Scotland day three

Today started off with a wonderful breakfast courtesy of Linda at the Kilronan guest house.
We then headed to Stirling Castle. The great hall outside was painted with a lime wash to a colour known as ‘King’s Gold’. Inside it was huge with massive thick drapes around the perimeter to keep the drafts out, 5 huge fireplaces
You could almost hear the trumpets and musicians playing from their alcoves above the hall and the maids and lords all dancing or in conversation around the huge fireplace with the king sitting at the end on his chair watching his court. The exposed beams ceiling was about the equivalent to three stories above the floor. Goodness knows how they built them so high. Our tour guide was very apologetic that the Grand Palace Room which has taken 8 years to restore, was going to open to the public next week.
This is Scotland’s most heavily fortified castles and was known as the gateway to Scotland. Over the years it has been lost and regained by the Scots several times including once by William Wallace (Brave Heart). We learned that there where several historical inaccuracies in the movie like the fact that William Wallace never wore a kilt or painted his face blue.. In one of the photos of a statue of one of the Kings you can see the William Wallace Monument in the distance.
After the Castle we ventured to climb to the top of the William Wallace Monument navigating all 249 steps up a very skinny spiral staircase. At different levels along the way you could stop to see displays about the history of the man. The photos show a room with his sword another with busts of important people who had parts to play in Scottish history including our own Robbie Burns (said ‘Rabbie Burns’) and the top that was so windy we could hardly stand up, but the view was magnificent.
From here we drove to St Ninians, this is where the Donaldson (Steven’s mums) side of Steven’s family originated from. Unfortunately the cemetery was closed. However we did get some photos of the local church and the grave yard in the church grounds.
Our next stop was Pithlochry In Bloom, this is where Sheree’s wee Nana’s (McLean – Sheree’ dad) side of the family originate from. This was a very picturesque village and almost picture perfect as you can see from the photo looking down the main St.
Our last stop before Inverness was the town of Aviemore were we got a view picks under the sign at the entrance to the town and one further down. Felt wee had to stop here for the signifigance to where we go camping in Nth Otago. We had tea here at one of the local pubs called Papa Rock but don’t go there cos it wasn’t very nice. It was after 9pm before we finally arrived into our B&B at Inverness.