Saying good-bye to the island of Skye, what a place and what a Hostel, thanks again Brian and Lisa, at the amazing SkyeWalker Hostel. "Right on", Sweet! (LOL)
We stop at the Eiliean Donaan Castle , on the way out towards Fort William which is one of the worlds most photographed castles. We didn't go inside this one, we have seen a "LOT" of castles in Scotland. Favorite is Dannator outside of Stonehaven (S of Aberdeen).
From here we head down through the upper highlands into Glencoe with magnificent views of this mysterious historical area. We see the bridge from Harry Potter (@ Glen Finnan), in which Addi is thrilled to have the experience now of seeing the Hogwort school in Edinburgh and the restaurant 'Harry Potter' was wrtiten and now the bridge. He finished the most recent Potter book on this trip in less than a week, and read the one before the week before that, so this was great for him.
We arrive in Sterling where we stay at the Willy Wallace Hostel. How appropriate being this is Bravehearts stomping ground. We go to see the Wallace monument and Sterling Castle as well as the battle field where Robert the Bruce fought at Bannockburn.
We spend a day in Glasgow, which won back a few years ago best European cultural city . There are some lovely buildings in Glasgow and the Glaswegeans are immensely friendly, being that my father is from Glasgow I had to love it, and did. We tried to hook up with some of my relatives, but unfortunately couldn't get a hold of them.
We noticed how old some of the pubs were (mid 1600's) and met two older chaps standing outside the pub that seemed to know more about Canada than we did. That is one thing we have noticed talking to the people of Scotland is that they all have a relative in Canada some where and they also know their History and facts.
We visited a beautiful Cathedral in Glasgow (St. Mungo's - the only Scottish mainland church to suvive the Reformation complete) along with the oldest house in Glasgow. It was a city that deserved more time, which at this point we were running short of.
We took in a KT Tunstall ( a Scot) concert in Galsgow which was fun, for the whole family enjoys her music, and another week later Fiest (a Montrealer) was playing in Edinburgh which would have been nice. She put on a great concert in her homeland.
The last day in Scotland we still had a rental car form our journey to the outer Hebredies so off to Rosslyn chapel (just out of Edinburgh) before coming back to catch a train to start our journey towards England.
The Rosslyn Chapel of course made its most recent claim to fame from the book and movie the Da Vinci Code. But if you look a little further into it, you will find that it has long been a mystical and church with much history (barely escaping the ravages of the reformation). The kids got a quiz to fill out in regards to all the fascinating details/intricacies in the church too numerous to mention (I'll mention a couple - there are over 50 carvings of the 'Green Man' located in all kinds of spots in the church, 2- there is a 'Death Mask' of Robert the Bruce on the church wall, OK, lets do 3- there is a crypt underneath the church that hasn't been accessed in over 300 years where the Templar Knights where laid out in their armor sansa coffin.
Well worth a visit!
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