For anyone who has known us for any length of time, you will know that Braveheart is a fairly big deal to us. It is the only movie we make a point of watching at least once annually to cry our way through. So with this trip on the horizon we had discovered that there was a William Wallace monument in a town called Stirling here in Scotland. Obviously this became a destination of choice for us and on our way up to Inverness in the highlands we stopped in Stirling for almost an entire day. When we got to Stirling we realized that we had absolutely nowhere to put our massive bags so we stopped at a hotel to see if they would store them for the day. The receptionist said they were only allowed to store customers luggage so we were heading on our way when she came chasing back after us! She said that if she told her coworkers that we were guests the night before we could probably get away with it without anyone knowing! We were so grateful that she went out on a limb for us because we really would have gotten a good work out carrying those bags with us all day.
The monument is a tall tower that was built in the 1800s as a memorial to William Wallace who was a symbol of patriotism for the Scottish. We climbed to the top, stopping on 3 separate tiers to learn about William Wallace and how he influenced Scotland. We learned that an ancient bridge we used to cross the river to get to the monument was actually the location for William Wallace's biggest and most important victory! The most spectacular part of the monument though is the view from the top. With a 360 degree view of the lush green hills of rural Scotland the only word for it is breathtaking. After taking about 80 pictures we wandered back into town to do a self guided walking your of all of the historic sites. Instead of this though we got caught in torrential rain that causes us to head for more indoor activities.
I have been wanting to bring home a violin as a souvenir so we set our sights on music stores in Stirling! Our first couple stops left us empty handed but a shop owner told us to go check out a nearby place where a guy sold second hand instruments. Off we went in the rain in search of this place and when we got to where it should be there was a sign on the door that said "Shop downstairs. Push on this door. Now push harder". Sure enough after reefing on it a little bit we tumbled into a bit of a musicians oasis where we met a Canadian from Ontario who had fallen in love with Scotland and started this shop, and his assistant Ted who wrote a song called "Where's the river Mel?" to poke fun at the fact that in Braveheart the most important battle doesn't have a river like it should have. The shop even had a 200 year old violin that I took for a spin! Although we left empty handed we left full of well wishes from a fellow Canadian and a few good laughs! After we picked up our bags from the hotel we headed towards the train station where Lindsay ceremoniously got her head pooped on by a pigeon. After laughing so hard I cried I helped her get it out of her hair and soon enough it was time to catch the train to Inverness.