We arrived on Saturday around lunch time and had to hang out for a while before we could go to pick up the keys for the apartment.

Old Town Stirling.

It took an $80 cab ride to pick up the keys for the apartment.  It was, however, a very nice apartment. 

Scottish plumbing is a little different than ours when it comes to showers.  Normally, we turn on the faucets in the tub section of the shower, then turn the knob or flip the lever in the center of the faucets to route the water to the shower head.  Not so in Scotland. 

We had a contraption on the wall in the shower to choose the strength of the water flow and the water temperature.  However, in order to turn on the water a switch outside the door had to be flipped.  Then, and only then, would the shower start up.  The little bathroom worked right  away.  The large bathroom took a day to figure out.

Although I was on vacation and I didn’t plan on doing much cooking, I really liked the kitchen.  It came complete with refrigerator/freezer, stove, double oven, dishwasher, all dishes, glasses and cookware, built-in wine rack,  and a washer/dryer combination.  I never could figure out how to make the silly thing actually dry.

A few other odd things about Scotland….

You can’t get drip coffee.  It’s either instant or french press.  Ewwww!!!  Ok, the french press is ok, but instant is difficult.  And if you know my husband, you know he can’t survive without his coffee.  So, we took travel mugs with drip filter holders.  Worked great because everywhere we were had electric kettles to boil up the water. 

Everywhere we stayed also had radiators for heat and two of the places had towel heaters.  We didn’t stay in really high-end places either.

After we got our backpacks pried off our backs and sat down for a few minutes, it was back up and out to walk to the grocery store.  I said it was one way and Jim said it was another.  We ended up having to ask a cuuple of people how to get there, but in the process we walked by the river Forth and a cool old bridge, plus a clock tower in a roundabout in town.

There were lots of walking paths and sidewalks and even walking tunnels under the roadways.  People do a lot more walking there than here.  It’s expensive to own a vehicle and gas is waaaaayyyyy more expensive than here.  So, people use buses, trains, and their own two feet to get around.

Here’s a few pictures of the food we picked up at the store.  The eggs only came in either a 6 pack or a 15 pack, they were brown, and the shells were twice as thick as our white eggs.  The bacon we got looked like mini porkchops and fried up beautifully. 

The River Forth snakes around Stirling and our apartment was right in one of the curves.  Here are some views out the living room window.

After being up for basically two days and getting to the we’re-so-tired-we’re-sniping-at-each-other point, we fell into bed.  Stirling Day 2 is up next.

Just up the street from the train station was Stirling Baptist Church.  Being raised Southern Baptist, I thought that was pretty cool.  I also thought it was pretty cool because Scotland is heavily Presbyterian and Church of England/Anglican/Episcopal with a smattering of Catholic.

Jim took a picture during service and you can see the band equipment set up.  The lady who was greeting told us they had had a live band for at least the 40 years that she had been attending. Sweet!

After this, Jim decided it would be a great idea to walk up to Stirling Castle.  A mile and a half, one way, UP HILL!!!  I threatened to hurt him, but we started out slow just working our way up the street.  Along the way we saw really cool old houses, nice bistro restaurants and coffee shops, and then we ran into this….

One of the sandwish boards offered live action tour guides, so of course we had to check it out.

This is the actual old jail building.

This jail was built to house the inmates from the Tollboth.  The tollbooth was almost a guaranteed death sentence, the new jail would make you long for death.

Of course we had to play our parts before going in…

Yea, just as I suspected.  Totally unrepentant.

Now that’s more like it.

As is common, no cameras or video were allowed into the jail itself, but I can tell you we encountered a Glaswegian Hangman, aVictorian Nobleman, a Military guard, and a convict atempting to escape. All of these characters were played by our guide.  As we moved from one room to another there would be a jacket and a tie or cravat waiting.  Our guide would change his jacket, vest and cravat and as soon as the jacket was settle on his shoulders, he had “become” the next character complete with different accent and demeanor – sometimes in mid-sentence.  A. Maze. Ing.

