The Essence of Scotland: Wallace and Burns

A couple of weekends ago, Greg and I visited the town of Stirling, site of the famous "Battle of Stirling Bridge". Stirling is about 45 minutes north of Edinburgh and it's been an important Scottish town for centuries. This is where the Highlands meet the Lowlands. The River Forth cuts much of Scotland in half, east to west, and for a time the Stirling Bridge was the only crossing. Here William Wallace and his army made a surprise attack on the English army, showing the English that the Scots wouldn't give up their country without a fight. Wallace's spirit lives on in Scotland and we've found they're a very feisty and protective bunch (and are still very competitive with the English). The Wallace Monument stands guard over Stirling on top of Abbey Craig. This 5 storey tower houses a museum and the climb to the top is well worth it just for the view. If you look closely you'll see Ben Lomond and other mountain peaks covered in snow. The tower's first floor covers the story of Wallace. Luckily we watched Braveheart just the week before - this movie comes highly recommended minus the last scene (says Jane). The second level contains about 12 busts of famous Scots including James Watts (electricity), Livingstone (an influential medical missionary and explorer in Africa in the 19th century), Robert the Bruce (one of Scotland's greatest kings) and of course Robert Burns. More about Mr Burns a little later.

The next floor tells the history of the tower itself. It was a long time coming with a competition about the design, disputes about the design and problems with payment to build it. There are Wallace Monuments all over the world including one in Ballarat, unveiled in 1898 in the goldfields!
Stirling also has a castle (see it on the hill in the photo of the winding river above). The guide books say " if you only visit one castle in Scotland, go to Stirling Castle". We'll have to do that next time since the car park space ran out of pounds. The old town which runs down the hill from the castle has plenty of interesting old buildings, and ruins, including the old law chambers which have been converted into a theatre (the architects won an award for their restoration).

And there are blue plaques on many of the buildings to tell you something interesting. If you can make out the carvings below you'll see a combination of Scotland's Thistle, Ireland's Shamrock and England's Tudor Rose.

After leaving the cobbled lanes of Stirling we drove on through Dukes Pass into the Trossachs National Park. The weather was turning bleak and it was getting dark so we'll save a good hill walk for another day.At the end of that working week we organised a Burns Night/Australia Day Dinner. Burns Night is a celebration of Robert Burns' life, usually held on his birthday, January 25th. Scots like to get together for a supper, wearing kilts, and recite his poetry whilst listening to bagpipes and eating haggis. We both tried haggis and enjoyed it but will hesitate to let it enter our regular diet considering what's contained inside, including several thousand calories! 16 people from Crosshouse Hospital radiology came along including a couple of South African Radiologists also keen not to miss this insight into Scottish culture.
Pauline (middle) brought some tartan napkins and Anna (left) bought us a " Guide to a Burns Supper".

Then Stephen read a large portion of "Tam O" Shanter", one of Burns longer poems. For those of you who don't know, the old Scottish language is very different to modern English, so we didn't pick up a whole lot of the poetry but it sounded like a song to hear Stephen's voice. It was a Burns Night/Australia Day dinner so we wore Australian flag stickers on our chests and the cork hat we brought all the way from home just for such an occasion. Then Jane read "A Bush Christening" by Banjo Paterson which needed a little interpretation but got a few laughs. A great night was had by all.