Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in the Stirling and Edinburgh galleries.
Wednesday was a long day of mostly driving. Total travel time between Kirkwall and Stirling was around 9 hours, although it took us 11 hours including a few touristy stops.
Long-distance travel in Scotland isn't very easy. The "A" road down from northern Scotland was a typical Scottish 2-lane, with what we heard later was a 55 or 60 MPH speed limit. We were rarely going that fast, and on some hills we were going as slow as 15 MPH behind big trucks. The gerbils under the hood of the Hyundai didn't really have enough power to pass on a grade, even if there was enough visibility. As we got closer to southern Scotland near Stirling, things opened up a little and there were sections of "dual carriageway" (i.e. 4 lanes with a median). Even on these sections with their higher speed limit, traffic didn't flow very well, because there were usually long backups to clear as soon as the road opened up. So, it was a long day of travel.
We left the hotel in Kirkwall at 6:30am and drove back to St. Margaret Hope to catch the 7:45am Pentland ferry. After arriving in Gill's Bay, we drove back through John O'Groats and down the eastern side of Scotland. In Wick, we stopped at a Tesco to get gas, and to take a bathroom break and buy some food to have for lunch later in the day. We finally stopped for a late lunch near Carrbridge, just a convenient place to use the bathroom and eat our food on a picnic table in a park.
In Stanley, we stopped for our only tourist break of the day, to visit the Stanley Mills. This turned out to be a really interesting stop. The cotton mills were originally built in the late 1700s and were in operation for over 200 years. Several different types of water power were employed, ranging from simple water wheels in early years to water turbines and even hydroelectric. We especially liked some of the hands-on displays and the personal stories of former workers.
Once we got to Stirling, it was rush hour, and finding the hotel was a mess. We ended up driving in circles, getting honked at in roundabouts, and had another incident of burning clutch smell trying to make a u-turn on a residential street that started out empty but suddenly wasn't as soon as we were blocking the street. (It didn't help that the balky gearbox on the Hyundai made it hard to tell whether you were in first or third gear.)
After finding the hotel (the Park Lodge, an old converted mansion), we parked there and walked into the old center of Stirling. We wandered around a bit before getting dinner at a little Thai place, which was excellent. However, by this point Julie's cough had gotten worse, and she had a hard time making it through dinner (the hard, dry crackers served at the table set off a coughing fit).
Back at the hotel, we did a little laundry in the sink (underwear and socks) and tried to go to bed early, but neither of us slept very well due to Julie's persistent cough.
Thursday morning, we got breakfast at the hotel, and asked our waiter where to find a pharmacy to buy more cold medicine. He pointed us to a place called Boots back in the Stirling city center. So, that was our first stop.
After that, we headed to Stirling Castle, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Probably because we were there on a weekday, it wasn't very crowded. There was a lot to explore, and a lot of interesting displays. In retrospect, we liked Stirling Castle a lot more than Edinburgh Castle. Julie particularly liked the weaving display, where staff are using traditional methods to weave tapestries to hang in the castle. We both laughed at the codpieces worn by the costumed male staff in some parts of the castle.
Once we finished up at the castle, we walked a few blocks to the Church of the Holy Rude, where Aunt Morag used to belong when she lived in Stirling. We were struck by how similar the roof was to other large halls that we had seen in Scotland, and learned that it was original — hundreds of years old.
From the Holy Rude, we walked back to our car and drove to see a few other Stirling sights. Our first stop was the Bannockburn Heritage Centre, associated with the Bannockburn battlefields, where Robert the Bruce defeated the English in 1314. Seeing the big statue of Robert the Bruce made Julie think of her friend Alvin from Marquette.
After our positive experience at Culloden, we were looking forward to this, but it was a bust — apparently, it's now focused around some virtual-reality battlefield experience. So, we walked around a little (no cost for that), and then headed to Doune Castle.
Doune Castle is well-preserved and has a quite interesting audio guide and selection of exhibits. However, what makes it extra-interesting is that much of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed here in the mid-1970s. The official audio guide is narrated by Terry Jones of Monty Python, and many parts of the audio guide have a movie-specific section you can choose to listen to after the historical information is complete. It was obvious that a lot of people visiting the castle were wandering around with scenes from the movie in their heads as they looked at walls, doorways, and staircases (us included). We really enjoyed our visit. It was one of the better castles we saw from a historical perspective, and the Monty Python connection was an added bonus.
We got back to Stirling during rush hour again, but this time we knew where we were going. We parked the car at the hotel and walked back into the city center to eat at a restaurant that styled itself as an "American Diner". It was actually not bad — they even had real Heinz ketchup for our fries.
Back at the hotel, Julie's cough continued to get worse, and neither of us slept very well again.
