Day Six: Stirling Castle

I think I took well over 75 photos at Stirling Castle. Be warned.

First of all, E gets all the glory and credit for even thinking to stop at Stirling Castle on our way from Glasgow to Pitlochry. In fact, he deserves a great deal of glory and credit for planning this entire trip: my contributions were pretty much limited to agreeing, showing up where I was meant to, and happily participating in the activities that he had planned for our mutual amusement. He has the important skill of being able to plan a day that's well scheduled without feeling harried; my own penchant for laziness leads to a lot more sitting about in hotels followed by a lot more regret later.

Our destination upon leaving Glasgow was Pitlochry, the home of Blair Athol. It was an hour and a half drive from the city, which, to our American ears was nothing. E lives an hour away from me, and that hardly seems a big deal, so an hour and a half seemed like nothing. He had planned a pit stop at Stirling Castle along the way, so we could take in some culture along with the whisky. It was a splendiferous idea.

We pulled into the castle just as the rain was clearing up, and, for the first time, I managed to catch an actual rainbow on my camera.

Pot of gold pending. 

Stirling Castle is situated on top of a really high hill, aptly named "Castle Hill". It was the seat of several Scottish kings. King James I of England (and James VI of Scotland), son of Mary Queen of Scots was baptized there, Mary spent a great deal of time there growing up and the castle was also home to James V and Mary of Guise (royal families never really have a great deal of originality in naming).

The castle was blissfully uncrowded and we were able to frolic about as much as we pleased. The most amazing thing about the whole area, in my opinion, were the views and how giant the sky looked from the castle. It's a tricky thing to capture in pictures, but there were plenty of other interesting parts of Stirling Castle. These are a combination of my dubious talents and E's penchant for panoramas.

I wrote this whole post and realized I forgot to post one of my favorite photos from the entire trip. I have no idea who this guy (or girl) is, but I love that I happened to capture him in his moment of triumph:

Now, back to your regularly scheduled photo dump.

The Queen's Bedchamber. Totally looks like mine. 

The Throne Room

See what I mean about that sky? 

E looking contemplative. Much like..

Statue, looking contemplative. 

I was sort of sad that the ice cream truck had left the Stirling Castle parking lot when we emerged. But, there was no time for such malingering, since we had a destination. We were going to, as the highway indicated, THE NORTH.