Across the Pond: Trip to Stirling

About a half hour north of Glasgow is a city named Stirling. The city is known for the famous Stirling Castle, which sits on Castle Hill. Some parts of the castle date back to the 12th century. Throughout history, the castle was occupied and then sieged by another group at least eight times. Most of these happened during the Scottish Wars of Independence. Basically the castle kept going back and forth into the hands of the Scots and the English forces. Even though the castle is so old, it has been extremely well kept. Since most of the castles (besides Edinburg) I had seen thus far were nothing but ruins, Stirling Castle was very interesting to see. Like Edinburg Castle, the castle at Stirling has now been turned into a major tourist site with gift shops, tour guides, activities, food vendors, etc. There is so much to do, we spent the entire day exploring the castle and city.

Pictures of the streets of Stirling

View from Castle Hill

Entrance to Stirling Castle

I love the heather!

William Wallace

National Wallace Monument (as seen from Castle Hill)

Garden/Courtyard

The yellow building is the castle chapel.

There were a bunch of rooms off of this tunnel that had medieval activities (musical instruments, costumes, fake food, etc)

The castle is famous for all the unicorn decorations.

Ceiling decorations

Court Jester

Famous Tapestries

Tiniest little truck you will ever see.

We took a break from touring to have lunch in the courtyard.

All of the statues were hideous. Whoever made these things had a very interesting view of humans.

Inside the chapel. Jaci is from the south so she gave us a little preaching lesson.

Medals in one of the rooms of artifacts. If you look close the sixth one down says, "Currie." Maybe a distant relative?

Caption underneath the medals.

I found this in a book of soldiers killed in battle.

Top of the page.

Original Cadbury Bar!

View from another side of the castle.

Argyll's Lodging, located just down the street from Stirling Castle. It is a 17th century town house where various Earls of Stirling and Argyll lived. Now it has been turned into a museum.