Sunday, August 30th, 2009: Wallace Museum and Stirling Castle, Scotland

Traveling from the U.S. to Europe, we usually experience a curious jet lag effect where we awaken bright-eyed and bushy-tailed around 2-3 a.m. in the morning, and that night was no exception. I managed to get back to sleep after an hour or so of mentally reviewing my exasperating experiences the previous day with the car to write down in the journal, which also helped get the frustration out of my system. Ultimately we slept in that morning until 8:00 a.m., which helped us both recover a bit. For breakfast we had raisin scones with wildflower honey (delicious!) together with a nice cup of tea (me) and coffee (Monika), which gave us enough sugar-and-caffeine energy for the morning.

Since the day dawned fair, never a thing to be taken for granted in Scotland, we altered our plans to do a loop drive out to the West rather than take the train to Edinburgh as we figured that we could always enjoy Edinburgh whether it was rainy or not, whereas the loop drive would be much more enjoyable in fair weather. On the drive West to Stirling I found out that all the signage and the speed limits in Scotland were in miles and miles per hour, just as they are in the U.S. That is NOT, however, what I had expected as all of Europe, Ireland and England have converted to the metric system. Consequently, the Passat had a speedometer calibrated in miles per hour, which was distinctly odd for a car built in Germany for the U.K. market. But happily my car's speedometer matched the speed limits as they were posted in Scotland, and that made it a whole lot easier than having to make mental conversions all the time. Of course, once we drove down to London to pick up Lois and Phyllis I would have to cope with speed limits in kilometers per hour, but by then I figured that driving the car would be second nature and I would have enough mental energy left over from AVOIDING HITTING ANYTHING and OBEYING TRAFFIC RULES that I could do those mental conversions as part of EVERYTHING ELSE.

Since we knew from Patience's account that the Wallace Monument was outdoors, we decided to do that first in case the weather did not hold. I shoehorned the car into a parking space at the foot of the hill on which the monument is located and we took the shuttle bus up to the top.

We were just in time to catch a re-enactor perform Wallace at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, which was a great Scottish victory over the English. Stirling Bridge was in the valley below us, in fact, and the marshy fields where the English armored knights had bogged down and were slain were just below our little hill. The Scottish were only a ragtag collection of lightly armed infantry, but they didn't sink into the ground and could easily dispatch the immobilized knights. The old wooden bridge collapsed in the middle of the battle, which both cut off the retreat of the knights and also prevented the English infantry or archers from entering the battle, ensuring a low-cost victory for the Scots.

The Wallace Monument, built in Victorian times, was a large tower with 289 steps to the top, which afforded a panoramic view out over the countryside. Climbing up the first set of stairs in a spooky, twisting old stone staircase with arrow slits instead of windows (very breezy!), we came to a chamber documenting the life of Wallace, who turned out to be a complex and rather violent character. I read it all with great interest, of course, as Wallace is one of my ancestors. He must have been a charismatic leader, because although he was a commoner, men flocked to him to fight for Scottish independence even though the chance of victory over the larger and better-equipped English army was quite slim.

He also must have been a rather tall man, because his two-handed broadsword was there and it was HUGE. The sign said that to wield that sword they estimated that Wallace would have had to be 6 foot 6 inches tall, which would have meant he was a veritable giant of the time. He also was clearly violent, but the Twelfth Century was still the Middle Ages and effective governmental alternatives to direct violence had yet to be worked out. Thus, I can understand when the English-sympathizing Sheriff murdered his wife that Wallace would in turn murder the Sheriff and run off to be an outlaw in the forest. Once in the forest Wallace used guerilla warfare techniques against the English until the Battle of Stirling Bridge where he combined forces with other rebels to forge an actual army. After the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace was named a Guardian of Scotland and continued the fight for independence.

Hearing about another re-enactment, we ran back down the stairs (much easier than up) and watched two re-enactors depict Wallace and his confessor. They discussed his failure at the battle of Falkirk, which had cost many Scottish lives and had been a bad setback for the cause of independence. After their performance we slogged back up the stairs, this time to the very top albeit with stops at each of the two levels where you could get off that narrow little staircase and sit down for a spell.