We were allowed to take pictures from the top of the tower. The white building is Cowane’s Hospital, the building with the tower is the Church of the Holy Rude, and in the background is Stirling Castle.

Here is the view off to the Stirling Golf Course.

Here’s the view of Stirling proper. This is towards the train station.  That sticky-up white spider looking thing is actually a foot bridge from one side of the train tracks to the other.  We became well acquainted with this as it was the route we took to go to and from the apartment.

Here’s another view of the town.

That blue building and clock in the above picture is the old Tollbooth.  This was the “old” jail before the “new” jail was built.  Now it’s used for community events like plays and concerts.  I’m not totally sure I would be comfortable enjoying myself in a place where hundreds died from starvation and disease.  Just me though.

Up on the hill outside of Stirling is the Wallace Monument which you can see in some of these pictures.

Once we were let out of the jail we headed back up the street towards the castle.  Along the way we passed the Church of the Holy Rude and decided to keep going to the castle and check out the church on the way back down.  Probably a good idea as I still has some energy to climb the hill up to the castle. 

At the entry to the castle are a few statues, one of which is a war memorial statue for World War I.  Scotland has numerous war memorials, some larger some smaller.

We decided to take the free tour with a guide so while we waited for the next tour to start we went into some of the castle gardens.  As you will see later on, this garden was not very impressive for the plants, but the walls surrounding the gardens were cool.

The tour guide took us through the portcullis of the castle and explained some of the early methods of warfare including the use of boiling oil, hot sand, armor, and arrows.  Not a terribly pretty picture.

The castle is not just one building.  Generally castles would contain a troop garrison, a palace or royal living quarters, a church or chapel, and a great hall where feasts and affairs of state were conducted.

This is the Inner Close of the palace which is inner courtyard.  The building is the palace or main living quarters.  It now houses a military museum for two Highland regiments. 

This section of the palace was built when a Scottish King was supposed to marry an English queen.  The carvings over the windows display the union between the “Thistle” (Scotland) and the “Rose” (England).

Attached to the Queen’s Lodging is the Chapel Royal.

On one wall of the chapel are tapestries that tell the story of the Capture of the Unicorn.  The ones on the walls are copies of the originals.  I believe the originals are in a museum in London.  On the castle grounds is a workshop where the tapestries are being copied.  Very cool.  There will be a total of seven tapestries when they are all done.

These are pictures of either end of the chapel.  This chapel was built by James IV on the site of an earlier chapel.  This one was built for the baptism of James IV son Prince Henry.

This is the Great Hall.  This building was used as an Army Hospital for a time.  Massive renovation has been done here to restore it.

On top of the Great Hall are these cool animal statues – lion, monkey, unicorn and others.

This is one of the fireplaces in the Great Hall.  There are several and I’m sure it would have taken all of them to heat this huge room during a Scottish winter.

The windows around the dais have the crests and names of various royals.

The Lord and Lady.

Included in the price of the Castle tour was a guided tour of Argyll’s Lodging.

Argyll’s Lodging is just down the hill from Stirling Castle.  It is a manor house owned by the Earls of Argyll – the Campbells.  Each section of the m manor was either built or renovated by a different generation.  So, each section has a different feel in the windows and in the carvings above the windows and doors.

Next we went into the house.  The first room was the room where a guest would wait for the Lord or Lady.  There is a huge fireplace where a guest could warm themselves in the winter.  This room might also have been used by the servants as their dining room, and possibly overflow sleeping when extra servants were brought in for large events.  The lady at the head of the table is our tour guide.  The dishes are representative of later serving dishes that might have been used for formal dinners.

When the house was originally built, there was a small kitchen built to do all the cooking for a large and thriving manor house.

As the manor expanded, so did the kitchens.  A beer kitchen was added next to the bread baking area.  Both use yeast of course.

