Our 14th Anniversary in Scotland

We were not strictly speaking planning an anniversary trip, but that is how it ended up shaking out! We celebrated our 14th anniversary by leaving Edinburgh on a morning tram and heading to the outskirts of the city to pick up a rental car. We already knew Lee could drive on the left no problem. We also knew he could drive a manual transmission on narrow mountain roads. But could he do both at the same time? He figured he could, so we went for it! (If you aren't aware, there are way more manual transmissions in Europe, not sure why, and automatics are more expensive to rent.)

The first stop of our great Scottish road trip was Stirling Castle.

Stirling is only about an hour outside Edinburgh. Most people visit as a day trip, but Edinburgh is literally the most expensive place to stay in all of Scotland, so it made sense to me to just relocate rather than day trip. We stayed in a hostel right down the road from the castle, so we just parked at our hostel and walked the 10 minutes to get to Stirling Castle. And what a view you get from the top of that hill!

Stirling Castle is the most important strategic military stronghold in Scotland. There was an old saying that whoever held Stirling, held Scotland. Certainly some of the most pivotal battles in Scottish history were fought in the fields surrounding this castle.

As much as I enjoyed visiting Edinburgh castle, I enjoyed Stirling even more. Maybe it was that the crowds were a little more sparse, maybe we were learning how to pace ourselves, or maybe it was the more kid targeted exhibits, but Stirling just really struck a chord with me.

Like Edinburgh, Stirling has layer after layer of walls and towers and gates. 

But Stirling had a whole series of little rooms called The Vaults dedicated to specific bits of the castle's history or architecture that had activities geared toward kids. Soft building blocks, little puzzles, and costumes to dress up in helped give the boys something a little more fun to do that reading signs.

I need you to know, I did not make Paul put on the dress, he requested it specifically.

The great hall at Stirling wasn't as ornately decorated as the great hall in Edinburgh, but it did have a kingly photo op.

We opted to eat lunch in the little cafe, and George would really like you to know that he found a coke can with his name on it and therefore he got to buy and drink it with his lunch. 

There is a quite good regimental museum in Stirling castle. As we approached the entry, a docent asked if we liked Lego. He told us that the museum had a scavenger hunt, that there were minifigures hidden in the displays and we could grab a guide to follow along and earn a prize at the end.

And what a hunt it was! The little guys were surprisingly difficult to find. Arthur spotted the first one because it was at his eye level, and then we were off to the races! The kid's meticulous search of all the displays meant I could actually have time to look at and read the information. There is actually a minifig in the photo above with Arthur, and it was one of the easy ones, so see if you can spot it.

One of the cooler things for me was that there was a regimental bagpiper at the museum that day, playing songs and answering questions. He had a few different pipes with him for display, but he played a set that were quite small and suited to the indoors. It was pretty neat to hear him and learn a bit about piping.

We did find all the minifigs and each kid got to pick out a sticker as a prize. Just one of several activities that makes Stirling a fun place for kids.

The royal apartments at Stirling were quite beautiful, a couple of rooms were even fully furnished, including Mary de Guise's bedroom/office.

There was a be-costumed actor who spoke to us in old Scots and told us a bit about life in the castle and the royals who lived in it. Specifically of when it was the childhood home of Mary Queen of Scots.

A few rooms down we found a dressed up guardsman explaining and answering questions about his display of 17th century weaponry. He was quite funny and knowledgeable, we probably sat for 15 minutes listening. Then another guardsman took his place, and we stayed on to listen to this guys as well.

It was completely fascinating and the kids got to be off their feet for a half hour; it was one of my favorite parts of the day.

Stirling also had a large palace kitchen set up, full of creepy manikins and fake food. It was pretty cool and if that fake food is anything to go on, those feasts were...gross looking.

It was almost late enough in the afternoon to check into our hostel, so we said good-bye to Stirling Castle, we said good-bye to Robert the Bruce, and walked through the old town of Stirling, and got ourselves some groceries so we could cook an anniversary dinner that we knew our kids would actually eat.

