I'm still waking obscenely early (not helped by the astonishingly powerful resonance chamber that is the courtyard of the hostel, and the snorer on the other side of the paper thin wall). I showered, packed, and went for a cuppa (Starbux) and a pain au chocolat and yoghurt from Sainsbury's next door. I then walked to the car hire place, and collected my wee, three door, Fiat 500. Most impressively, if you have the car in neutral and the clutch unpressed, it turns off the engine, the engine automatically restarts if you depress the clutch. (I had seen requests/reminders to turn off your engine when waiting at traffic lights, to reduce pollution - this makes that a practical request.) Also, if you forget to change into neutral before stopping (which in a normal car would then stall), it will automatically restart when you depress the clutch from neutral. Quite ingenious.
Australians don't really have any cities with the kind of road issues that these much older cities have. Major roads that have parking on both sides, leaving two narrow lanes between them. Down these you have double decker buses coming up against large lorries carrying rebar, which can't actually really fit side by side.
Anyway, I eventually made it out of Edinburgh (45mins) and then another 45mins up a freeway and a few turns got me to Stirling Castle. It took almost as long to get up the hill to the parking area as it did to get out of Edinburgh (okay, not quite, but it would have been easily 15-20 mins, with no possibility of doing anything but staying in the queue. The reason became apparent at the top as each car had to stop at the parking booth, get out of the car, pay the parking fee, get back in the car, and then find a car spot. I can think of several different ways that could be done more efficiently. However, it is a very effective (if not very environmentally friendly) way of throttling the flow of patrons.
Stirling Castle, like Edinburgh Castle, is situated on a rocky outcrop, overlooking a strategic position. In this case, it is Stirling Bridge. For quite some time, it was thought that Scotland was divided by an inland sea, and that the Highlands were physically separated from the Lowlands by the Forth River. Stirling Bridge was one of the very few ways of crossing the river, and the two-horse-wide timber bridge was a key factor in William Wallace's defeat of a much larger English army in (year to be checked).
Rather than getting an audio guide, I instead chose to join one of the free guided tours - definitely a good decision. Joe was a born-and-bred Stirling local, with a booming voice, lovely accent, and a solid grasp of the history and the buildings. Rather than take photos while on the tour, I went around after and grabbed a few.
The pock marks of cannon balls on the entry turrets, thanks to Oliver's Army (cue Elvis Costello earworm); the recreation of the royal kitchens; the detailed explanations of the process by which the Unicorn tapestries were recreated (no photos of those, but there will be photos of the replicas; the originals are housed in the Cloisters gallery in New York (?link to my own post about visiting the Cloisters).
By 2pm I was knackered and peckish, so ended up having a large bowl of (rather salty) cockaleekie soup (chicken, leek, diced potato in a broth), and sought directions to Doune.
Australians don't really have any cities with the kind of road issues that these much older cities have. Major roads that have parking on both sides, leaving two narrow lanes between them. Down these you have double decker buses coming up against large lorries carrying rebar, which can't actually really fit side by side.
Anyway, I eventually made it out of Edinburgh (45mins) and then another 45mins up a freeway and a few turns got me to Stirling Castle. It took almost as long to get up the hill to the parking area as it did to get out of Edinburgh (okay, not quite, but it would have been easily 15-20 mins, with no possibility of doing anything but staying in the queue. The reason became apparent at the top as each car had to stop at the parking booth, get out of the car, pay the parking fee, get back in the car, and then find a car spot. I can think of several different ways that could be done more efficiently. However, it is a very effective (if not very environmentally friendly) way of throttling the flow of patrons.
Stirling Castle, like Edinburgh Castle, is situated on a rocky outcrop, overlooking a strategic position. In this case, it is Stirling Bridge. For quite some time, it was thought that Scotland was divided by an inland sea, and that the Highlands were physically separated from the Lowlands by the Forth River. Stirling Bridge was one of the very few ways of crossing the river, and the two-horse-wide timber bridge was a key factor in William Wallace's defeat of a much larger English army in (year to be checked).
Rather than getting an audio guide, I instead chose to join one of the free guided tours - definitely a good decision. Joe was a born-and-bred Stirling local, with a booming voice, lovely accent, and a solid grasp of the history and the buildings. Rather than take photos while on the tour, I went around after and grabbed a few.
The pock marks of cannon balls on the entry turrets, thanks to Oliver's Army (cue Elvis Costello earworm); the recreation of the royal kitchens; the detailed explanations of the process by which the Unicorn tapestries were recreated (no photos of those, but there will be photos of the replicas; the originals are housed in the Cloisters gallery in New York (?link to my own post about visiting the Cloisters).
By 2pm I was knackered and peckish, so ended up having a large bowl of (rather salty) cockaleekie soup (chicken, leek, diced potato in a broth), and sought directions to Doune.
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