Stirling - Day 10 (Part 2) July 6

By the time we finished with Stirling Castle the rain was really coming down. Rather than walking in the rain to a restaurant 5-10 minutes away, we settled on the Castle cafeteria. As you might have guessed, it was pretty packed. That said, we got a table for two somewhat away from the hoard.

 

When the rain let up, we hoofed it back to the car. 

 

Along the way, we noticed that Henry had opened a coffee shop in town. 

 

We had tix for the Falkirk Wheel late in the afternoon, so we figured we had enough time for one stop. Kind of like Stirling Castle, The William Wallace Monument is a great source of pride for the Scottish. It's up on a high peak, so when we parked we had to take a shuttle up. We got the last seats on the shuttle so I volunteered to sit in the front. Either because my brain was on cruise control or because I was used to driving - I got into the driver's seat. He looked at me and asked "Are you driving today?" 😅

 

To give you some perspective on size and height, here is the William Wallace Momentum as seen from Stirling Castle.

 

Here it is at ground level.

 

 

Just as we were headed into the monument, a reenact-or came out and gathered everyone around. He told "the story of William Wallace." Wallace was actually studying to be a priest until the local sheriff set his house on fire and threw his fleeing wife inside to burn to death. Yep, that's the kind of thing that would turn a man of the cloth into a militant! 

 

The actor was VERY entertaining and we were swept up in his story/performance. So much so that, when he finished, we had to run to the car to make our 4pm time slot at Falkirk Wheel! 

 

We "raced" down the highway and made our appointment with a few minutes to spare. 

 

The Falkirk Wheel is an amazing accomplishment in design and engineering. Basically it's a wheel the moves a barge from a lower level canal to a canal at a higher elevation. Here is a link if you want to know more: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel 

 

Here the barge is halfway up from the lower to upper level.

 

Here is the top where the barge is deposited onto a faux canal that leads to the real upper canal.

 

 Straight ahead is the entry to the upper canal.

 

 

 

I'm sure like seeing the Panama Canal, The Falkirk Wheel leaves you wondering "How the hell did they pull this off?"

 

 

Getting back to town, we made a B-line for a pub... 

 

 

...where we met a very nice young man.

 

Um, hello?

 

After our fill of pup time and beer, we had dinner at a gastropub next door, Brea. The food was good, but the waiter was a total ding-dong. Every table got a bill with charges for dishes that went to neighboring tables. 

Hello, McFly!