Scotland in Ten Days - A Daily Journal
Traveling with Teens Crosses the Highlands, One Castle at a Time
 
by Danny Chase
 
 
 
The Departure
Silver Spring, Maryland
Day 1 - 4/6/01
 
 Today, or should I say yesterday, we packed our things and left the house at about 6:45 p.m., and stopped at Subway for dinner.  Then at about 7:00, we set out for the airport.  It was a long ride to the airport, so when we got there, Emily and I ran around and got as many welcome carts as we could, and turned them into the cart return for coins.  We got about 12 in all, which we gave to Dad.
 Then we went to the Red Carpet Club and hung out there until our United Boeing 777 was ready to board.  We stepped onto the plane and got situated for a long ride.  About a half-hour after we took off, they started serving dinner.  I had lemon-crusted chicken, with an appetizer of prosciutto and a Caesar salad.  After dinner, I watched the onboard TV map installed in my seat.  This map showed us our location on a map of what area we were passing through, our progress, how much time was left, and the expected landing-time.  I thought this was pretty cool and after I was done playing with this map, Emily and I both watched the movie “Family Man” with Nicolas Cage.  It was all right, but not great.  After that, I tried to get some sleep, and to my surprise, I slept for the whole rest of the way.
 
 
Boeing 777
 
When we got to Heathrow Airport, we got our luggage, and immediately boarded the tube, which would take us to King’s Cross Station. 
When we got to King’s Cross, we again took our luggage and boarded the passenger train, which would accompany us on the 5-hour ride to Edinburgh.  The train we took was a train of the Great North Eastern Railway, and since we were seated in first-class, it was a very comfortable ride.
On this trip, I mostly just looked out the window at the beautiful English and Scottish scenery, but also played paper football with dad, listened to my c.d. player, before it got busted, and wrote in this journal.  At about 2:00 p.m. we were served lunch, and I had a BLT with red peppers.  It was pretty good, but what I especially liked were the train cookies that they served us throughout the trip.  They were delicious!
 
Edinburgh, Scotland
Day 1 - 4/6/01
 
When we finally got to Edinburgh, it was a hassle to get out of the train and then we had to wait in a 15-minute line for a taxi.  Once we got our taxi, though, and started to drive up through the city, I could tell that I was going to enjoy my stay in this city.  It had a wall of medieval buildings running through the city, which was very cool, but what I couldn’t stop looking at were the cars.  They were so different from the cars in America that I could barely tell that some of them were in fact cars. 
When we got to our hotel, Channings, we immediately had our stuff taken up to our small, but comfortable rooms and then we went to dinner. 
For dinner, I had a jalapeno pepper, pepperoni sausage, mozzarella, tomato, pizza at a restaurant called Pizza Express.  Then after dinner we went straight home and I watched a movie for a couple of hours, then went to bed after a long day of traveling.
 
Edinburgh, Scotland
Day 2 - 4/7/01
 
Today we woke up and went down to have breakfast at the restaurant in our hotel. I had a traditional Scottish breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, a fried tomato, sausage, bacon, milk, and a smashed pancake thing. 
 After breakfast, we decided to take a walk around the city. We hadn’t walked long before we came upon a castle that looked very interesting.  When we realized that we could walk up the big hill on which the castle stood, we decided to go up and see the castle.  After we climbed Castle Hill, we came to the entrance. The castle was called Edinburgh Castle, and it was built back in the 1200s to protect Edinburgh.
 
 
The Front of Edinburgh Castle Atop Castle Rock
 
 When we had bought our tickets, we proceeded to enter the castle, which had two memorials dedicated to Robert the Bruce and William Wallace bordering the entrance.  The castle was huge and it took us until about 2:00 p.m. to explore the whole thing.  Among the many interesting things we saw were Scotland’s crown jewels, the Mons Meg which was a huge cannon given to the castle as a gift, the great hall which held two huge swords taller than a man, and even an original 1200s chapel.
Probably the most famous feature of the castle was Scotland’s crown jewels.  There was a silver diamond-studded wand with an orb on the top end of it, the royal crown of Scotland, a diamond-studded sword, and the Stone of Destiny.  These objects also had a very interesting history.  At one time the orb was buried beneath the floor of a house in a chest, and then recovered almost 200 years later.  The royal crown of Scotland has been used since the 1200s, when it was first made.  Lastly, the Stone of Destiny was stolen from the Scottish, by the English, and kept by the English until two years ago when it was finally given back to Scotland.  That means that England had Scotland’s sacred stone for about 700 years.
 The Mons Meg was a huge cannon given 1n 1457 to King James II as a gift by his uncle by marriage, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. This cannon was about two times the size of one of the normal large cannons of that era, and it could shoot ¼ of a mile farther, 1-1/2 miles.  This was nothing compared to the World War II guns also mounted there, though.  They could shoot 7-1/2 miles and were mounted on the castle because the castle is the highest hill overlooking Edinburgh, so they would be perfect protection from any enemies trying to invade today.  One of Mons Meg’s cannonballs has been found 2 miles away from it, though, once before.
 
