Edinburgh
On Monday we caught the train into Edinburgh. We visited Edinburgh Castle, which was quite impressive. I found the two military museums within the castle for the Scots Greys heavy cavalry and Highlander infantry very interesting. One of the artifacts on show was the standard from the French 45th Line Regiment that the Scots Greys had captured at The Battle of Waterloo (1815).
After leaving the castle we walked down the Royal Mile to Holyroodhouse, where we took in an exhibition of sketchings by naturalists in history. The sketches included subjects of all sorts of flora and fauna, and were extremely detailed. We were able to get right up to all the sketches to take in all the detail, including some by De Vinci himself.
After leaving the castle we walked down the Royal Mile to Holyroodhouse, where we took in an exhibition of sketchings by naturalists in history. The sketches included subjects of all sorts of flora and fauna, and were extremely detailed. We were able to get right up to all the sketches to take in all the detail, including some by De Vinci himself.
Doune
Yesterday we got the bike out of it's packing and assembled it so that we could ride out to Doune. The main purpose of this trip was to visit Doune Castle. The castle was used for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is of course why we decided to visit it, but I'm sure we would have greatly enjoyed our visit to the castle even if it had not been part of The Movie.
We departed from David and Cecilias late morning and rode into a head wind the whole way to Doune. The road had one lane each way but the lanes weren't very wide and there was no shoulder so it was a little scary when trucks and buses passed. Drivers were not keen on waiting and managed to somehow get passed us with oncoming traffic.
We departed from David and Cecilias late morning and rode into a head wind the whole way to Doune. The road had one lane each way but the lanes weren't very wide and there was no shoulder so it was a little scary when trucks and buses passed. Drivers were not keen on waiting and managed to somehow get passed us with oncoming traffic.
Once we got to the township of Doune, we rode straight down to the Castle. There were few visitors so we were able to explore the castle by ourselves most of the time. We climbed up and down many spiral stair cases, and had to be careful coming down because the stone steps were so worn. We were a little disappointed when we didn't find any large wooden rabbits or catapults for hurling cows over the wall.
Our ride back to stirling was a little quicker with a nice tailwind, and we got back in time to attend...
Cutting Down The Tapestry
Last night we witnessed the cutting down of a beautiful large tapestry that had just been completed at Stirling Castle. The tapestry is one of a set of seven replica medieval tapestries to be woven for Stirling Castle. The tapestries tell the story of The Hunt of the Unicorn, and will be hung in the Royal Palace as part of the restoration of Stirling Castle.
The tapestry that was cut down last night is "The Unicorn is killed and Brought to the Castle" and Cecilia has been working on it with other weavers since 2005. We felt very privileged to be able to attend the ceremony and be able to see the tapestry as a whole. Since the tapesty has been rolled up on the loom all the time whilst it was being worked on, this was the first time anyone had seen the whole thing together.
We had an interesting conversation with one of the Stirling Castle stewards later on in the evening. He has an interest in historic costumes and reenactments, and he descibed some of the events and injuries he has witnessed. An interesting observation was that a Welsh ambulance will attend the medieval reenactments, including those in Scotland, because the Welsh ambulance officers are skilled in the removal of armour from injured combatants!
To London we go...
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