Once Upon a Time in Scotland

A friend asked me for hotel and travel recommendations for Scotland and it occurred to me that I STILL have not uploaded photos from our "brilliant" trip back in November. It was perhaps our most favorite trip of our European adventure this time and I have struggled being able to put it all into words. That plus the frustration of not being able to upload edited photos from the Mac to the blog...
I think what I'll do is just start talking and see where we go. Warning--I may ramble a bit. ;)

When we asked the boy what he wanted to see most while we were in Europe, we did not expect him to say Scotland. He loves Roman history, he hadn't been to the Eiffel Tower, he's always been intrigued by the Northern Lights. But he has been up to his ears in William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. We got him an audio program of the G.A Henty book In Freedom's Cause, which told the story of their heroic battles and heroism. He listened to it every night for weeks, brought it along in the car, talked only about Scotland. He even developed a pretty awesome Scottish brogue. And that was that. Scotland was at the top of his list and it never changed.

So when we knew we were coming back to the U.S. for sure, we scrambled around to work in a trip between his play, the moving company packing our stuff, and needing to ship our car. Our plan was to drive to Normandy and check out the beaches and some other WWII history, take the Chunnel to England and drive across England with a few stops on the way. Everything was very carefully planned. And then the Paris terror attacks happened. And all of France was off-limits to American military personnel. So not only could we not go see Normandy, the only other way across the English Channel was by an 8-hr long ferry ride from the Netherlands. So at the last minute, we decided to fly.

I booked the flights, dropping our two travel days off our time away since we wouldn't need them. And I'll just say now, we ALL wish we would have kept those extra days to spend in Scotland!

We flew from Frankfurt to Edinburgh-no problems at all. We had reserved a rental car and when we got there we had the fun surprise of it being a manual transmission--something we hadn't considered! We knew we'd be driving on the "wrong" side of the road, but the stick shift made it a little extra fun. ;) And I will say that the Soldier tackled it, as he does pretty much everything, with no sweat. I'm glad I wasn't driving....

We stayed the first couple of nights just outside of Stirling. Joshua's main interest was seeing Stirling Bridge, Stirling Castle, and the William Wallace Monument. I had booked a bed & breakfast called West Plean House. (West Plean House - B&B) It was highly rated on various travel sites and for a good reason. It was perhaps the most delightful stay we had the entire time we were in Europe (Berchtesgaden with the pool and cake may be a close second...). We were warmly greeted, even though we arrived late, with tea and shortbread cookies in the sitting room.

We headed out to eat at a place recommended but between the VERY DARK streets (apparently the Scottish are big energy conservers---nothing is lit up after dark, which was by 4pm!) we settled on another place (The Lake House) that looked promising. And it was--it was "brilliant," actually! We found out that everything good in Scotland was "brilliant."  We loved listening to our waitress's accent and I think she liked listening to ours. :) The boy pronounced his burger (from Scottish beef) the best burger he has ever had...

The next morning we came to breakfast and Moira, the most gracious hostess, greeted us and delighted Joshua with her Scottish accent as she served our breakfast and answered our questions about the history of the home and Scotland in general. We had a lovely conversation with the other guests, particularly a Miss Mary, who is a regular visitor from the Scottish Island of Barra. I wish I had taken photos of every little thing there so it would never leave my memory...

After breakfast we did a little strolling around the grounds. Of course, it was late November so there wasn't really anything growing, but the land was beautiful and had the requisite sheep in residence. We checked out the Stone Age cabin on the grounds and Moira told us that some of the filming for the tv show Outlander was done on their property the summer before.

Stone-Age cabin on the grounds of the West Plean House

This reminded me so much of The Secret Garden

Then  it was time to head to the main event. We hiked up the path to the William Wallace Monument, then hiked up the stairs to the top of the monument for a look over the river and the original battle site. Joshua was in heaven. Wallace Monument | Stirling Tourist Attraction | Home
                                       

replica of Wallace's claymore

where the actual Battle of Stirling Bridge took place

After soaking in as much of Scotland's ill-fated wars of Independence as we could in the morning, we headed to Stirling Castle for the afternoon. We took a guided tour of the castle and heard great stories and legends of the goings on at the impressive fortress over hundreds of years.

the great hall

We also explored the Scottish military museum at the castle.

the underground bakery-did you know it was primary men who were cooks?

After our tour of the castle, and a nice little stop for tea and cake (it's Great Britain, after all) we did a little exploring around the town of Stirling.

nice hostel!

I found a delightful yarn shop and loaded my backpack with Scottish wool to take home and make into something wonderful. I'm still pondering what that wonderful is...

That night we ate at the Highland Gate, which wasn't as good as the Lake House. Our standards were pretty high by that point.
And that was the end of our first full day.

I do have to add that the guys became very interested in British game shows while we were there, and most evenings I feel asleep to the sounds of dings and bells and cute British accents cheering.