"Walking on Sunshine" in Stirling

Today we were leaving the magnificent city of Edinburgh to tour  Stirling Castle on the way to Loch Lomond on the South Western coast of the largest loch in Scotland. We left in showers and by the time we reached our destination around an hour later, the clouds had parted and our most beautiful day thus far was upon us.

The castle over looks the city of Stirling and the surrounding countryside where William Wallace defeated the English garrison that had surrounded the castle. Remember Mel Gibson in Braveheart? From the battlements you could almost picture the battles that have preceded our visit here.

The interior was no less impressive than the outside views. I was quite surprised to have learned that such bright colors would have been original to the 1500's in the Great Hall of this castle that was built in that time period. I always pictured dark and dreary colors to have been used, probably from my perception from the movies but in some of the fancier castles, they would have used these bright colors.

Wandering around this gem of a history magnet since, "whoever held Stirling held Scotland"

was a humbling experience.

We got back into our car, and made our way over to the Cameron House on Loch Lomond. The Cameron House??? That is our youngest ones' name so of course we had to grab anything that had the  name on it as well as take pictures of it all. He was not as impressed as we were when we called him to tell him where we were staying.

If you are ever in this neck of the woods in Scotland, I would highly recommend this hotel. It is part of the DeVere hotel group in the UK and their tag line is "refreshingly unique". That it was and I will write more about that in a later blog about how Scotland has made an impact on my design aesthetic as well as many other things.  Doesn't everywhere we travel do that?

We ended another beautiful day of our Scotland experience in one of these comfy and stylish chairs

with a full plate of meat, meat and more meat...along with a fried egg! Looks like our daily dinner!

I did not partake of that offering but had a delicious dinner none the less where we discussed what to do the next day. For many of you who know us, you know that one of my hubby's nick names is the psycho hiker. Just imagine what lies in store for us tomorrow...

Until then~

Meg