Day 7 - The Great Scottish Tour

Inverness to Edinburgh

We were sad to leave Inverness. It was one of the pleasant surprises on this trip, but we still had a lot of Scotland to see.

We rode through Cairngorns, along the park’s western route to Stirling – and Stirling Castle.  I don’t think we were expecting anything so …vast.

If you saw the movie Braveheart, this is the historical era we were visiting. Where, in the 1200s, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce attempted to break free from English rule and suppression, and the Battle of Sterling took place.

We had a fantastic tour guide, who really brought the castle to life.

The castle itself was really interesting and standing on the gun decks it was easy to see why this plot of land was such a vantage point to whomever controlled it at that time.

From there were could see the Stirling Bridge, though it was rebuilt after the famous battle, probably upstream a few hundred yards,

and the Wallace Monument on the other side of the river.

We ate our sack lunch on the castle grounds and struck up a conversation with a Dutch couple who were touring Europe on their modified Harley Davidson motorcycle. It was fun to compare stories and hear about their trips to the U.S. 

Across the river, we visited the monument to William Wallace.

It's just a single tower, but a really, really tall tower with three floors that hold artifacts from that time period (including, purportedly, William Wallace’s magical sword).

Not being a fan of steep, winding steps with no handrail, Sean went on up to the top floor/lookout alone. He says the view was spectacular. I’ll take his word for it.


It was mid-afternoon as we rode through Bannockburn and Falkirk toward Edinburgh.

I love Edinburgh. I have since I was there after college. I wanted Sean to love it too, but we arrived at evening rush hour, fighting traffic on a motorcycle...

...only to find the street our hotel was on was closed for construction, so we couldn’t actually get to it on the bike.

Eventually we found a parking ramp, secured everything motorcycle related, took our bags and walked the couple miles back to the hotel.

A refreshing shower, clean clothes (thanks again to Dionard Guest House) and a bite to eat made all the difference in the world in our attitudes.

It was early evening and the crowds around Old Edinburgh had died down as we started walking the streets.

As the sun started to set, the magic that I remembered came back to me – and Sean finally got to see it too.