A Three Day Weekend in Scotland

This is something we haven't done for six or seven years, but we found ourselves with a three day weekend and decided to take a quick flight for a long weekend holiday. Laura would find herself working about an hour from Edinburgh the next week and I'd been looking for a 10k road race to try on for size and found one in Stirling. So, we found Scotland beckoning our name. Hard to believe that it's less than a two hour flight away!

On Saturday we spent the day in Edinburgh (the boys are standing in front of the building housing the Scottish Crown Jewels inside Edinburgh Castle above). We started with Edinburgh Castle and, in what appears to be typical Scottish fashion, it rained off and on during our visit. Luckily, there was a lot more sun than there was rain!

We had one of the knights from the Robert the Bruce/William Wallace era to explain the wars taking place. His name was Elvis and Elliot decided he looked pretty good for a guy who was about 700 years old. The boys were really excited when he let them hold his sword and shield. You can't really tell here, but the boys were also pretty surprised by just how heavy those sword and shield are. They were real weapons. The knight's armor, for example, weighed well over 50 pounds.

Sir Elvis in the background, sans helm.

Boys and guns.

Edinburgh Castle view over the city to the Firth of Forth.

Riding the hop-on hop-off double decker bus.

We rode a hop-on hop-off bus for the first time on this trip. It was a fun way to get an overview of the city and find out there were so many things there that we wouldn't have time to see! Laura and I ended up in the back seat and it somehow ended up feeling that we were teenagers cuddled together in the back of car with romance on the mind...except that our young boys were sitting ahead of us, peering back, chatting and giggling. The cuddling had more to do with the cool temperatures, anyway!

That's Edinburgh Castle up there. Sorry, I thought we should get a view from the other direction.

This is the restaurant where J. K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. We didn't eat dinner here.

But we did eat here. I couldn't resist this picture because I've never seen such a big milk mustache before!

The requisite phone booth shot. Actually, we have six of them.

We spent Sunday in Stirling. I kicked off the morning with my first 10k race ever! It was pretty fun, or at least not as miserable as I thought it would be, and I did beat my time goal by a few minutes, so I was pretty happy. In more perhaps typically Scottish fashion, I ran facing a beautiful rainbow for the first 4k or so, then got rained on for a couple kilometers, and then finished the run with some beautiful cool early autumn weather. I've got a long way to go to the marathon next July, but so far I've had a good start!

Rather poor shot of a rainbow over the William Wallace National Monument. From my vantage point at the beginning of the race, I saw this rainbow arcing between Stirling Castle and the monument. It was so perfect it looked like it had been planned...and as if it was artificial.

After the race I took a long hot shower and we finished our Scottish adventure with a visit to Stirling Castle and the Wallace National Monument. If you're visiting Scotland with kids, I would highly recommend Stirling Castle. They have a new exhibit set up just for kids where they can pretend to be court musicians, tailors, painters, woodworkers, jesters, etc. It  was really fun for the boys. Wallace monument is a pain to get to and up, but the views from the top are unbelievable! We also visited a playground in Stirling this day. It's funny how our boys' favorite memories of our little trips tend to be the playgrounds. We try to spend some time at one in each city we visit.

Cannons at Stirling Castle. If we had girls, would they still be drawn to the guns?
(That's a rhetorical question.)

Laura catches me in a contemplative mood.

I catch Laura in a playful mood.

We usually don't want to do this to our kids!

Who knew our ancestors were Tudor royalty?

Looks like a lonely dinner, but the setting is nice.

Playing in the Stirling Castle gardens. Do you think those women in the background find this view fun or annoying?

I love the cool things that just pop up behind random parks around here (Wallace Monument).

Nice view from up here!

That's Stirling Castle on the right. They think most of it was decorated in that beautiful yellow wash back in the day. It would have been quite the spectacle back when it was the home of the Scottish royalty!

That pretty much covers our whirlwind trip to a corner of Scotland. However, for anyone with young kids who is visiting, I would highly recommend the Holiday Inn Express in Stirling. The hotel was fine but not spectacular, but it shares a parking lot with the EatingInn -- a modern take on the brew pub with a HUGE climbing structure. The boys played and played on it while Laura and I had some time to enjoy with each other waiting for our food. It was such a great experience on Friday that we repeated it on Sunday night. And, it was Calvin's favorite part of the trip!

BONUS PICTURE:


A few weeks ago Calvin lost his Twins ballcap when it blew off his head on a chairlift returning from a hike. I promised a replacement and much to his mother's delight and his father's chagrin he asked for a different team's ballcap as a replacement. After many weeks of waiting (I guess it got shipped by sea?!) it arrived today. I present you with Calvin and his new baseball cap: