We are off for the second stop on our trip.  It’s time to make our way to Pitlochy.  If anyone wanted to look it up on a map we are between Inverness and Edinburgh on a map.

We actually didn’t do bad getting out of Linlithgow today.  We looked up our route last night and determined which exit on the roundabouts we needed and it actually went pretty smooth.

We stopped off in Stirling to visit the castle.  Everyone has their favorite castles but I have to agree with one of our servers in Linlithgow that this one is one of the better ones.  LOL….we took a wrong turn getting there but still managed to get there no problem.

They are currently doing restoration work on it so couldn’t get a really great picture of the main entrance.  So I’ll give you a courtyard view instead.

Here is the King and Queens bedchambers.  The really neat thing about Stirling is they have people in each of the rooms and most of them are dressed in period dress and they are there to give you information on the room or anything in general.

Kings bedchamber

Queens bedchamber

Great Hall

You can walk almost the entire curtain wall.  The thing I loved was they put up a sign that said “sheer drop off.  Children must be supervised” and there were no hand rails.  Kind of cool to see it as it’s supposed to be.  Yes, I walked everything we could walk on the curtain wall.

Curtain wall walk.

You can get a guided tour around the castle if you want.  The people doing the tours are also dressed up.  I only caught this one from the back but he is dressed in a Knights outfit.

We finally made it into Pitlochry.  This is a cute town but big on the tourist foot traffic.  It took us two passes up and down the road and stopping into another hotel to find out where we were supposed to be going.  But we are here.  Had us some dinner and now we are relaxing.

Our B&B is kind of cute.  The room isn’t very big but the bathroom is much larger

Here is a picture of town.  Really a cute little town.

Now it’s time to plan my trip to Dunnottar Castle.  There is also castle Menzies and we’ve been directed to Blair castle.

Today is our last day here in Linlithgow and on the recommendation of a couple of the servers in the resturant we went to explore Blackness Castle.

So far this is one of the best ruins we have seen.  It looks like it’s shaped like the front of a boat.

It had an actual draw bridge.

You could walk all around the top of the castle as well as inside.  I’ve not seen a ruin yet that is still this much intact.

The main courtyard is rock and shale and really had to walk on

We walked into the castle from the ramparts and entered the great hall.  Quite impressive actually.  Still had wood timbers in the ceiling and from the looks of it the original chandeliers hanging.

The rest of the castle is the standard square rooms with wood floors or stone floor.  There were a lot of holes in the walls designed for cannons.

Paying for lunch one of the servers asked our next destination.  I mentioned us going through Stirling because I wanted to see the castle.  They said we really need to see this one because it’s one of the better ones in Scotland.  Of course I’m sure everyone has their favorite castle.

We had a rather late night last night.  The told us when we originally checked in that there would be some noise on Saturday night as well as Sunday night.  Well that would be fine except they neglected to tell us that it would sound like the party was being held in our room and that the walls would vibrate until 2am.   So needless to say mom and I didn’t get to sleep until 2am.

Because of our late start we decided to stay in Linlighow and check out the castle.  Had us some lunch first.  Mom and I both had tomato soup with a cibata and shared an order of sweet potato fries.  YUM, YUM.

On to the Castle.  You wouldn’t really know it by looking at it at first but the castle is a ruin.   I have yet to see a ruin that you can walk through so much as we could this one.  Have to say the castle was well worth it.   You start on the ground floor and get to see the wine cellar, the servants quarters, the old guard chambers, the brew house and parts of the dungeon.

Wine cellar

Servants rooms

We walked up a lot of spiral stone staircases today.  You can tell they put in cement floors in some of the areas so we could walk through.  It’s kind of amazing to think that people lived here hundreds of years ago.  It’s too bad there is no way to be able to replace the wood beams for the floors.  This particular castle had a rather large great hall.  I think it’s boasted to be one of the larger ones.  The fire place is crazy big and it was kind of cool to see the walk way that still exists so people could walk around the top of the great hall and look down.

