We then made the short drive to the ancient 12th century part-ruins of Dunkeld Cathedral. This old cathedral had been restored to a certain degree, but was still quite derelict in most of its structure. It did have beautiful stained-glass windows though.
We continued south for our next stop which was at the National Wallace Monument. The Monument is a 67m tall sandstone tower standing on a hilltop overlooking Stirling and commemorates Sir William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish hero. Wallace was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence. He was the subject of the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart. We opted out of paying to climb to the top just to see the view. There were of course other things to see in the monument, but by this stage we had all had just about enough of doing the tourist thing and knew we still had Stirling Castle to go.
The final stop for the tour before returning to Glasgow was at Stirling Castle, a medieval fortress. The Castle is one of the largest and most important castles in Scotland, both historically and architecturally. The castle sits atop Castle Hill and is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location, guarding what was, until the 1890s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification in the region from the earliest times. Most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A few structures of the fourteenth century remain, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century.
We had an hour and a half to wander through the Castle and surrounds. I left the group quite early as I was a tad faster. We met James in the car park, took a final selfie with him and the Castle in the background, and headed back to Glasgow. We were back at the hotel just before 4:30pm.
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