Stirling

The Straubhaars just can't get enough of castles in Scotland. Here you see my siblings Nola, Shirley (sister in law), Carol and Jack heading into Stirling Castle, which was very impressive.

It is across a valley from a tower monument to William Wallace, the Scots hero fictionalized in Braveheart, which you can see in the next photo.


Stirling Castle is also home to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regiment of Scots infantry. We went through their museum, which is sort of a historical trip through almost all of the U.K.'s imperial and overseas ventures. The next illustration is a painting, called the Thin Red Line, of one of their more famous stands, against a Russian charge at Balaclava.

It is interesting to me that Scotland, having been militarily re-conquered in a civil war as recent as 1746, when the Scots' Jacobite rebellion was put down very bloodily at Culloden (more on that later), now has one of the strongest military traditions of all the parts of the U.K. Not unlike the American South, which I am still trying to figure out.