Then there was the main serving area of the kitchen.  In this area would be stored the wooden dishes for the servants as well as the pewter dishes for the Earl and his guests.  In this room were also large hooks hanging from the ceiling.  This was where sheep, goats, or cows would hang waiting to be cooked in the main hearth.

The last of the kitchens is the main hearth.  Where Jim is sitting is where a small boy would sit to turn the meat spits…..all day…..even in the summer.  This fireplace is large enough to walk into.  In the back corner is a shelf where salt would have been kept to keep it dry.

On the second floor is the dining hall.  This room would also have been used for dancing after dinner or for audiances with the Earl and for conducting business.  The walls have been painted to resemble the back wall.  The renovators believe the walls would have been painted this way  to begin with, but were covered over when the manor was a  hospital.  The renovators found a false wall installed over the back wall where the original wall painting was found.

Yep, that picture up above is exactly what you think it is.  The first padded “throne”.  Lol!!!

This is the bedroom of the Earl and Countess. 

After leaving Argyll’s Lodging, we headed back down the hill toward town.  On the way, we stopped in the Church of the Holy Rude.  “Rude” means Cross. Don’t ask me how.  Anyway, this church is where Mary Queen of Scots son James was crowned King of Scotland.  It has been the parish church of Stirling since before even then and they still hold services there today.

So, why the different service times?  Daylight Savings Time!  There doesn’t appear to be any (or much) electric light in the church.  It would be hard to hold services until the sun was well up.

Here’s some of the stained glass.

There were a lot of monuments carved or mounted on the walls around the main part of the church.  Many of them were memorials for soldiers, but this one is for one of the previous (way previous) Ministers of the church.

This is a carving in the stone floor of the small St. Andrew’s Chapel inside the church.  St. Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland so there are many, many chapels and churches dedicated to him. This is obviously a very old chapel.

This is the baptismal font in the St. Andrew’s Chapel.

I wonder how many babies have been baptised from this font?

Here is the baptismal font in the main part of the church.  Much nicer and newer.

After leaving the church I drug Jim up to the cemetary behind the church.  Normally, I really like old cemetaries and they don’t give me a moment’s problem.  This one however, way different.  We had barely gotten into the cemetary when I felt the hackles start to rise and my shoulders start to hunch up.  For the first time ever, I had to leave and leave right then! So, I quickly took some pictures of the cool headstones and practically ran out of the cemetary.  Very weird.

Another picture of the Old Town Jail from the church cemetary.  I wonder how many of the inmates of the prison were buried in that cemetary?

Across from the Church of the Holy Rude is Cowane’s Hospital.  We didn’t think we really had time to go inside. This was once a charity hospital and epidemic hospital.  The statue on the front is of John Cowane and is called Staneybreeks.  There is a legend that on every Hogmanay, he comes down for a dance.

We headed back towards town looking for a place for dinner.  On the way we passed one of the very neat  “tourist information” signs in Stirling.

We also went past the old Tollbooth.

After a very long and busy day we stopped in a pub for dinner.  The name of the pub is Drouthy Neebers.  It means Thirsty Friends in old Scots.  This is where I found a beer I could actually drink.  Of course, it’s probably very expensive over here if you can even find it.  Thankfully I guess, I don’t drink very often.  The beer is called Stella Artois.  It’s a Belgian beer.  Ha!  I couldn’t even find a British beer to drink.  Oh well.

After dinner we walked back to the apartment, watched some really bad British cable television and collapsed into bed.  Up next, Glasgow.

The city sightseeing buses are the double decker, open top red buses  you see in movies.  Yeah, they really exist and they are very cool.  You are given a free pair of earplugs when you get on the bus to plug in to a recorded tour guide. You even have 8 or 9 language choices.  It will tell you what is coming up and some of the history of the city you are in.  Some of the buses have live tour guides which are even better, but the recordings are still fun. 

The first stop on the tour was the Glasgow Cathedral, St. Mungo’s Museum of Religous Life, and Provands Lordship. I got off the bus here and headed for the Cathedral.