 
The One O-Clock Gun
 
The great hall and the 1200s chapel were very interesting, too.  The great hall held two swords that were about as big as William Wallace’s sword in Braveheart and they reminded me of it.  The 1200s chapel was in its original state from the 1200s and wasn’t crumbling anywhere, which was quite amazing.
 Another very interesting feature was the room in which Mary of Guise (second wife of Scottish King James V) gave birth in 1542 to Mary Queen of Scots. It was amazing to actually be standing in the room where one of the great personalities of Scottish and English history had been born. 
 On the way out of the castle, I also noticed something else that was pretty unique.  There was a dog cemetery for all the dogs that fought with the soldiers.  That was pretty cool.
 When we got out of Edinburgh Castle, we decided to walk down the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is a mile of street leading down from the castle with shops and restaurants of every kind.  Most of the buildings in the Royal Mile are still being used even though some have been around for 800 years.  When we were walking on the Royal Mile, we saw several men playing bagpipes in full kilts and Scottish apparel.  We even saw an Asian person doing this, which was pretty weird.
 We also stopped at St. Giles Church, which was very interesting. 
 We finally got to the end of the Royal Mile. It had the Holyroode Palace at the end and this was very beautiful.
 When we had finished looking at the Holyroode Palace, we took a cab back to the hotel and ate dinner at the pub there.  I had fish and chips.  Then, after we had finished dinner, we went upstairs and watched The Matrix for a little while, and then went to bed after out best day yet.
 
 
Holyroode Palace
 
Edinburgh, Scotland
Day 3 - 4/8/01
 
 Today we woke up, ate breakfast, I had the Scottish breakfast again, and immediately took a cab to the huge hills overlooking Edinburgh. We decided to hike up the tallest one, which was very fun.  Emily and I found every way possible to make the trip harder so we could climb to the tops of the rocky crags. When we finally got to the top, it was a beautiful view.  You could even see the white mountains of the highlands very faintly.
 Then, on the way back down the mountain, we visited an old chapel ruin, which you could climb on.  Then we went back to the Royal Mile and had lunch. I had a tuna sandwich with lentil soup. 
 After lunch, we all went shopping.  I checked out the sports stores, which only had shoes in them, and I was really disappointed with their selection of sports equipment.  After I had finished looking in the sports stores, I looked at the c.d. and bookstores with my mom and dad, but didn’t buy anything.  Emily bought two new shirts, though, at the stores she looked in, which were Accessorize, Monsoon, and Next.     
 Then we went back to our hotel to rest for about an hour before dinner.  We had reservations at the Bar Roma, which is a very popular Italian restaurant.  When we got there, we first got our appetizers. I had chicken wings in barbeque sauce. Then, for my main course, I had prawns in some buttery sauce.  It was absolutely delicious.
 After we finished dinner, we went back home and I watched the end of “Varsity Blues” with Emily.  Then we all went to bed for a good sleep after a long day of walking.
 
Edinburgh, Scotland
Day 4 - 4/9/01
 
 Today we woke up and packed up for a day of traveling.  While Emily, Mom and I got our last things packed up, Dad got the rental car.  It was called a Renault Scenic, and it was a grayish, silver color.  It was a very small and compact car, but also a sedan with 5 seats and a pretty big trunk.
 