Friday morning, we got breakfast at the hotel and then checked out and got on the road toward Edinburgh. Our first stop was the Falkirk Wheel, a rotating boat lift connecting several Scottish canals. It's pefectly balanced, and requires very little power to operate. It's considered a modern engineering masterpiece. The engineering itself was pretty interesting, but the visitor center wasn't, and Ken was disappointed to learn that the lift is mainly focused on leisure boats and tour boats full of tourists on bus trips.
From there, we headed past Edinburgh to the Scottish National Museum of Flight. Getting there was kind of an adventure. We got off the highway one exit too early (in retrospect) and spent a half hour driving around on itty bitty farm roads trying to get to the right place. (We were flustered by an earlier near miss with someone merging onto the highway who panicked and completely stopped on the on-ramp rather than merging, yikes.)
Eventually, we did find the museum, but we were a bit mystified as to why it was out in the middle of nowhere. It turns out to be on the grounds of a WWII British air base. All of the displays are in WWII-era hangers and huts. There's a wide range of interesting aircraft, including a Concorde (with a much better display setup than we saw at Boeing Field in Seattle a few years ago), and a DeHaviland Comet, among others. The displays range from aircraft to information about how the base operated during the war, including a parachute drying and packing room.
After leaving the museum, we got into Edinburgh at — you guessed it! — Friday rush hour. And once again, we made a wrong turn that led to some, erm, adventures. Fortunately, we found our hotel (the Belford Guest House) without too much difficulty once we got to the right part of town. Unfortunately, we noticed the street just as we passed it, necessitating a long loop around to get back to it. It didn't help that by this time, Ken was beginning to get sick with his own version of Julie's cold.
The Belford is a cute little place with only 3 rooms. Our room had two twin beds, and we had a bathroom down the hall (not shared with anyone, just separate from our room). Once we got settled in, it was clear that Ken was running a fever. He laid down for a little while, and then we decided it would be a good idea to find someplace to do laundry.
The Rick Steves book suggested a laundry place not too far away, so Ken took some of Julie's cold medicine, and we packed up a big bag of laundry and went for a walk. It turned out to be a little further than expected (15-20 minutes), and the laundry bag was heavy. We should have taken the bus. When we arrived at the shop, it was 6:30pm, and the shop closed at 8:00pm, which meant there was not enough time to do our own laundy. But, for £10, they took the entire load and told us it would be done by the next afternoon. Perfect!
After dropping off the laundry, we wandered around a little, bought some more cold medicine at a grocery store, and went looking for someplace to eat. We ended up at a pub called The Reverie. It was excellent fare, exactly what we needed. Even the dessert was good, home made ice cream.
With Julie coughing and Ken's fever, and the only bathroom down the hall, it was another long night. Ken got only a few hours of sleep, and Julie not much more than him. We were both pretty tired when we got up. We got breakfast at the hotel (Ken ate very little, since he was still running a fever). Julie didn't cough much during breakfast, so she was optimistic that she was over a hump with her sickness.
After breakfast, we walked a few blocks to a bus stop. We bought a day pass for £3.50 each, and took the bus down to the old town of Edinburgh. From there, we walked up a big hill to Edinburgh Castle, Ken wheezing the entire way. We spent a few hours at the castle, including lunch, although we didn't enjoy the experience quite as much as at Stirling. It was a lot more crowded, and that made a difference.
After leaving the castle, we walked down the Royal Mile, and stoppped in St. Giles Cathedral. As we got further down the Royal Mile, it became obvious that a parade was just ending. It turned to be a pro-Union "No" rally related to the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence. There were lots of people with flags, and also a fairly heavy police presence. By the time we got to the Scottish parliament at the end of the Royal Mile (near the Palace of Holyroodhouse), most spectactors had gone home. However, there were still knots of people standing around, sometimes debating the referendum in loud voices.
After using the bathroom at Holyroodhouse (we didn't go in), we walked back up to the top of the Royal Mile. From there, we caught a bus back to pick up our laundry, and another bus back to the hotel. Then, we stayed at the hotel and took a nap. Around this time, it was becoming clear that Julie's earlier optimism about her cough had been misplaced. Her cough had started up again during our walk up the Royal Mile and was now back in full force.
For dinner, we decided on a place from the Rick Steves book, called Il Positano Ristorante, not far from the laundry shop. Rick Steves says that it has "a spirited Italian ambience", and he's not kidding. From the moment we walked in, the owner (?) was talking to us in Italian. It was like being back in Rome. The food and wine were excellent, and the friendly atmosphere turned out to be exactly what we needed after a long and fairly trying day.
We were feeling good enough after dinner that we hopped a bus outside the restaurant and took it back to the city center. From there, we spent a few hours wandering around in what's called the New Town area of Edinburgh (well, it was new in the early 1700s, anyway). When we finally got tired of walking, we hopped another double-decker bus and took it all of the way back to the hotel. The all-day bus pass was definitely worthwhile.