Queensferry Bridge
A half hour from Stirling we once again left the main road to Edinburgh so that James could show us the town of South Queensferry. We drove along the coast of the Firth of Forth and passed through what looked to be a recently gentrified port town. There were a number of freshly painted and newly decorated Victorian homes serving as B&B's. A good number of inviting looking pubs stretched along the coast road. We didn't have time to stop to explore but a short way down the road we pulled into a parking lot where we got some nice views of this huge bridge traversing the Firth. The bridge was built to replace an earlier span which was never completed because of a tremendous disaster at another Scottish railway bridge. Because of the large loss of life, the original construction plans were changed and this over-engineered design was the result. Many of the same steel engineering techniques that were used on the Eifel Tower were also employed here. Nearly 60 workers died in the construction of the Queensferry Bridge which opened in 1890.
Great Britain, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing parliamentary democracy and in advancing literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one-fourth of the ear... ... read more 
