Our Saturday was spent exploring Stirling and the famous battles that happened nearby. When you look around the city there are two dominant landmarks visible from nearly everywhere – Stirling Castle and The Wallace Monument. These and more were on the agenda.

William Wallace is a Scottish hero. Famously (or should I say infamously) romanticised by Mel Gibson with the blue face and the kilt (years before kilts became common place or battle makeup was even a thing), the real Wallace is a divisive character even today. Credited with being instrumental in the defeat of the English at the battle of Stirling Bridge. The area, in ancient times was really wild and crossing the River Forth was difficult – controlling the bridge effectively controlled England’s access to most of Scotland so although it all seems a bit like a storm in a teacup to us now, at the time it was a formative moment for the Scotts and their continued fight for independence.

To honour Wallace, an astonishing monument was erected on a knoll overlooking the city. It, at least in part, closely resembles a towerhouse in that there is a terrifying spiral staircase up between the 4 double-height rooms stacked on top of each other. We got most of the way up, saw 3 of the 4 rooms and their displays before a terrifying fire alarm sounded and everyone had to evacuate. Imagine a couple of dozen people, all trudging down a never-ending twisty stair at pace and that was the end of our visit. Read more »

Stirling is in the heart of the Scottish countryside and we find ourself surrounded by little towns and lochs. We spent a day exploring the many and varied environs of Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, a part of a larger forest reserve. We drove to The Lodge Forest Visitors Centre and walked a gently undulating oak coppice trail that took us through mossy bogs, beside a stream and among oak that were just springing back into life after a long winter.

The path circuit was a good warm up for our legs and very scenic. We then drove the “Three Lochs” trail, a lovely scenic track in fair condition that weaves (thankfully one way) over mountains, around lochs and through beautiful lush forests. Read more »

Day tripping in Scotland is such a rich experience, and although at times the driving on single lane (with passing places) can be really hairy, there is so much worth exploring.

The countryside is ancient, with evidence of habitation going back to Neolithic times, we visited Culloden battlefields, learned of historic battles between Scottish nationals and the English. This seems to be a recurring theme in Scottish history, independence seems to continue to be relevant. Although I do not have any photos of the Culloden centre, we spent much longer there than we originally planned because it was so interesting. The visitor centre tells the history using personal stories – we loved that approach at the Irish Immigrant centre in Dublin and were swept up in it here also.

After Culloden we had a “Scottish Picnic” as we have begun to call them -we plan picnic food but when we get to the spot it is either raining, blowy or freezing – at Clava Cairns it was all three, so we ate in the car as the windows fogged over (our Scottish Picnic). Clava Cairns are a Neolithic burial and ceremonial site with fascinating piles of stones, standing stones and an atmosphere that was accentuated by a local lady who was in one of the stone circles playing a whistle “for the spirits”she said, nice.

Throughly cold, we then travelled to Glenfarcas whiskey distillery. Now to be fair, neither Jo or myself are actually whisky drinkers, but when in Scotland it seemed like we should at least try it. When on Mull I had tried 6 different whiskies and learned that with a little water or ice allows you to taste the different characters. As I understand it, the whiskey making process starts with a strong beer, then they distil the spirit alcohol from the beer, purify it and then blend it to ensure it is not lethally alcoholic then flavour it by storing it in second-hand wooden barrels that have had other booze in them before (like sherry or port) – this seems a little cheaty to me as the whisky takes on the flavour of the barrel, the longer in the more drinkable it becomes and more it costs. Wine seems to me a little more honest in this respect as the grape juice merely takes on the wood character.

We toured the Whisky factory, saw the process, saw the storage and rather nicely a vintage system that saw a 1960 barrel (our birth year) but sadly put a bottle of that slightly outside our price range (at £3650 per bottle, this seems an expensive tipple in anyone’s language – strangely Jo said no when I suggested we take home a bottle). Read more »