Scotland: Stirling Castle

On our way from Edinburgh to Beauly, we first stopped at Blackness Castle, discussed in a post last week, and then we stopped for lunch in Stirling and visited Stirling Castle.  I'll begin by saying Stirling Castle was an amazing castle!  I think we were there close to three hours before finally deciding that we needed to get going if we were going to reach Beauly at a reasonable time.  We could have stayed at Stirling a bit longer.  I would argue Stirling Castle was more impressive than Edinburgh Castle.  Stirling Castle also offered a short, 30 minute kids tour for free which was very interesting.  Below are a few of our pictures.

There's a lot to see in Scotland, but I'd argue Stirling Castle is a a MUST-SEE, especially if you purchased the Explorer's Pass ahead of time.  Stirling is also a neat little village with several restaurants.  We had lunch at the Darnley Coffee House before heading to the castle.  They served excellent toasties.  Highly recommend them if you are in need of food.

I'd plan on at least two, if not three hours or more at Stirling.  There is that much to see.  In the three hours there, there were one or two areas we didn't get to see.  In the pictures above, there's a tall tower off in the distance in one of them.  This is the Wallace Monument.  You can climb to the top, although we had to skip this on our trip.  Also in the pictures above is a statue of Robert the Bruce, who played an integral role in the history of Stirling Castle.