On our way up to Inverness, we stopped at Stirling Castle. Got there at opening, at which point it was pouring rain. This visit really was the perfect example of Scottish weather – by the time we left, it was gorgeously sunny. That’s probably best illustrated by the two pictures below, which are views of old gardens on the grounds outside the castle, taken at the beginning and end of the visit.
The castle was mainly set up to highlight what it would have been like during the reign of James V and his second wife, Mary of Guise, the parents of Mary, Queen of Scots. I included a couple pictures of the Stirling Heads – the originals are in their own gallery now, but they used to be in a ceiling in the king’s apartments, and they have replicas in place there, painted as they would have looked at the time. We thought it was a real missed opportunity to not sell a few replicas – we would have bought one.
It was a lot of fun wandering the grounds – the views are amazing, and there are a ton of accessible ramparts you can scramble around. And of course, there are gardens. This is where I started to notice all the columbine hybrids – they kept getting fancier the more places were visited.
