Dreams...of Inspiration, Solace and Aspiration ~: Stirling

With much zeal we set out to stirling, wanting to make full use of the Queen's generous gift :) Took a train ride there, pretty exciting. I like it that they have seats with tables in the trains, arranged in a cosy 4 seats-facing-each-other style. The town itself was pretty small and very quiet, probably cos it was a sunday. In UK, everythg seems very closed down on sundays - even the metro runs only from 10am to 6pm on sundays. The 'ancient-ness' of stirling really came through though as it seemed like everything was built before the 1700's!

View of river forth from the Wallace monument

Stained glass in holy rude church

Church of holyrude was interesting, with loads of stained glasses (i really cant get enough of those!) and so was the walk up to Stirling castle (RIGHT) itself. The caslte was much more compact than edinburgh, but with active restoration works going on everywhere - somehow that appealed to me, as it seemed more real. The views from the castle itself (perched ontop of a hill) were amazing, with vast fields, snow capped mountains and blue clouds all in 1 view :)

We then proceeded to the wallace monument (LEFT) - William Wallace is scotland's hero, and this monument was obviously full of pride & admiration for him. The trek though was a good 30 minute walk up a hill. Happily, lunch was at the end of the trek before the final stretch - it was at this italian place with homemade pasta; the tortellini was fabulous plus they had gelato for 85pence. Splendid! Appreciated the monument for helped with appreciation of scottish history better. and of course more 360 degrees views from the top! With that, it was onto the cumbersworth abbey - which really was ruins with an intact bell tower. Shopping for groceries for the week completed our stirling experience (found really cheap & good yoghurt at tesco's!)..made it just in time for the train! All in all, a compact experience of a typical scottish town :)