Stirling; Sunday, 08 June, 2014

Breakfast consumed I wandered into town and walked up through the old town past the Mercat cross and tollbooth to Mars Wark and the Holy Rude Kirk.

I had a look around the ruins of Mars Wark and was wandering around the neighbouring cemetery when the first heavy (and cold) shower of the morning briskly passed through. By the time I’d made it to some shelter it had actually stopped raining, and that was pretty much the experience for the rest of the day lots of very short but very heavy showers.

From the cemetery I walked the short distance up the last part of the hill to Stirling Castle and spent much of the day having a long wander around the site.

After finishing in the castle I started to head back down the hill, but stopped off at Argyll’s Lodgings just down from the castle for a quick look around.

Back down in the town centre I hopped on a bus up to the suburb of Causewayhead to pay a visit to the National Wallace Monument.

The high Victorian Gothic monument is located on the top of a rocky outcrop and is visible from across the city. It commemorates William Wallace and is placed where historians think he and his men would have waited for the English before sweeping down on them for a memorable victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, a few years before Bannockburn.

From the top of the monument the views are spectacular, particularly as the skies had now cleared, temporarily, to reveal the Forth Valley in its full beauty.

By the time I had descended back down to ground level the monument was just on closing time so I wasn’t able to look round the visitors centre. Instead I headed back into town on the bus and from there picked up the train one stop up the line to Alloa to have a look around there.

Sadly, there wasn’t very much to see in Alloa, and there didn’t even really look like anywhere to have dinner (other than the Asda café) so I headed back into Stirling to have a curry in the old town before heading back to the hotel and a good night’s sleep.