Outside the Cathedral is, of course, the cemetary.  After the problems I had the day before in the Stirling cemetary, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to go in this one.  Thankfully, this one didn’t seem to give me the “fingers crawling up the back” feeling.  There are some amazing and amazingly old graves here, as would be expected.  I couln’t resist taking some pictures of them.

This is too fancy to be called just a headstone.  Maybe a mausoleum?  But, it’s too small for my definition of a mausoleum.  Maybe a monument?  Anyway, this one is for the founder of the medical college in Glasgow.  There is a rather interesting poem on this.  I’m not entirely sure it’s reverent. This is one of the few headstones/monuments that are legible and have been taken care of.  This cemetary is incredibly old.

A few graves have iron cages around them.  All the ones I saw were just too old and worn to read the inscriptions. These may have been family plots rather than just for one person.

This monument is so large I couldn’t get it in one picture, so here is the top of it first.

In many of the old cemetaries, some graves are marked by large slabs of slate or granite.  That is the case here as well.  None of them were legible that I went past. It looked like some had been removed recently.  There is a lot of renovation going on outside the church, so maybe they are renovating the gravestones as well.

This grave marker is totally cool. It marks the graves of about eight generations of people.  It’s a newer headstone, just done in the 1990′s, but it is incredible to read the names and lineage of this family.

On the outside of the cathedral on the wall beside the side door was this monument.  It was so tall it took three pictures to get it all in.  I couldn’t back up enough to get the whole thing without standing smack on someone’s grave.  Really didn’t want to go there that day.  I’m not sure what the monument is for, it’s pretty worn and I don’t read latin, but it is from the 1500′s and  looked really cool.

Because there is renovation being done to the front of the cathedral, entry is through a side door.  As soon as I opened the door I was hit with the smell of mold and incense.  Ewwww!!!  Totally to be expected, but I didn’t really think about what an old stone church would smell like.  Plus, the pipe organ was playing….loudly.  Ok, that should have given me a hint of what was coming, but I went in anyway.  No way was I going to waste this day.

A little background on the Glasgow Cathedral.  It is also know as St. Mungo’s Cathedral and contains his tomb in the lower levels. The church first founded here by St. Mungo was in 550 a.d.. It is, I believe, the only Catholic Cathedral that was not destroyed during the Reformation.  The story goes that the people of Glasgow surrounded the cathedral and basically dared the Reformers to take it. So, a once Catholic Cathedral survived in now Protestant Scotland.

Now for the inside of the church. The first picture is the stained glass over the “front” door.  The second picture is the same shot, lower down, with my camera doing a double flash to get the actual inside of the churhc.

The part of the church where you first come in is called the Nave. This is the central part of the Cathedral where the non-clergy were allowed and leads to the Chancelory.  The Nave is flanked on either side by what s know as the Arcade.  The Arcade is the columns and adjoining arches on the sides. On either side of the Arcade are the Aisles.  Along the Aisles are various monuments and “headstones”.  Many of these are military in nature, but not all.

  The above monument is for soldiers in the Crimean War from the early 1800′s.

Now my pictures start to get shaky.  I didn’t realize that this was happening at the time.  However, I did know that I was starting to get incredibly freaked out.  I  had adrenaline going through me in waves.  I have absolutely no clue what it was that was making me so freaked out.  When I can, I am supplementing pictures of various pieces of the Cathedral that are not mine (I found some online) so you can see what things look like with out the blurs.

This is looking toward the sanctuary.  The book on the stand is, of course, a bble. 

This is looking up into the sanctuary.  The pipes on the end of the wall are the pipes for the pipe organ.  Oh,my, goodness that thing was LOUD!

Separating the Nave from the Sanctuary or “Choir” would  have been something called a Choir Screen or Pulpitum. There is one still here, saved from the Reformation.

