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Published: March 14th 2008
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at the beginning of the hill
the mel gibson- i mean- william wallace statue I finally got the The William Wallace Monument!!! I'm SO glad that I went and saw a little more of Stirling. The views from the top were amazing! And even though the walk from campus and walking all the way up to the top was a little rough for Caitlin and I, it was a great experience.
We left a little after 11 and had surprisingly made it up to the top by about 12. We left campus and got to the main building pretty easily. It was when we realized that we had a big hill in front of us to climb to the actual monument, but we did it 😊 When we finally did make it to the top, the free shuttle from the entrance of the site to the entrance of the monument sped past us. (laughing, right?) 😊
The views from the entrance were even awesome. We could see the whole campus and all the way into town. The mountains in the distance were covered by snow too. It was breath taking.
We got our tickets (only £4.90 for students!) and started up the tight spiral staircase. It was a little nerve racking and
concerns about fire hazards entered my mind, but we did it. There are rooms along the way up where they have displays about Wallace. The first one was about his capture and trial. There was some interesting detail about how he was disembowled, castrated, and beheaded. Then parts of his body were sent to four different towns in Scotland- one being Stirling- as a reminded to not betray the king. This room also included his sword which was pretty cool. The next room was filled with information about when the monument was built. A man that built The Free Church of Scotland was the architect for The Wallace Monument. There were also signs about all the different places that have other monuments for William Wallace. A lot were in Scotland, but there's even one in Baltimore! The last room before we got to the top was filled with busts of a bunch of different people. I'm not too sure what the connection was with William Wallace, but they were pretty lol- there was one of John Knox (which Knox Junior High in The Woodlands is named after I believe). There was a statue of Robert Burns and King Robert the
Bruce. And another one of Sir Walter Scott- donated, of course, by the Carnegies- they've got their fingers in everything! 😊
When we got to the top, it was my favorite part. We had amazing weather, which really means- NO RAIN!!! 😊 But really, it was sunny and warm for the most part, and since I'm writing this, I luckily was not blown off the top. It was so awesome to see the top of the building- there's this great gothic architecture that was SO pretty! The arches are really detailed, and although I tried to get pictures of it, it really just doesn't look the same.
You could see everything from the top- the campus, Stirling Castle, the train station, even a castle out in another town (where they shot one of the Monty Python scenes). The landscape is amazing here. I can't imagine waking up every morning and seeing this.
We headed down after tons of picture taking, and a sweet woman even offered to take our picture. There weren't a lot of people there that spoke english- so we attracted attention by looking like idiots while trying to take a picture of ourselves. Obviously
this woman was sympathetic to our situation 😊
On the way down, some dude came rushing down the spiral staircase, and Caitlin and I were maybe doing 5 stairs per minute. So we tried to hurry up, since there wasn't any room to let him pass and then ducked into one of the side rooms. I guess he was well experienced with spiral staircases (they still kind of freak me out).
We decided to walk down the hill again instead of searching for our friend, the shuttle driver. It was nice, we got to see some flowers (it's finally spring!), and we got to work the backs of our legs instead of the fronts as we had on the way up 😊
It was a great trip. I'm so glad that I finally pushed myself to get up there. Now I've got to find some other things to do here in Stirling 😊 Bridge of Allen is still on the list- it's a small town about a 10 minute walk from campus. There are a bunch of little shops and tons of bed and breakfasts- and a place with really good fish and chips and another with
great empire biscuits (supposedly).
I've got class in a little bit, and then tomorrow- GLASGOW! 😊
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Lauren
non-member comment
Dude!
First, I want to be Queen Lauren the Bruce. Second, I would like to suggest that this Christmas, we give Mike the pineapple you photographed. Glad you're having fun. Miss you lots. Wish we could visit you, but then you'd probably have less fun. C'est la vie.