A Sunday adventure to Stirling and Falkirk

As promised, I am back for a second time this week to tell about Sunday’s adventure to Stirling! If you have read about my unintentional trip around Scotland at the beginning of the semester, then you probably know that I had actually already been to Stirling prior to Sunday… for a total of about three minutes. Those three minutes were just so wonderful that I had to go back!

Just kidding. Alyssa and I had heard that Stirling Castle is one of the best castles in Scotland, so we decided to check it out! I had been wanting to see the Kelpie statues in Falkirk for a while, too, so we worked it into our trip. Falkirk is only a fifteen minute train from Stirling, so visiting the Kelpies seemed like a reasonable detour to take from Stirling. Key word: seemed 😂. We’ll get to that later.

Alyssa and I left Hillhead at about 7:30am, caught a series of buses, and ended up in Stirling around noon. Upon arriving in Stirling, we immediately headed straight for the castle so that we could see it before sunset (it starts setting at, like, 2 pm…). On our way, we came across an alehouse that was established in 1733. We chuckled at the fact that it was established before either of our countries were!

We made it to Stirling Castle with plenty of daylight to spare. And I’m glad we did because the view from the castle was amazing!

It’s no wonder why the castle was constantly being fought over throughout history. I learned that the castle changed hands EIGHT times during the Scottish Wars of Independence! Stirling connects the Lowlands to the Highlands, which is why the castle was so heavily fought over. The castle was finally taken by Robert the Bruce, and he was declared King of Scotland.

It was also interesting to see just how many Royals lived in Stirling Castle. For example, a lot of the James’s and Mary Queen of Scots lived there. I wish I was better at remembering history… I’d have so much more to share with you all! From what I can remember, the James’s and Mary all had pretty brutal deaths, and a lot of them were crowned as infants.

After touring the castle, Alyssa and I got fish n chips for dinner and then stopped by Stirling distillery. Alyssa was excited because they had a folklore collection of gin which included “green lady” and other fun ghost-themed gins.

Speaking of folklore…. it’s time to talk about the Kelpies!

The Kelpies are massive horse-head statues located in Falkirk, which is a town between Stirling and Edinburgh. In Scottish folklore, kelpies are evil water horses that entice people to ride them and then drag them into the loch and devour them. Usually only the victim’s liver remains. Kelpies are capable of shape-shifting to become handsome men and women, which makes them even more dangerous. Touching the water horse will almost every time result in death, as they have super sticky skin which prevents their victims from escaping. From what I’ve read, Kelpie stories seem to have functioned to keep children away from the lochs where they could have easily drowned. Perhaps, they also meant to make people more cautious of strangers as well.

I’m actually writing my final essay for Gaelic folklore on kelpies, which is why I was so determined to see them on Sunday!

As I mentioned earlier, Falkirk is only a fifteen minute train ride from Stirling. However, the Kelpie statues are either a FIFTY minute walk from the train station or a short bus ride + walk. Alyssa and I decided to take the bus, but that meant that we had to wait forever for it to come. We rode the bus to the closest stop possible and then started our walk to the Kelpies. The walk was nothing like I imagined it to be…

We had to walk about fifteen minutes through an abandoned industrial part of town which was SO creepy. Then, Google Maps brought us to the edge of a dark forest. We had no other options except to walk through it, so we held our breath and went through as quickly as possible. Finally, we made it to the Kelpies! They were lit up in bright red, and there was a reflection pool in front of them which made it even better. It was so worth the long detour and creepy walk through the woods!

Alyssa and I had originally planned to take the train back to Stirling and then bus home from there, but it was too late by the time we made it back to the rail station. If we would have went that route, we wouldn’t have made it home until 1:30 am. The next best option was to take a train to Edinburgh, wait an hour, and then take a train to Aberdeen. So, that’s exactly what we did. We were not overly happy about getting back so late with having classes on Monday, but we made the most of it. While we were waiting for our train to Aberdeen, we laughed at the fact that we were all of a sudden in Edinburgh on a Sunday night when we had absolutely no intentions of being there.

The train ride home was entertaining. There must’ve been a football match because there were a lot of drunk people singing loudly. Maybe I should write a post called “singing on public transportation” (recall the girls singing on the bus in Bergen…). This time, the men were singing “doe, a deer, a female deer” over and over and over and over. It was hilarious!

We finally arrived in Aberdeen at midnight. Before going back to Hillhead, Alyssa and I decided to make a quick stop at Taco Bell for burritos. It was the perfect end to a long but fun day.

And now I’m craving Taco Bell.

Until next time,

Clara