Stirling

Today we took a little trip up to Stirling.  It's not too far from Glasgow - about 30-45 min by train (with stops).  We didn't have too much planned for Stirling so it was intended to be somewhat of a relaxed day (foreshadowing??)

I'm not sure if you can tell in this picture, but just past that building on the right (church?), on the mountainside, is the William Wallace monument, peeking through the fog.

We got to Stirling around 10:30, and as we had no idea where anything was, kinda wandered around a bit.  Went to a shopping centre and a few other stores, but most of the stores we saw were not tourist/souvenir stores, but what you would generally find in a mall or downtown (a little disappointing, but you can't blame Stirling-ers for wanting to shop at normal stores).  After awhile of this we decided to head out to get lunch.  I had looked before we came and found this place that looked gluten-free friendly, so we were going to go there, despite the fact that it didn't appear to actually be IN Stirling, but rather a village right next door.  To make an extremely long story short - Stirling can be hard to navigate sometimes, and it can also be hard to find a bus that takes you where you want to go or to just find a taxi.  We ended up walking the mile to the village next to Stirling, and then walking the rest of the way to this restaurant.  It was a lot of walking.  A lot...

Stirling Bridge!

On Stirling Bridge.  This is where we were when we saw a sign saying that the village we were looking for was a mile away and decided to walk. 

Funky little dragon thing on the top of a wall.

There it is again, the William Wallace Monument!

   But this restaurant was totally worth it!  It's called The Birds & The Bees (or Birds & Bees as I have seen it written).  They have a somewhat gluten-free friendly menu (I'll expand on that in a second), and a wonderful atmosphere.  Prices are not too bad, either.  Now, on their menu, they have certain menu items marked with a 'V' - for Vegetarian, and a 'G' - for gluten free.  There weren't too many items on the menu marked G (maybe 4?) but the selection that they did have was appealing enough for me to want to give it a try.  I was a bit confused though because this one item, penne pasta, was listed as a gluten free meal.  Usually if a place offers gluten free pasta it has to be ordered as a special thing, they won't just serve everyone gluten free pasta or just mark pasta AS gluten free.  Thought I'd give it a try anyway, and when we ordered, I double checked with the waiter that the things I was ordering were gluten free.  He said that he was almost positive they were but that he'd double check.  Comes back a few minutes later to tell me that the penne pasta is in fact NOT gluten free and it is a mistake on the menu!  And they have this listed both online AND on the menu in the restaurant.  Totally sucks!  But they did assure me that the nachos that I ordered as a starter were gluten free, AND they offered to get me one of the chicken dinners for the same price as the pasta would have been.  Super nice.   So the food itself - Nachos were amazing!!!!!!  Aren't enough words to describe how good these were so I'm just going to leave it at that.  The dinner that I ended up getting was chicken breast on mashed potatos, with veggies on the side.  It was really yummy! 

View across the street from the Birds & the Bees

Then we took a taxi from the restaurant to Stirling Castle.  They sadly don't offer a student discount off of the 13 pound admission, but luckily we had with us 20% off coupons if you bought your tickets after 3pm!  So we toured around the castle for awhile.  Outside was amazing, and so was the view of the town and surrounding area from the castle.

Robert Bruce monument, right outside Stirling Castle

View of the cemetery from Stirling Castle

The front entrance

I believe this is called Queen Anne's Garden.  We didn't actually go into it because a lot of the grassy areas were muddy.  (This is taken from an overlook-type thing)

I really like this shot :) 

I like this shot too!  (The walls have grass growing on top of them)

Various parts around the castle.

Funky stairs.  And the top of an umbrella!

Ooooh spooky tunnel

 The inside of the castle though, was a little disappointing.  Even the Great Hall, which is supposed to be a 'must see', is basically a really tall empty room with corny fake fires (just red lights) and some cheesy looking fake food on a table at one end.  Same thing with the chapel... just some regular modern day chairs in one little spot and everything else was empty.  There were a couple rooms that were really cool, but it was mainly the ceilings that were impressive. 

View from the Castle

Ceiling of one of the rooms

See that ugly orangeish, goldish building on the right?  Thats the "Great Hall".  I have no idea who did that to it or why, but that thing is UGLY!  Didn't even want to get any pictures of it.  Only did so that I could show everyone how ugly it is.

Then after we left the castle (as it was closing... literally, they closed the big main door to the castle and we had to leave through the little door), we headed back to the train station to come home.  All in all, it was a lovely day, even though it either rained or was foggy the entire time, and we probably had to walk about 3 or 4 miles.