This is what we would cll the Sanctuary, but is actually called the Choir.  This is where the clergy would have gathered.  I was surprised to see prayer rails and kneeling boards on the seats.  Not being Anglican (Episcopal) I didn’t think the Anglican church would have used them. 

On the end of each pew are various crests.

This is the eastern choir section.  This leads to the “back” of the cathedral where there are several smaller alters.  The one at the end here is called the Military Monument.

Here’s my picture of it.  I am really shaking by now.

Here’s a better picture of it.

Along the “back” wall are more altars. The Chapel of St. Stephen and St. Laurent.

The Chapel of St. James The Greater.  I had to get a picture of that.

Off in the other corner is the Sacristy.  This was sort of a living area for the priest.

I was  not able to step off the steps into this room.  The sign says there are lead bullets still embedded into the wooden door.  Hmm….I’m thinking things sometimes got a bit exciting.  Whatever the reason, I just couldn’t enter this room.

Here are some pictures of the upper reaches of the choir on either side.

On either side of the Choir Screen are stairs leading down to the lower portions of the Cathedral. On the right side is the Blacadar Aisle – this is spelled various ways in the places I’ve looked it up.  This is the area where St. Mungo started his church on this site so the legend goes.  The only section I was able to go into was what I consider the chapel portion. This portion is set up as a chapel and is totally white stone.  Whether the stone is naturally white or has been made white, I can’t seem to find out.  I is incredibly bright compared to the rest of the Cathedral.  The steps leading into this section are incredibly worn in the middle. It is easy to imagine thousands upon thousands of people coming in here to worship over th centuries.  Mind boggling.  The carved painted items on the ceiling are called “bosses”.an ornamental, knoblike projection, as a carved keystone at the intersection of ogives.

I was only able to go down into this chapel because there were two other ladies already down here.  As soon as I saw them walk out the top stairway, I was OUT OF THERE!!

On the wall of the transept leading into Blackadder Aisle is this engraved stone.  You could barely see it, but I set my camera to double flash and it came out pretty well. The inscription is quite sad, but it has been there since the 1700′s!!!

On the opposite side of the transept from this memorial are stairs leading down into the crypt portion of Blackadder Aisle.  This is, once again, a military burial area.  You won’t see any pictures of it that I took because I was NOT going down there.  Not even on a bet.  This is as close as I could get.

However, I found a picture of one of the graves in this portion.  This one has a sword on top of it.  Too bad I couldn’t go see for myself.  I guess I’ll just have to go back and make sure Jim is with me when I go.  Gosh, what a hardship.  Not.

On the other side of the Nave are stairs going down to St. Mungo’s tomb.  As you have probably guessed, I couldn’t go down there.  It was just too creepy for me.

I did, however, find some pictures of St. Mungo’s tomb online.

At this point, I was just done with the adrenaline rushes and since I couldn’t go downstairs I decided I was done with the Cathedral. I left as fast as I could without running.  I really wish I knew what it was that affected me so badly.  I’ve never had that happen before.

Outside the Cathededral grounds is a wrought iron gate marked Glasgow Acropolis.  It’s a long, meandering path through basically another cemetary.  Except, for this one you can get a brochure to tell you what graves or monuments you are looking at.  I decided to skip the walk although I did pick up the brochure.

I did not get rid of the adrenaline rushes until I had gone through the St. Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and the Hunterian Art Gallery and Museum.  That took another couple of  hours.  Too weird.

St. Mungo’s Museum was quite interesting. I couldn’t take pictures inside of it, but it has statues and pictures and displays of various religious cultures from around the world.  I did learn a few new things I didn’t know before such as how the Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico. 

I decided to get back on the tour bus at this point and just rode for a bit because I was waiting for the stop for the Hunterian Museum and the MacIntosh House.  What I didn’t realize is that the museum is half a block from the entrance to the University of Glasgow, and it was the first day of classes.  Wall-to-wall people on the streets.  Crazy.  The art museum was very interesting. I’m not sure why I never realized just how huge some of the old artwork actually is.  You would need a very tall ladder to get to the top of some of the paintings.  I also decided I must not be much of an art critic because I despise Whistlers paintings.  Yuck!  To me they are muddy and dark and my granddaughter could paint better.  How he is considered such a huge talent is just beyond me.

