Stirling Castle - June 19, 2003
| We took a very indirect route to get to Stirling Castle (home of Brave Heart and our feature for the day). So wandered over hill and dale on roads that didn't look wide enough for our bus (they must have been, with careful work we actually passed a couple of Lorries with trailers behind them). Our first stop was the town of Killan where the Dochart river flows into the Loch Tay over the falls shown to the right. |  |
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Driving south from Killan we took A85 (a fairly major highway, but mostly 2 lane). However, as the picture to the right shows, this is still pretty rugged country. You'll have to pardon the shadows on the window - we didn't stop so I took this one on the fly from inside the bus. |
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All the stone work in Stirling Castle is in pretty good shape. These pictures show the main gate (left) and west gate (right). The castle was expanded in the 1700's to make it more defendable from cannon, so both gates are now inside the outside walls. |  |
| The insides of Stirling Castle are pretty bare at this time. They have some nice exhibits, but otherwise not much. They are in the process of attempting to restore or replace much of the tapestry. The picture to the right shows a fellow sewing part of the "simplest" tapestry they are making and they are estimating it will take 2 years to complete. They hope to complete the other 5 for this room in 5 years, so obviously, they will have to get more looms working to achieve that goal. |  |
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When we got back to the hotel, I took a short walk (needed
to get more batteries for James' CD player) and got this picture of the
Kinloch Rannoch town and the river leaving Loch Rannoch.
As you can see, it's a small town (one hotel, one store, a part time post office, about 400 residents). |
| That evening we were entertained in the lounge with bagpipe and traditional Scottish Dancing. This was very interesting, but I think the room was a bit small for bagpipes - they were pretty piercing. |  |
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