Many historic battles have been fought...against the English

I finally got lazy today and broke down and paid for a hop on/hop off bus around Stirling, mostly because I wanted to see three sites, and two of them were outside of town on either end of one another.  I started out this morning, avoiding my friend from last night (see previous entry), and got on the bus.  I hit up the Wallace Monument first.  There are something like 263 steps to the top, with stops on the way in rooms housing such exhibits as a sword Wallace used in battle (they think).  It was very large and looked quite heavy.  The best part, however, was the top, where the view was superb.  The clouds were finally parting and the fog was lifting.  Perfect.  You could view from there the locations of a few battles, including the Battle of Stirling Bridge, another horrific September 11, in 1297.

  Braveheart, the movie, was supposed to be about this battle, loosely based is the word around here.  Also the Battle of Bannokburn, June 23-24 1314, in which King Robert the Bruce defeated the English.  Both were key Battles for Scotland in its quest for ”freedom”...you can hear Mel screaming it now. 

After that I headed to the visitor center on the site of the Bannokburn battle, which was not worth the stop, but I checked out the statue of Robert the Bruce, which supposedly was on the site where he plotted and planned his attack.  The Wallace monument was supposedly on the site where Mel...I mean Wallace planned his attack.

Finally, I grabbed the bus back closer to town to check out Stirling Castle on the top overlooking the city.

  Again, more incredible views of the highlands and things.  I have seen the most beatiful scenery since I’ve been traveling.  Really, I feel like pictures can’t capture it.  The castle by the way was OK.  They haven’t redone the whole thing and are still in process of restoration.  Our Scottish tour guy (in a kilt naturally) was quite comical and tolerant of the slow retirees from FL.

That about wraps things up from here.  I finally got some sun again, and I forgot my sunblock since the day started out with a huge cloud blanketing the city.  Oh well.  Off to Edinburgh tomorrow and yet another Castle, but I’m promised this one will be better!