Edinburgh Castle looked a lot larger from the outside, but this is likely because there were quite a few restricted areas. There were many museums inside the castle, but I'm more interested in seeing and exploring castles. We did a quick walkthrough of the museums, including a glance at the royal crown and sword, and enjoyed what views we could find.
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| This hall had the original roof in tact |
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| This was a cemetery for Edinburgh Castle's dogs |
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| The entrance to the upper levels of the castle |
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| Arthur's Seat is the on this mountain, which we plan to walk up |
We walked straight from Edinburgh Castle to the train station, and left for Linlithgow. The ride was about twenty minutes to the small town of Linlithgow. The streets had many medieval architectural features. We walked past a pub that was converted from an old post office. After about ten minutes, we arrived at Linlithgow Palace.
I had read that this palace was more run down than Edinburgh, and they were right. However, there were only a few people around and you were able to explore at leisure, its many nooks and crannies. We absolutely loved it. There were underground compartments where the kitchen and wells were, and you were able to climb one of its four corner towers all the way to the top. I got pretty close to the top, but skipped the very highest point.
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| I timed this shot in order to catch the dripping water. Jeremy informed me that it looked like a tear in the wall. It is not! |
Luckily, Linlithgow was right on the way to our next destination, Sterling, which was another thirty minutes away. While on the train, we passed Falkirk. Both of these names were familiar to me from Braveheart. Mel Gibson's reputation is ruined it my eyes, which is a shame since Braveheart was my favorite non comedy movie growing up. I enjoyed it so much that I memorized four speeches from the movie to perform as an assignment for my Drama class in my sophomore year of high school.
I looked it up, and apparently none of the castles in the movie were actually from Scotland. Ireland offered more incentives and breaks to Hollywood at the time, so they used castles from there. Sterling was featured in the movie, so this castle was the castle that should have been used!
Sterling Castle had one small museum and two buildings that we could walk around, including bedchambers, a throne room, and a main hall. The real highlights, however, were to be found in the views along the castle walls, many of which you could walk. On one side, we were able to see the William Wallace monument, a tower, in the distance.
This next shot was of a cemetery just beside one of the castle walls. When viewing the picture on my computer, I immediately recognized a pattern that I had not seen while taking it. Highlight the caption area to reveal what I saw.
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| The Star Trek insignia |
On one such wall, we found information on the bird man of Sterling, which I had not heard of. It was an interesting read. I'm including a second picture with the alchemist ingredients that he chose to use.
In the room near the bedchambers was a room that they dedicated to a large model of, I assume Sterling, done via Lego. The lighting made taking good pictures fairly difficult to me.
We stopped at a pub in town, named No. 2 Baker Street, and had a fantastic dinner, before jumping on the train back to Edinburgh.
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| Near the center of town as we looked for a pub for dinner |
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