When we finally reached the top, we did enjoy the views out over the valley. Down below, the River Forth wound around as it wended its way out to the Firth of Forth at Edinburgh and thence to the sea. Across the valley we could see Stirling Castle up on a small hill, and off to the West a bit some low mountains. The mountains were devoid of trees, rather like parts of Ireland, and it created a rather stark and severe appearance.

Coming down from the tower for the last time, we were just in time for the third and final performance by the re-enactors, which had to do with Wallace's final trial and execution in London after he was betrayed to the English. It was a particularly grisly type of public execution involving castration and disembowelling while alive, and drawing, quartering, and scattering of the remains after death. I suspect King Edward Longshanks expected this act of barbarism to spread fear and terror among the Scotts, but the long term effect was to consolidate Scottish resistance under Robert The Bruce and lead to the ultimate English defeat at Bannockburn. 'Tis no bad thing to be related to Wallace, I think!

Wanderung back down the hill to the car park (American: parking lot), we stopped off at the gift shop where I purchased a tie and a scarf in the Clan Wallace tartan colors. We were tired and hungry but the little cafe there just didn't offer anything that appealed to us, so we climbed back into the car and drove the short distance over to Stirling Castle, which was located on small hill near Stirling Bridge.

At the entrance to Stirling Castle we considered our options and ended up purchasing the "Explorer Pass", a multi-site entrance pass that encompasses most of the historic sites of Scotland. The terms of the Explorer Pass are that you can visit as many of the 78 historic sites as you can fit into 7 discrete days spread out over a maximum span of two weeks. Since the entrance fees to Stirling Castle and Edinburgh Castle, which we planned to see the next day, would already cover the cost of the 7-day Explorer Pass (30 pounds sterling; the 3-day version was 21 pounds), we felt it was a good deal. With the Explorer Pass we received a guide book that listed the 78 historic sites and described how to reach each one. Those sites included, of course, a lot of old castles, but they also included many abbeys, a cotton mill, an ironworks, several forts and many museums. For the remainder of our time in Scotland, we always consulted the Explorer Pass guide book, and carefully considered which sites we were interested in visiting before making our plans for each day.

Using the first day of our Explorer Pass, we spent the next several hours exploring Stirling Castle, which had been the Royal Palace of the Stewarts in the 1500s. The Queen's quarters in the original castle were, unfortunately, under restoration at the time of our visit, but the other areas of the Castle were still quite intriguing. After taking the guided tour for 45 minutes we were really hungry, so before wandering around on our own we had a quick lunch in little cafe just above the old castle kitchens.

After we had eaten and rested a bit we visited the reconstructed old castle kitchens. Our tour included a short introductory film explaining how the food was gathered in the middle ages from various sources across the span of a typical year. The actual kitchen area included elaborate, full-scale reproductions of food dishes, and life-sized dummies in the act of preparing food and cooking it in the huge underground ovens. One curious fact I learned during our tour was that pickled meats were much preferred to salted meats as the pickled meats did not require a long period of soaking to be ready for cooking, and supposedly they also tasted better. Some day I'll have to check that out by trying some pickled meat!

The interior of the Great Hall was beautifully reconstructed and probably looked very much as it might have looked in 1500. At one end was a raised dais for the King and Queen, and a musician's balcony at the other end. Two large fireplaces graced the sides of the hall and there was even a herald's balcony on one side where the herald would pop out to blow a royal fanfare on his trumpet when the royals arrived in the hall.

The chapel was of interest partly because it had some of the original decoration from the 1500s still intact, and partly because of the brand new wall tapestries that were hanging there until they could be relocated into the renovated Queen's living quarters (planned for 2011). The tapestries were simply gorgeous, and it was wonderful to see at least what those many other faded, threadbare tapestries I have seen around the world would have really looked like when new. The colors were very vibrant and the composition so cleverly done that I could well imagine why tapestries competed with paintings for royal patronage during the period of the Renaissance. Before leaving the castle we walked down the hill just a bit to watch the weavers doing the next tapestry in the "Unicorn" series, a copy of the original set from the 1500s that currently resides in a museum in New York.

But by that time, partly due to jet lag, our feet were dragging. So we climbed back into the car and drove back to the hotel, stopping off briefly once more at Tesco to get some slices of pork loin for our evening sandwiches as I was simply too tired to do any more driving that day. Instead, we had a quick and simply meal of sandwiches and then collapsed in our room for the rest of the evening.