect every single car traveling though the area. I had never in my life found myself in a eight mile traffic jam before, nor had I ever taken four hours to cover that distance in a car. I could of put the whole experience down to the price we pay to keep the animals healthy had it not been for the fact that by the time we had reached the "decontamination tent" they had decided that they wouldn't wash any more cars. FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC! Not only had they wasted four hours of my life to NOT get my feet washed and our car decontaminated, but they had (by this time) managed a twelve mile queue that would take the better part of the evening to clear!!!
Loch Ness - I had to take four shots to fit it all in, it's that massive!
| We didn't get to Fort Augustus until late, so my first glimpse of Loch Ness was disappointingly brief. Fort Augustus is right at the very end of the Loch. We stayed at the Caledonian Hotel which is fantastic and highly recommended if visiting the Loch. The following morning at breakfast we mentioned to the owner of the hotel that we were visiting the Loch for the first time, he suggested we don't drive up the tourist side of the Loch (the north side) but take the southern side instead. He said that you get much better views and only miss out on Urquhart Castle, somthing I normally would not have considered but I was assured that it being restored and so there wasn't much to see that couldn't be seen from the other side of the Loch anyway. | |
| So we set off away from the tourist traffic and indeed saw some amazing views of the Loch (alas no monster) we stopped opposite Urquhart Castle and walked down to the edge of the Loch. I don't think there's a monster but I can see why people believe it. It's quite a scary looking Loch and you wouldn't catch me swimming in it - ever. Although it looks fantastic! We stopped in Inverness and picked up the obligatory Loch Ness Monster souvenirs before heading off to Stirling to catch up on a bit of William Wallace history... |  |
On the way to Stirling we decided to have a look at Moot (or 'Boot') Hill, this was the site of the coronations of the Kings of Scotland and of Scottish Parliaments. It got it's name as it is said it's an artificial mound created by the earth brought in the boots of lords swearing loyalty to their King. At the hill (which is quite large and therefore impressive if created the way the legend says it was) there is a replica of the stone of destiny. We took photos and video's of each of us sitting on it before walking around the grounds, the foot and mouth precautions were in full swing so we had to get our car decontaminated along with our boots before entering and leaving the premises.
 The stone of destiny replica at Moot Hill |
 A shot showing the small church on Moot Hill with the stone in the foreground, this is how it was said to have originally been laid out |
 On the way into the grounds we needed to have our car and feet cleaned at this decontamination station due to foot and mouth restrictions (note the plastic mats) |
 Most country property's had something like this set up at the entrances, the straw was full of antiseptic. |
Stirling was formerly known as "Central Region", a name appropriate not only for its location but also the role it has played in Scotland's history. It has been Scotlands administrative capital and has a suburb castle at the head of the Firth of Forth and is the main route into the Highlands. In fact Stirling is considered the most strategically important spot in the country, as such there has been a fortress there since prehistoric times. It was said that whoever held Stirling controlled the country. The castle is high up on a rock and it dominates the town. Two miles north of Stirling, and visible for miles around is the Wallace Monument dedicated to William Wallace who was hung, drawn and quartered by the English in 1305. From the top you can see seven battle ground's one of them at Stirling Bridge, where Wallace defeated the English in 1297.
We didn't make it to Stirling until late in the afternoon, this was a shame as I was very keen to see two things, the first being the Wallace Monument, the other being the castle. As the first turn off was for the Wallace Monument we headed there. The Monument was erected in 1869 using stone from the Abbey Craig's own quarries and occupies the former site of a Pictish hill fort. Raised by public subscription it commemorates Sir William Wallace. Inside the monument is the massive sword that the real William Wallace used, the whole structure is really impressive! Perhaps the only thing that lets it down is the statue in the car park, it's of Mel Gibson in his Braveheart gear, it's been protected by fencing (my guess is the locals are keen to smash it to bits). I felt it really doesn't have a reason to be here, it should be displayed in the local shopping Mall not put out the front of a massive shrine to a real national hero. The plaque in front of it says it was carved by a guy who overcame his illness after being inspired by the movie Braveheart - which is great and all, but it doesn't justify placing the statue here.
 The Wallace Monument at Stirling |
 Stirling Bridge, where Wallace defeated the English in 1297 (Wallace Monument in the background) |
 Great - Statue of William Wallace on Wallace Monument |
 Crap - Statue of Mel Gibson pretending to be William Wallace |
We didn't get to go inside the second thing I was keen to see (Stirling Castle) due to the lateness of our arrival, so we had to make do looking at it from the outside, as luck would have it the souvenir shop was open so I managed to grab a copy of the souvenir book so I could at least read a little about it. We walked around the castle forecourt before having to head back to Edinburgh, we were due to return the hire car and get the train back to London early the following morning so we needed to get a hotel as close to the station as we could. In the end we stayed at the Travel Lodge at the very end of the Royal Mile, a much, much better hotel then the original hotel we stayed in a few days earlier. As we boarded the train back to London I couldn't help feeling like I would be back before too long.