2019 Scotland

Sunday May 12 A good day Great night sleep, off to see the Falkirk Wheel. This engineering marvel is a mechanism to lift or drop canal barges from one canal to another that approach each other at different levels. It opened on 2002 as part of the Millenium Link project. It can raise or lower a canal barge in about 5 minutes using no more power than needed to bring 8 teapots to a boil. At the top canal entry point After the lowering, moving into the lower canal Moving.... And into the lower canal  After we left the Falkland Wheel, it was a short drive to the Kelpies. To quote the Wikipedia entry: The Kelpies represent the lineage of the heavy horse of Scottish industry and economy, pulling the wagons, ploughs, barges and coalships that shaped the geographical layout of the Falkirk area. We just think they are the largest equine scuptures ever done. Now off to the gardens at Drummond Castle. No tour of the castle (can't anyhow as it...

Saturday May 11. Our plan was pretty straight forward: Go to the Drummond Castle Gardens, a magnificent garden from the 17-1800's, then back to Stirling to tour the old town and the castle. Our last castle. Well, we got to the Gardens at 11:00 only to discover they did not open until 1:00. And this after navigating some tricky 'side roads, scenic roads' a.k.a terror tracks. So much for detailed research. And what is around the corner of this two way road? At speed? Pretty but deadly Sooo, back to Stirling (about 40 minutes) but on the 'big' roads. On the plus side, we stopped at Morrisons, a gigundo superstore. We bought food supplies for two nights eating in and plan to eat out another two nights. As we returned to the house to stow the goodies, we just had to take these pictures from the car as we drove down the road. Posing alongside the road. Never moved. Lots of pheasant in the fields A marvelous home for a week. Heated floors a...

Friday May 10 off to St. Andrews. Got a decent start and took the scenic route north to St. Andrews. By scenic, I mean small. Not room for error  We were not looking for any of the famed golf courses, just wanted to see the town. We got parking in the middle of town and did a longish walk around. Stopped at a Salvation Army store, just took in the sunny day and the sights. St. Andrews Cathedral and St. Andrews Castle were both down at the end of the street we parked along and it was a decent walk. Both the Cathedral and Castle are in pretty much ruined state so we did not tour either much. St. Andrews side street As we started our walk, we found the remains of what was the Blackfriars Chapel, built in the 1400's as an abbey. Blackfriars Chapel Entrance to the Cathedral, one side destroyed The majority of the walls are gone or in pieces. What was the interior of the structure is now filled with gravestones dating back centuries. Side view St...

Thursday May 9 Our apartment is amazing! At the end of a 1/2 mile farm road, separated from a similar rental property to ensure privacy and smack dab in the middle of a working farm. The owner of the farm, Wendy, came over about 3 hours after we arrived to see if anything was amiss. With heated floors, a very modern house with 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, windows all over, a view of William Wallace monument in the near distance, cows and sheep in the next field over, a well equipped kitchen....what could be amiss? Wendy had supplied a packaged chicken dinner that took 40 minutes in the oven, three smaller bottles of wine (we brought our own + beer but thank you Wendy) and basics for a lite breakfast. We found the cell phone, GPS unit and a full workup of what the area has to offer on the dining room table. Tomorrow starts with an Untours local rep meeting all the Untours folks who are here in the area. We are to assemble at the Dunblane Cathedral at 9:30 for orientation, a tour of the Cathe...