The Robert Rennie MacIntosh house has actually been moved from it’s original spot and certain rooms have been recreated in the museum.  It was unfortunately undergoing some renovation so I could only see a slide show of the various rooms.  He and his wife did a lot of Art Deco work.  Some of it just looks silly and impractical to me, but some of it is very modern looking.

By this point I just wanted to sit on the tour bus and listen to the recording for awhile.  So, that’s what I did.  I didn’t get off again until we got back to George Square and the train station.  However, I did get some more pictures – mostly just of cool looking buildings.

The picture above is looking towards the main entrance to the Glasgow University from the Hunterian Art Gallery.

 This building is the Kelvingrove Art Museum.  I was so bummed that I didn’t feel like I had time to get off and go inside.  They had a Dr. Who exhibit going on and a friend of mine would have really gotten a kick out of pictures from there. Next time. 

 The building in the background with the spire is Glasgow University.

 Now we just have some cool old buildings.

I got off the bus at George Square at the train station.  Jim wasn’t back yet so I went out into the square to take pictures of the statures and stuff.  The square is ringed with statues of great Scotsmen – inventors, writers, poets.  And flowers!!  Everywhere we went there were flowers!  From individual yards (or gardens) to public squares. 

Shortly after this Jim got back from playing golf and we hopped the train back to Stirling.  Up next, Golfing in Glasgow with Gary.  How’s that for alliteration?

Because we were on the bus, we went through a ton of small towns on the way to the coast.

We were starved by the time we got there, but had to wait for the restaurant to open, so we went walking.  This is just one of the beautiful old churches we saw.

We were the first customers at the restaurant when it opened.  It was a pretty cool place with very good food.

Needing to walk off lunch we headed for the St. Andrews Museum.

After we left the museum we decided to walk to the cathedral ruins.  We had no idea exactly how far it would be.  We only had a tourist map with streets and sights marked.  So, we took off walking.  Along the way we saw a couple of old stone city gates.

And some more pretty churches.

The St. Andrews Cathedral is in ruins, but is still quite impressive.

A view of the sea from the Cathedral.

Just a short walk away is St. Andrews Castle.  It too is in ruins now. 

This would have been the pier when the Castle was in use.  In later years, it was used as a wading/bathing pool.  Okay, that water is cccccold! Don’ t think I’d be doing any swimming here.

This is the beach in front of the castle.  Whenever I go overseas, people ask me to bring them rocks back.  What better place to find some?

We grabbed a snack of ice cream at the Castle tourist office and asked how far it was to the golf course.  I expected it to be miles and miles away.  Hah!  The gentleman behind the counter said it was just a six minute walk up the street.  St. Andrews town is very small.  I’m just not used to that.  So, we took off walking.  On the way we passed the Unversity of St. Andrews.  It’s comprised of a lot of different buildings.  I don’t think this is the one the Royals attend.

We made it to the Auld Course and Jim was in heaven.  This was reason number two for making the trip.  It is waaaaay too expensive to play here and you pretty much have to hock your firstborn to get a tee time.  Needless to say, Jim just got to dream about it.

After watching a three-some play up to the 18th hole, we decided we were done for the day.  I  had no idea how to get back to the bus station, but my husband has a wonderful sense of direction and led me straight back to it.  We hopped on the bus (there is no train station in St. Andrews) to Dundee and caught the train from there back to Stirling.  Next up, our last morning in Stirling.

Next we took acab up to the Wallace Monument  We arrived just in time to have a history lesson from one of Wallace’s soldiers.

The monument itself is a tower.  To see all there is to see requires climbing the stone steps …over 20 of them.   I made it to the third level and called it quits.  It was just too much for my knees.  Jim went the rest of the way up and got pictures.