Grange-Over-Sands to Stirling

Today we (sadly) left Grange-Over-Sands; this place was truly one of a kind to relax and catch up on our trip planning!

We had a quick coffee and breakfast, finished cleaning up the house, and headed out to the train station. Our train took us from Grange to Edinburgh(after a connection in Lancaster) and from there we went on to Stirling.

Stirling was a super cute medieval town to explore, with many stone buildings. The highlight of the town was Stirling Castle, which has been a fortress overseeing the area since the 1300’s. Interestingly, this spot is the narrowest point between the Scottish Highlands and the lowlands, and thus strategically very important. The castle was actually taken after a siege on 8 different occasions, and was the site of many key battles between the English and the Scottish. In fact, a long line of Scottish royalty was either born or raised in this spot!

It was incredible learning about the castle’s history, and seeing all of the changes that had been made over time. We were able to see the original kitchen(which had been excavated), and that was juxtaposed with barracks and gunpowder storage which had been added in the 1800’s as the fortress was in continued use by the Scottish through then.

A final highlight was the views from the castle; the castle sits on a mountain ridge, and affords panoramic views of the entire valley it sits in, and the nearby mountain ranges on either side.

After we had our fill of the castle, we grabbed Indian food for dinner(which was excellent) and called it a night as we were both a bit sick from whatever was going around during our get together with the family in England. Tomorrow we will explore more of Scotland!Read more