After a few days of burning the candle at both ends, it was really nice to have a quiet evening playing board games and sipping hot cocoa. 

It was time to really test Lee's left handed driving skills, so the next morning we headed a bit north to the misty shores of Loch Tay taking a route that google maps clearly hadn't thought through very clearly. It was undeniably beautiful scenery, but left the children feeling a bit carsick. We ran into an odd bit of road construction, but we nonetheless arrived at our destination only 15 minutes later than intended.

The Scottish Crannog Centre is a (mostly) outdoor folk museum of life in Iron Age Scotland. We got to learn about wood working, metal working, leather working, making and dying wool, cooking, and the daily life of those early Scots. 

There was an indoor museum displaying artifacts that have actually been recovered from Loch Tay, but obviously the kids were most interested in the Iron Age village outside.

The boys got to try their hand and grinding wheat by hand. From what we were told, a village would need someone on their hands and knees grinding pretty much 24/7 in order to feed the whole community. What they liked even better was being given a little sample of some fire baked flat bread topped with homemade soft cheese.

We got to try out all sorts of traditional wood working methods, Arthur excelled at wood chopping (with help). I held the metal wedge in place and he hammered it with a wooden mallet till the wood split. He only got my hand once, but the scar is still visible so he went for quality over quantity.

You might be asking yourself, "You said this place was the Crannog Centre. What is a Crannog?" I'm glad you asked! A Crannog is an over the water dwelling. There is evidence of there having been crannogs in Loch Tay and many other lochs in Scotland dating from the iron age. The original Crannog Centre had a big crannog for visitors to tour, but it tragically caught fire a couple years ago and burned down in about 5 minutes.

During the covid shut downs, they were able to raise a substantial fund to rebuilt bigger and better. They completed the village on the shore first so they could open their doors while a new crannog is completed, which they hope will be ready next spring.

And from what I understand, they intend to build several crannogs, not just one. I'd be very interested to come back 5 years from now and see what they've got finished in that time.

We're glad there was an indoor cafe, because we got rather seriously rained on. It wasn't a very busy day, which is fortunate because nearly every visitor squeezed into the cafe to wait out the rain. We'd packed a picnic lunch, but I did buy a snack out of obligation since we were using a table and all.

Once the rain let up some, we headed back out and finished our visit.

I learned how different dyes worked for making textiles. It turns out for blue you need a rather surprising chemical agent...pee. You need pee. Apparently the drunker you are, the darker and more vibrant the blue. Nobody knows why.

The Crannog Centre was rather unlike any of the other places we visited on our trip, and it made it all the more special because it was so hands on and kid friendly.

Perhaps more surprising is that they didn't actively dislike our next activity of the day. We drove about 15 minutes to the little town of Aberfeldy to do a smallish hike in the birks (birches).

This area was made famous and beloved by Scotlands favorite poet Robert "Rabbie" Burns. He visited this place and sat down and wrote a poem about it. That poem he set to a tune so we now have the song "The Birks of Aberfeldy"

It is an absolutely beautiful place, the walk up along the river seemed to have a new beautiful waterfall around every turn. We tried to set the camera up to do a timer so we could all be in a photo with this waterfall, but Lee slipped on his way to us and what follows is the three imaged captured as we tried to stay upright.

So never mind about having us all in the photo together!

We found the very rock where Rabbie is supposed to have sat down and written the poem. There is even a little plaque to commemorate the occasion!

If you think I came all the way to the Birks of Aberfeldy without learning the song, you are off your rocker. I, of course, learned the song and recorded it and paired it with relevant footage of the beautiful spot that inspired a poet.

I know the kids appreciated the beauty of this place because they nearly stopped complaining. During a hike. They stopped. complaining. Until we'd gotten passed all the waterfalls and the most beautiful bits. Then the whinging commenced again.

We made a stop in town for toilets and water bottle refills, then we carried on to further adventures, the nature of which I am simply going to leave you in suspense. Until next time, slainte!