Stirling

Before leaving Inverness, we visited the site of the Battle of Culloden, between the Jacobites (led by Bonnie Prince Charles) and the English. It lasted all of 45 minutes with the Jacobites being decimated.

As usual the weather was mixed between light rain and sunshine. We've noticed signs on many roads stating that frustration causes accidents and slower vehicles should pull over to let cars pass. Not a bad idea. The temperature in the car varied from 4 to 10 degrees. Guess what it was when this photo was taken around Dalwhinnie:

We stopped at the lovely village of Pitlochry for lunch. Peter visited here last year on a flying whisky tasting visit in June.

The drive from Pitlochry to Stirling brought totally different landscape to the highlands, including this little bridge just sought of the village.

 

An example of what a difference sunshine makes:

 

 We are staying at The Neidpath B & B which is a five minute walk to the town centre. We had dinner at "Papa Joes" a restaurant that had an Italian/Mexican flavour about it.

Saturday morning held lots of promise for a sunny day (as forecast). However, half an hour into our drive to the Trossachs, it started to rain and didn't stop for the rest of the day. this was a pity because the Autumn colours would have been spectacular. Our first stop was a lovely café right on Loch Venacher - a little gem in the middle of nowhere. The group below were preparing for a fishing trip on the lake.

The people here obviously accept that the weather is going to be crap a lot of the time so they just get out and do things, regardless of the conditions. Later we saw the group above in the middle of the lake while it was pouring. We also passed a couple of cyclists on what must have been a very uncomfortable ride.



Our Trossachs



Trossachs on a clear day (not for us!)

 
We had lunch at a the Royal Hotel in a little village called Bridge of Allan, just outside Stirling. Yummy food at very reasonable prices.



Peter at The Royal



The royal Hotel, Bridge of Allan

 

We spent the afternoon at Stirling Castle. It's really worthwhile and we agreed that it is more impressive than Edinburgh Castle, which we visited two years ago. The photo below was taken from the castle:

Wallace Monument



We had dinner at a Cantonese restaurant - really, really good food and lovely staff who took a liking to Peter (they were from Hong Kong). After we had paid the bill we were offered a complimentary drink. 

 

Off to Edinburgh tomorrow. Forecast is for a sunny day. We'll see...