Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Sterling





So we decide its time to go west! We got ready the night before with Maps spreadout, TOMTOM in hand to program our destinations, and made ourselves a picnic lunch for the trip. We decided on Sterling castle and the Wallace Monument (remember Braveheart the movie?) and then a different route home that would take us to through Culross.

We actually did very well driving-- no mishaps or missed turns! With guidebooks in hand as we went through Dollar we decided to make a quick stop at Campbell Castle. Well worth it! although the hill to get to the castle was a killer. It was down hill (kinda strange that the castle would be downhill) which wasn't bad until it was time to leave... I seriously thought we might not make it back up to the car. The view was extroidinary from the castle. And the small gardens beautiful. There was actually "indoor" plumbing at this castle as well. Something we had not seen nor thought about in Edinburgh.



On to Sterling! While we were looking for the castle we stumbled upon the Wallace Monument. So we changed gears and went there first. We were happy to see that they had a free shuttle service to the top of the knoll where the monument stood! And gladly waited the few minutes until they were ready to go.


Once to the top we were greeted with 226 circular steps up a tower! Again I was wondering how I became so unfit. Luckily every 80 steps or so there was a landing with a room with historical information or old artifacts. The prize of making it to the top once again was a remarkable view. From there we could see the Sterling Castle as well as a few other very stately homes and countryside that went on and on.


The trip down was much easier than going up-- unfortunatley the shuttle driver decided it was lunch and we had to do the trek down the hill. Not too bad.... but we did take our time.




We finally made our way to Sterling Castle--What a remarkable place and it was HUGE!! They are doing alot of archiological work there trying to put together the history like puzzle peices. And in every room there were plaques that showed what they were doing, what they had found and what questions their new finds had brought to light. In so many places the castle had been built and then remodeled over the years and as they slowly reconstructed the spaces they found painted walls, trusses that didn't match evidence of old stairways etc. It was all very interesting and added alot to the history we were learning.


We had decided to take a different way home. I had read about Culross-- supposed to be a lovely little painted town. So we meandered our way there. But it was getting close to 5:00 which in Scotland seems to be closing time. When we got to the town while it was pretty-- we weren't sure why we were there... we couldn't seem to find what the guide book described. So we parked and took a walk. We did stumble across a community garden which we took time to amble through-- being the end of the season most of the plants were on their last legs but we could imagine how lovely it must have been just weeks before. Finding nothing else in town we decided it was time to head home... and find another grocery store. It took us a few trys to find something that looked like a real store. The first two while marked SUPERMARKET didn't seem much more than a glorified 7-11-- we question where people buy food in Scotland more than once. With the aid of our TOMTOM we finally found a large TESCO-- seems they do not slice cheese in the deli??? and in the dairy section we had to look long and hard before we found cheese sliced (1 package)-- it was definately an experience seeing all the different items they offered that we had never heard of before.

I end with a roundabout--





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