 
Renault Scenic
 
When Dad had gotten back with the car, we all piled in and drove for about an hour and a half to the town of St. Andrews.  There, we first had lunch at a little café, at which I had a BBQ baguette with a diet coke.
 After lunch we walked up to the huge St. Andrews Chapel.  It was a very beautiful ruin that was in the shape of a cross.  All around the ruins of the chapel were graves.  These graves were in every shape that you could imagine and dated back to the 14th century all the way up to the 1940s.  There was even Tommy Morris’s grave there.  It was a big white grave against one of the ruined walls of the graveyard. 
 After we had finished looking at the chapel and graveyard, we walked over to the castle nearby.  On the way there, we saw bathing ponds on the shores of the sea built by the Scots who had lived in the castle.  The castle itself was in ruins, but it was still very interesting.  It had everything of a normal 13th century Scottish castle, plus another very interesting feature.  Besides the feature of the castle facing the sea, it also had the feature of a defensive mine tunnel.  This tunnel was built to intercept the English mine tunnel which was meant to go under the castle walls and into the heart of the castle, had it not been for the Scottish intercepting the tunnel.  If the Scots hadn’t built this, they probably wouldn’t have won that battle.  The tunnel started in a house across the street from the castle, which was about 50 yards away, and came up in the deep ditch surrounding the castle.  This mine tunnel was my favorite part of the St. Andrews castle.
 
 
St. Andrews Castle
 
 After we had finished looking at the castle, we drove over to the St. Andrews golf course, or the Old Course.  When we were walking along the golf course, we saw a shop called the Tommy Morris Golf Shop and we stopped in to buy some golf equipment for me.  I got a new golf towel bearing the St. Andrews golfing symbol, a new St. Andrews ball marker, and a St. Andrews navy blue hat.  After we had bought them, we looked around the golf course, at some people playing, and at the Royal and Ancient, where all the rules of golf were made.  This building and the golf course were about 600 years old, made and started in the 1400s.
 
 
The Royal and Ancient at the Old Course
 
When we were done playing on the rocks on the shore of the sea and looking at the Old Course, we started walking back to the car when we saw the ancient Roman bridge on the 18th fairway.  Daddy and I took a couple of pictures of it, then we all got in the car and drove to Pitlochry, our final destination.  It was about another hour to this town on the edge of the Highlands, and when we got there, it was about 6:30 p.m.  We then went to dinner after we had gotten our things situated at our hotel, the Wellwood House Bed and Breakfast, at an Indian restaurant. I had chicken curry with fried rice and a diet coke.  When we finished dinner, we walked back to our hotel and went straight to bed.
 
Pitlochry, Scotland
Day 5 - 4/10/01 
 
 Today we woke up and went straight down to breakfast.  I had bacon, sausage, some cereal, and a piece of toast with OJ and milk. 
 After we had finished breakfast, we got in the car and drove to a place called Queen’s View.  It was called this because it gave a beautiful view over the Loch Rannoch and the Queen of Scotland said it was the most beautiful view in all of Scotland.  I don’t think it was the best view in all of Scotland, but it certainly was very nice.
 Then after we had looked at the view long enough and had taken our pictures, Emily and I hiked down the big and rocky hill to Loch Rannoch. It was a pretty hard hike down, and when we got to the river, I felt the water and it wasn’t that cold.  Then we made the long hike up the hill, on a different trail, and right when I thought I was just about at the top, Emily spotted a huge rusty thing on a tree.  I went over to take a closer look and it turned out that the rusty thing was an old Volkswagen beetle.  That was pretty cool.
 Finally, we got to the top of the hill, and after getting a few sodas, we left Queen’s View to go to a battlefield called Killiecrankie.  When we got there, though, we decided not to go down to the battlefield, and so we just learned about it in the Visitor’s Center.
 Then, after we had finished learning about Killiecrankie, we decided to go visit the castle of Blair Atholl.  This castle was about 500 years old, built in the 16th century, but still in perfect condition. The only problem with it was that it had scaffolding all over it, so we couldn’t see its real appearance.  So, instead of going into the castle, we hiked around the grounds.  First we hiked around Diana’s Grove, which was right next to the castle. I would’ve done this for a little longer had it not been for my low blood sugar.  So, when I felt this, I left Emily in the grove and went to get lunch. I had a BLT, applesauce, and some Doritos.
 
 
Blair Castle
 
After lunch we all went to Hercules’ Garden, which was also on the Blair Atholl castle grounds. The garden was one of the most beautiful and glorious gardens in Britain.  Besides the many flowers and plants in the garden, Emily and I counted a total of 17 toads.  Most of the toads were trying to get into the sunlight and most of them were mating, which doubled the normal amount that one would see there. When Emily and I had finished counting the toads, we all got in the car and drove to the House of Bruar, a major Scottish shopping center and tourist trap. There we bought some candy and were going to get lunch, but we decided to eat somewhere else.  In the end, we just ate on the road, on the way to a castle called Castle Menzies at Weem.
 When we got to Castle Menzies, we paid for our tickets and started on the recommended route up the castle. The castle was very tall and had about five floors.  Even though there were so many rooms and so much history in the walls of the castle, I think the most interesting part was the room where Bonnie Prince Charlie slept on his way to Culloden. This was very cool, and another thing that was cool about his room was that it held the death mask of the cocky prince.  We all really liked this feature, and every other feature of this 15th century castle, but the only problem was how cold it was in this because they couldn’t afford heat.
 
