Stirling

Scotland has cropped up on both my blogs quite frequently over the past week or two. First it was the referendum that made me start thinking a lot about our visit in 1990 and inspired me to scan and post some of the photos we took there.We now know that Scotland will remain a part of the United Kingdom; at least for now. I think that the referendum was a good thing though and I’m very impressed with the number of people who registered to vote and with the high turn out given that voting is not compulsory the way it is here in Australia.

Scotland has been cropping up on a lot of television programs I’ve been watching too. I like to watch “Coast” on the History Channel and there always seems to be at least one Scottish destination, re-runs of “Time Team” have featured locations in Scotland and I recently watched a  new series on one of our pay TV channels called “Shetland” which I really liked.

I posted a photo of two dolls in kilts on my doll blog that week too and told the story of how they came into my possession. A comment from a reader gave me the incentive to try to fix the dolls up as their clothes had seen better days and later I did a post about that too. Then I went to a cricket match where I saw Tasmania play Scotland in a World Cup warm up match.

Today I’m posting a few more of the photos taken in 1990.

I really did like Stirling as I mentioned last time. I was looking up some visitor guides online after writing that piece and I discovered that the building that was a Youth Hostel when we stayed there is now a museum called Argyll’s Lodgings. It is a Renaissance townhouse from the 17th century. It has been restored fully since it’s hostel days and visitors can see it as part of their Stirling Castle tour or eat in one of its grand dining rooms which are used for functions. I remember it as being old, cold and having lots of stairs but we thought it was very cool to stay in a 300 year old building so we didn’t mind. It was two minutes walk to the castle too so it was a very convenient place to stay.

I took the photo below one evening as we walked back to the hostel after a day out. It was taken in Castle Wynd, the street that leads to the castle.

The other place that I remember visiting in Stirling was Cambuskenneth Abbey which was a 12th century Augustinian Abbey founded by King David I of Scotland. It fell into ruins after the Reformation in 1560. King James III of Scotland and his wife Queen Margaret of Denmark who was the daughter of King Christian I are buried there. You can read more about the reign of King James III here. The bell tower of the abbey is still standing and we both climbed to the top; something that we would not be able to do today. The stairs were old worn and twisted. There was a rope hanging down to hold on to as you climbed up. I was very nervous but really wanted to see the view from the top.

“CambuskennethGrave” by Original uploader was Adtrace at en.wikipedia – Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here.. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.

We left Stirling and headed for Glasgow but we only stayed one night as we had accommodation booked in Fort William. One day I would love to go back and see Glasgow.  I’ll write about the last leg of our Scottish journey another time.

Photo Credits-except where mentioned the photos were taken either by Hubby or me. It’s a bit hard now to remember who took what. The one of the ruins I think is one of Hubby’s as it looks like me in the distance.