Scotland Lowlands (Part 9 of UK/Ireland Trip)

We arrived in Scotland today via ferry from Northern Ireland. Our new residence is in the country and this is the view from our room.

This time we have cows and horses in our yard instead of cows and sheep.

We visited the Stirling Castle which is one of the largest and most important castles in Scotland for both historical and architectural reasons. This castle was originally designed to mimic Camelot and so chivalry was most important. In the great hall, they used round tables as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table would have it.

Street musician

Wallace Monument as seen from castle 

The Palace where the queen resided

The Great Hall

The ceilings in this castle were extraordinary. The next two pics give you an idea of how ornate they are.

You may have noticed that the unicorn shows up everywhere. The unicorn represents Christ as portrayed in the Bible--yes, for those of you who are too young to remember, it is in the King James Version. The horn represents power. Today's modern translations usually translate the Latin unicornis as wild ox and we typically picture a rhinoceros or some such beast. Psalm 92:10 says "But my horn shalt Thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn; I shall be anointed with fresh oil." KJV 

Coat of Arms with Unicorns

The Queen's Room

The interesting piece of landscaping seen below is called King's Knot.

Below is a depiction of men taking their game to the kitchen area. I made up names for them as you can see in the caption!

Tony and Nathan

View of Stirling from the castle

The next several pics are of Queen Anne's Flower Garden on the Castle grounds.

Our second day here was spent in Edinburgh (pronounced Edinburah by the natives). Edinburgh was a delight even for a country girl. There were crowds but they were different from the crowds in most cities. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry and no crushing masses. The streets are wide and the Royal Mile is filled with interesting shops and people. Our first stop was the Castle (of course). This is a view from where we started our walk.

Edinburgh Castle

The next few pics are buildings we saw along the way to the castle.

We must have our whisky!

The next pics are all either inside the castle or views of Edinburgh from the castle.

Street musician

View from Castle with Firth of Forth in background.

The picture below reminds me of the the Acropolis. Kind of.

It's all Greek to me...

Canon gets fired every day at 1:00 pm

Hospital in Castle

View from Castle

Anybody for a game of Russian Roulette? Choose your weapon!

The next pics are farther down the Royal Mile and are mainly of St. Giles Cathedral where John Knox preached and the home of John Knox.

St. Giles Cathedral

We were here to hear a concert by this Amish Mennonite choir. They were awesome and most of them were from the US and Canada--several from Kansas. The acoustics were unbelievable and I think the Redeemer choir needs to go sing here. 

Statue of Adam Smith on the way to the home of John Knox. 

The next two pics are two views of the the home of John Knox.

Latin Bible

I did not know that at the age of fifty, John Knox married a 17 year-old girl. She was his second wife and they had 3 daughters.

The next pics show the tiles they used in the four fireplaces in the house. This first one is made exclusively from Dutch tiles made in Rotterdam. All of them have some Dutch tiles in them.

Below is the ceiling in one of the rooms. I had to lay on the floor to get this pic, but you can see the carving is ornate and beautiful. 

The next picture is John Knox himself standing by his fireplace. He had just shaved. Please ignore the white sport shoes. 

John Knox's study was about the size of a bathroom stall.

John Knox's study

Below is the Queen's Palace. 

We saw these on the walk back to the bus stop.

Robert Burns Monument

Nelson Monument

The next pictures are our last day in the lowlands. Tomorrow we will head up into the highlands. But for today, we decided to spend the day driving around as much of the Loch Lomond area as we could fit in. Good choice too--because it ended up raining a lot.

The Shores of Loch Lomond

I'm sure you've all heard the song of Loch Lomond:

O ye'll take the high road and I'll take the low road

And I'll be in Scotland a'fore ye

But me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonnie bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond

During the Jacobite uprising of 1745, the Hanoverian British victors would take 2 brothers or friends and tell them that one would be executed and one would be set free and they had to decide themselves who could live and who would die. The song--written by the one who would die means that his soul will get to Scotland first. But he would never live to see his true love again. And I used to think this was such a cute little ditty about two guys having a race! 

Anyway, this was our first glimpse of Loch Lomond.

These are a few little cottages we saw as we were walking around the loch.

OK nothing special here in regard to Scotland but I just couldn't resist this little guy! He just seems so happy and it made me happy.

This church was along the loch as well. It seems like every church we see is surrounded by graveyards. 

If you click on any of the pictures in my blog, you will see them in a bigger size and can read the inscriptions a little easier--such as the one below.

Inscription on the church

The view looking out from the church.

After this we drove to this water falls. It was raining but we got out anyway to get some pics.

This was beside the larger water fall.

These yellow flowers were everywhere and so pretty.

The next several pics are scenes we saw as we were driving. We stopped to take pics a few times but sometimes I was shooting out the front or side windows of the car while en route!

Yellow flowers by stream with railroad track in background

We see these red telephone booths everywhere--even in the most remote areas--just decorating the landscape.

We saw these Scottish Highland cattle and I had to jump out and get a pic of them. I was so hoping we would see them at some point and today was the day!

More scenes along the roadside below:

I can almost never resist taking pictures of sheep, but do you know how many sheep there are in England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland? I finally had to promise my self NO MORE SHEEP pictures. But alas... 

Mama nuzzling her little lamb

So far in our travels we have not seen trees like these. Hundreds of thousands of them. Felt like I was seeing the cedars of Lebanon! The pic is a little blurry because I had to take them while in the car. As you can see there is no place to stop on these one lane roads...

This was the last shot I took today traveling at 60 mph through the front windshield. Turned out OK! Tomorrow we leave for the Highlands, so stay tuned!