Great Hall

Hallway overlooking the great hall

We didn’t have enough time to go through the chapel or the graveyard.  We’ll have to try and go back for that.

Tonight for dinner we got to sit in the main dining room.  We’ve always sat in the bar area.  Dinner again was really, really good.  I had the Pork Loin with steamed carrots and broccoli, Yorkshire pudding, crispy roasted potatoes and gravy.  Man oh man was it good.  Mom had the roast beef with all the same sides.  We also got a desert to share.  Warm triple chocolate cake with ice cream.  YUMMY.

The day started with a tour of The Real Mary King’s close.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the tour.  We learned that the close is now underground because The Royal Exchange wanted to build a new building and no longer wanted the Close so they knocked down about 4 or 5 of the 7 stories of the close and built the new government building on top of it.  The close is basically built into the foundation of the government building.  Most all of the close is still intact and parts of it have metal jacks in place to hold up the original ceiling.  Mary King was a prominent business woman in the 1630’s.  Most of the residents eventually ended up dying from the plague and their possessions were burned.

After visiting the Close we walked up to the Castle.   I think mom believes I’m trying to get rid of her with all the walking.  LOL….I’m not and my feet hurt just as bad as hers did when we were finished.

We went through most all of the castle.   She wasn’t interested in seeing the dungeon so we skipped that this time.   I’ve seen it so it was no it deal for me.  We did see the Crown Jewels though we weren’t allowed to take pictures.  I did learn that the crown weighs 3lbs, the septet also weighs 3lbs and the sword weighs 6 lbs.

We walked through the Royal apartments next.  We were allowed pictures here just not with flash in all the rooms.

Also got to see the Great Hall.  I rather enjoyed the Great Hall.  The walls were lined with weapons of all kinds, there was a claymore on display and they had keys for the Monarchs that ruled. And per the usual you could almost stand in the fireplace.

Our feet gave out about 5pm so we headed out of the castle and started back down the Royal Mile and back to the train.

Of course along the way we had to stop in to a couple of shops and mom cleaned up.  She bought herself 2 wraps and a scarf.  I ended up with a sweater.

We got back to the hotel and had us some dinner.  Now bear with me because I’ve never been good about taking pictures of my food but I’ll get better.   I had an open chicken pot pie and holy cow was it good.  So far we haven’t had a bad meal here at the hotel.

had our breakfast this morning and headed off to the train station on foot.  Yup mom thinks I’m trying to kill her right about now.  The walk from the hotel to the train should take about 10 minutes.  Our took about 20 because we had to make numerous stops along the way for mom.  Got there and got our tickets.  Headed up to the platform to wait for the train.  The ride took about 30 minutes and we were in Edinburgh.  We needed to get up onto High street so we could get to the Museum.  ROFL…..the road we had to walk on was up hill all the way.  Mom was a trooper though.  With numerous stops we made it to the top.

Cockburn St. Street we walked up to get to High street (Royal Mile).

Conveniently there was a Starbucks at the top of the hill.  So of course we stopped in for a drink since mom made it up the hill with no complaining.

Walked up the Royal Mile for a bit (towards the castle) to get to the street we needed for the museum.  We passed some stands selling Celtic jewelry.  Mom of course had to stop and look.  She walked away with a new ring.

Made it to the museum and paid for the Celts exhibit.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the exhibit so I have none to share but it was very interesting.  The first torch and ankle bracelets they found were huge and it’s kind of amazing to think someone wore them.  Over time they became smaller and more ornate.

Had lunch in one of the two restaurants in the museum.  We chose the one in the main lobby.

After lunch we roamed around the museum some more.  There were the usual animals which were cool.  They also had a section on Scottish history.

I’ll have to add more pictures later.   The Internet connection here isn’t the best and is giving me fits trying to upload photos.