Visit to Stirling

  This post is co-written by Jonathan and Josh.

     On Wednesday morning we took the bus to Dundee and then caught the train to Stirling.  Our dad gave a paper on George Whitefield to the History Department at University of Stirling.  Our good friends, the Bebbingtons, live there so while dad was working, we got to spend time with them.  

      On the way, we saw many snow covered mountains in the distance.  It is amazing how mountainous Scotland is!

     One of the first things we did was try to visit the cathedral at Dunblane.  We were not able to go inside, but we did walk around the outside.

  

     After lunch, we went to Stirling Castle.  We visited Stirling Castle when we were in Scotland in May of 2013, but we wanted to go again.  We didn't think that we would remember very much, but we did remember a lot once we were there.  

    

   One thing that was different this time is that there was a tapestry exhibit.   It had a display of the history of Scotland.  We guessed that there must have been at least 100 panels showing many scenes.  The display said it took 60,000 hours of work and over 300 miles of thread which is longer than the country of Scotland.  We especially liked when the stitching looked three dimensional like in a squirrel's tail, a woolly sheep, a man's beard or wind blown ship's sail.  We liked seeing the panels about St Andrews, Dundee and Eric Liddell - things that we know about or have visited while here.

View here for more information on the tapestry:  

http://www.stirlingcastle.gov.uk/home/newsandevents/news/news_item.htm?id=45195

These are more pictures of the castle.  Two things that we like about Stirling Castle is that actual and important battles were fought here and that ther is so much that has been prserved, like the lion's den where kings kept their royal gifts of lions given to them by other kings.  These two things make Stirling Castle different from Edinburgh and other castles.

Ceiling in the Great Room

  

      Statue of Robert the Bruce, Scottish hero.

     After the visit to the castle we went to the Bebbington's house and met up with their granddaughter, Becky.  She taught us how to play Dogopoly and that was very fun.  We always enjoy seeing Becky and it is fun that we get to see each other on both sides of the Atlantic.

     We stayed at the same bed and breakfast that we have before.  One of our favorite things about this is the hot English breakfast that they serve complete with ham AND sausage, eggs, potatoes and grilled tomato, mushroom and zucchini.  

The Allan River in Bridge of Allan, as we walked to the train station.