From Edinburgh to Dunblane: Day 8

In the driver's seat - on the right

On Monday, we finally left Edinburgh and  headed for the north of Scotland. This meant we had to rent a car for Kevin to drive. Since most of the rental cars are manual transmission, that ruled me out as an eligible driver. I mean, I can't even do that in America; no way am I trying that here. Kevin, though, was up for the challenge, and other than having to do everything left handed, he took it up pretty quickly. Luckily, our car had SatNav; otherwise, I'm pretty sure we'd still be lost in the Scottish countryside somewhere. There was no way my navigating skills were up to the challenge of decrypting the Scottish roadways. First of all, there's silly roundabouts everywhere you go - no intersections. We had many a conversation about the futility and stupidity of roundabouts (not all of them repeatable). Secondly, street signs are not placed in highly visible spots or across the road like they are in the US. So, even with the SatNav telling us where to go, we still had to turn around a time or two here and there. Scotland roads are divided into 3 classes: M roads which are motorways kind of like a freeway only with fewer lanes and only found around major cities in the south; A roads, which are your main roads through Scotland - they can be 2-4 lane roads; and then the dreaded B roads, which are usually one lane roads with "passing points" for pulling over when oncoming traffic is headed in your direction. We mostly stuck to the A roads, but had to take a B road here and there, much to our chagrin.

View from the passenger's seat - on the left
See the round about sign on the left? Craziness.

Now, our plan for the day was to visit Hopetoun House just outside of Edinburgh, drive to Falkirk to see the Falkirk Wheel, and then drive to Stirling to see Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument. Let's just say, we were a little overly ambitious in our plans for the day, and didn't factor out the time for driving very well. Plus, it took forever to get our car at the airport and get out of the city. I think we finally got on the road around noon for the day. Even though we spent a good portion of the day driving, we still managed to log 7,518 steps, or just over 3 miles. 

Drive up to Hopetoun House

• Our first stop was Hopetoun House, a large estate built by the Hope family over 300 years ago. Sir William Bruce was commissioned to build the house 1699 for the 1st Earl of Hopetoun, and it was mostly completed by 1707 until the next earl decided to remodel and enlarge the house in 1721 and had William Adam complete it. He was instructed to construct additional living apartments by adding a floor and wings and redoing the house's facade in the style of the Palace of Versailles in France. Even though the house and surrounding properties are now managed in trust, the current Earl of Hopetoun and his family still live in the left side of the house, while his father, the Marquess of Linlithgow has retired to a smaller house on the property. The current Earl has four children with twin boys being the oldest. The oldest of the twins (by 20 minutes) will eventually become the next Earl of Hopetoun, and he is currently a page for Queen Elizabeth. The trust has made it a priority to work on restoring and maintaining the house for the public as well as provide a ranger service for the grounds. The styles in the house range from late Georgian to Edwardian and are truly magnificent. You start your tour off in the older "Bruce" part of the house and see some of the original bedchambers, libraries, and sitting rooms. They are by no mean shabby, so the remodeling seemed to be a bit excessive to us. Each of the bedrooms were decorated in sumptuous linens and tapestries with many of the original owners' possessions and furniture on display. The newer part of the house was much more formal and meant to inspire awe in its visitors. The Yellow Drawing room boasts paintings by Rubens and Rembrandt. The Red Drawing Room and State Dining rooms are filled with paintings of all of the earls and marquesses, giving it a very grand and ceremonial feel. 

 

The round pond behind the house

• Before we left, we took some time to explore the grounds around Hopetoun House since it sits on about 100 acres and boasts excellent views of the Forth. They also maintain a park of red deer on the estate. While the ground was a still little wet and muddy from the day's rain showers, we set out to have a look around with determination and some rolled up jeans. The bluebells were in full bloom around the parks, and there were interesting sights to see through out our walk. They even had a little cemetery for their beloved pets. Our favorite part though was when we happened upon the herd of red deer lounging and eating just over a bluff. It was neat to be able to get so close to them, even though they were very wary of our presence. After a while though, they just resumed their normal activities, and we were able to get some great shots.

 

 

A drive by look at
The Kelpies art scupltures

• Next on our “to see” list was the Falkirk Wheel, a modern engineered transporter for boats wanting to use the ancient canal system. On the way, we passed the modern art sculptures of The Kelpies. Back in earlier times, the legend of the kelpies was told as a warning to children to stay away from dangerous stretches of water. These mystical demons from the sea would appear often in the form of a horse beckoning you to ride, but their manes were sticky, and as they rode off into the water, they would pull you down under, leaving you unable to escape.

The Falkirk Wheel and canal

• Back when the Scottish canals were in regular use, you would have to go through a series of locks at Falkirk over the course of a day to travel up the 115 feet (35 meters) that we covered in just 4 minutes. When the Falkirk Wheel opened in 2002, it began a revival of the leisure boat industry here in Scotland. The Falkirk Wheel works using Archimedes' principle of displacement, which states that the weight of an object in water is equal to the weight of the water it displaces. So as long as the two ends of the wheel stay balanced, the principle will work. The other bay could be completely empty with no boats and just water as long as the weights on either bay equaled one another. After the computer evenly distributes the weight and water between the two bays of the wheel, then the gears can begin to rotate keeping the bays in which the boats sit perfectly level. In the 4 minutes it takes to move the wheel, it only uses 1.5 kWh of energy, or the equivalent of boiling 8 kettles of water. Not only was this a cool feat of engineering to see, it offered some pretty great views once we were at the top of the wheel. 

The Falkirk Wheel in action

Views from the Falkirk Wheel 

 

Our Hotel for the night

• Once we finished at the Falkirk Wheel, it was too late to get to any other attractions before they closed, so we headed on up to our hotel in Dunblane. The Hydro is set on gorgeous grounds and is connected to a source of thermal springs. Back in the day, it was a posh retreat for those looking for respite, especially for health reasons. We ended up staying here because my grandmother had some Hilton Honors points that were set to expire, so we combined that with our Amex points and got the night free! We had also made dinner reservations at The Kailyard, which was on site. Dinner did not disappoint. I had the lovely Pan Fried Scrabster Halibut with herb mash, wilted spinach, and a caviar butter sauce, while Kevin ate the Pancetta Wrapped Pork Fillet. Kevin's dish also came with a sampling black pudding, a Scottish dish made from pork blood and oatmeal. I liked it, but Kevin wasn't quite so sure. Dessert was delicious too, and we retired to our room quite satisfied. 

• We did find that in Scotland our rooms were a bit different than what we were used to. Starting in Edinburgh, our beds only had duvets, but no top sheets, which was fine until you got too hot under the duvet, and there was no lighter covering. While we did have central air in Edinburgh, we did not have it anywhere else on the Scotland portion of our trip - only radiator like heaters. So most nights, we ended up leaving the windows open a few hours before bedtime and using the small oscillating fan in the room (if they had one) after we shut the windows. Our rooms stayed pretty comfy, and most days we were so tired from all of our sightseeing we fell asleep pretty quickly anyways. 

Click here for more pictures from the day