Kind of a bittersweet day but one that was always coming, it’s time to leave Scotland for this trip. We got up to a wonderful breakfast from our B&B hosts Kevin and Kim. This place was way better than we used it for so if we are back in the Stirling area we would definitely stay there for a longer term. We got packed up and sorted as we will need to have our nights clothes in our smaller bags for the train. We headed out to see Stirling Castle and on the way caught several glimpses of the Wallace Monument as well. We are skipping it at least for this trip but it is cool looking and imposing up on the ridge the Scottish attacked from in the battle of Stirling Bridge.

The castle is on the opposite side of the River Forth and was built by King David of Scotland in the 12th century but modernized and used most extensively after King James IV of Scotland built several new buildings and used it as his residence. Despite its imposing defensive location (or maybe because of it) it seems to have only really seen battle during the Jacobite Campaign. I love castles so I won’t drone on and on but it was a beautiful hilltop defensive castle that had been made into a palace as well. Such good views of the Stirling countryside in all directions and a overview of the area where the Stirling bridge battle took place.

After the castle we were headed to Glasgow to drop off our luggage but I made a quick detour to see the Falkirk Wheel which is for lack of a better term a rotating boat elevator to bypass a long series of locks to get from the top level to the bottom. We didn’t have time to stop but it was cool to see an engineering marvel in person. Leaving there we ran into what seems like it should be a more common thing given lots of tourist busses and narrow streets and low bridges. We came through a single lane low railroad bridge to see a bus in the middle of the road facing us. Normally no biggie just work around each other and move on. Nope this bus driver had apparently not realized the bus couldn’t go through this tunnel bridge and was now attempting to back out of this street and turn around.. but instead of using the convenient dead end driveway at the end they continued very slowly back around the bend and finally to a side road. Here again they could have decided to let the queue of cars that had built clear and possibly cleared their head but they decided to power through. They proceeded through about a 5 point turn to pull back into traffic and then forced a bunch of cars to move over out of their way (again they could have let this all clear up first) before proceeding until they were side by side with a tractor where they had a little chat just the 2 of them while we all waited and watched. They finally turned away from our path. Hopefully for all the tourist’s sake they made it where they were going! After that fun we headed to Glasgow Central to drop off our luggage. This place was not easy to find so i am hoping that despite appearances it also makes it difficult to steal from. We finally after a bit of searching found the convenience store that also was a luggage storage location and got our stuff settled there.. this let us keep the luggage near the train station where we will leave tonight but to return the rental car with less encumbrance. We drove out to the airport and dropped off the rental and caught a cab back to the train station. Becky had her heart set on one last Haggis, Neeps and Tatties meal for lunch so she found a place nearby.

I might have given her a little grief for finding one about 10 blocks away and all uphill I’m the direct sunlight but i will also admit it was a fantastic find and we both had a great lunch. After the thing that seemed to be recommended most in Glasgow is an interesting museum called the Tenement House. It is a recreated tenement from the early 1900s but what makes it unique is that it is the house of a lady who lived there from 1911 – 1965 I believe when she died and her friend realized that other than some minor changes she never modernised much of anything and lived her life there like time stood still. This lady bought the house and started to document the contents then eventually sold it to the National Trust of Scotland to be used as a museum. It is setup as if it were lived in today but today shifted to say the 30s or 40s. Its a cool look into what life might have been like between the 2 world wars in Glasgow. I was taken by how big some of the rooms were while other things they crammed in (like the eventually banned Bed closet). The kitchen was decent sized though and the stove would be a lot of antique collectors dreams.

After we left we caught the subway back to the train station and mostly just sat and people watched for a while. We then headed over to Nando’s for a quick dinner which was so tasty!

After dinner we headed over to pickup the luggage (which seemed to all be there and in one piece!). The tickets we got for the sleeper train tonight included “lounge” access so we went to check it out. It was a room with some couches and a couple of coffee machines but not much else. It did get us away from the general bustle of the main train station though so that was nice. Once it was time to board the train we headed over and got our big bags stashed in the large luggage area and then went to check out our room. Its a double bed which is unusual for a train but that’s about all that fits in the room. Since it would be a little cramped with laptops in the room we headed to the club car and got drinks while working on the blogs. More from London in the early morning! P.S. internet access issues are preventing all images from loading so i will try and fix in the morning or tomorrow night.