 
Castle Menzies
 
 When we had finished touring Castle Menzies (also known as Weem Castle), we drove to a little town called Dunkeld that held a whole 17th century street and the most beautiful and enchanting cathedral I had ever seen.  We weren’t able to see the insides of the cathedral because it was closed, but we did walk down the 17th century street. This street was really neat because none of the exteriors of the houses in this street had been changed at all since the 17th century. So, you could get a real feel for how life was like in this little town in the 1600s. 
As we were walking along in the charming little town of Dunkeld, we found out that there was a little place to take a walk through a planted forest to a beautiful waterfall. We decided to do this and when we got to the little forest, we started on the hike.
 The forest was called The Hermitage, and it was planted in 1774.  It was a short hike to the waterfall, and when we got there, we took some pictures, explored in the rocks for a bit, then turned back, got in the car, and went to dinner.
 For dinner, we went to a small little restaurant where I had an appetizer of prawn cocktail, which I didn’t like very much, and a main course of roasted pork, which was delicious. After dinner, we went back to the hotel, watched TV for a short period, and then went to bed.
 
Pitlochry, Scotland
Day 6 - 4/11/01
 
 Today we woke up, had breakfast, I had bacon and cereal with OJ and milk, and prepared for a day of seeing castles.  We all packed up, after breakfast, and got in the car to drive to a town called Braemar.  The drive was about two hours long, so to keep us occupied during this trip, we looked for pheasants, barked at sheep, and just enjoyed the beautiful highland scenery.  The drive was all through the moors, with their beautiful heather, and looking at this occupied us the most.
 About halfway through the drive, we stopped at a little pottery place, where Mom bought a pitcher, and Dad bought Emily and I two porcupines made out of clay.  Then, after we had left the pottery place, we drove for another half-hour before we stopped at a ski resort to get some drinks.  Emily and I just got some cokes, while Mom had some water.  When we had finished our drinks, we all got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Braemar.
 Upon arriving at Braemar, we had lunch at a small tearoom, where I had shrimp scampi, then drove to Braemar Castle, which was right on the outskirts of the town.  The castle was kind of small and cute, and it reminded us of Castle Menzies, even though it was much smaller.  We decided not to go in this one because it looked like it would be exactly like Castle Menzies, and we were pressed for time. 
 

 
Braemar Castle
 
So we decided to drive to another castle, Kildrummy Castle, which was about a 40-minute drive, and on the way we saw two more castles.  First, about 20 minutes into the drive, we saw Balmoral Castle, which was a huge castle built by Queen Victoria, and is the official residence of the Queen of England whenever she comes to Scotland.  We weren’t able to go into this castle, which thoroughly disappointed us, due to a recent stay by Queen Elizabeth II.
 
 
Balmoral Castle
 
About 10 minutes after leaving Balmoral, we came to another castle called Corgarff Castle.  This castle was closed, too, but that didn’t really disappoint us because this castle didn’t look very exciting. It actually didn’t even look like a castle. It really looked more like a walled, square, white mansion.  Any way you looked at it, though, it looked pretty boring.
 
 
Corgarff Castle
 
After leaving Corgarff, we drove for the last 10 minutes before reaching our destination, Killdrummy.  When we got to Killdrummy, we went into the visitor’s center and bought our tickets.  I also bought a book about William Wallace there called A Wee Guide to William Wallace.  After I bought this, we all walked up to the ruined castle.  It was a complete ruin, but a magnificent one.  It had many reasons to be magnificent, too.  At its time, it was the most royal castle in all of Britain.  Many different monarchs had stayed in this castle because it was built so royally and perfectly, the most famous probably being Robert the Bruce.  We walked around this castle for a long time, and even played King of the Hill in the ditch where the moat used to be.
 
 
Kildrummy Castle
 
After we finished looking around this castle, we all got back into the car and drove to yet another castle.  It was about a 30-minute drive to the next castle, Huntly Castle, and when we got there we bought our tickets and immediately started on the recommended route up the castle.  This castle was particularly interesting because it was really like two castles in one.  It was like this because in the back area of the newest castle, right on the banks of the River Deveron, stands the ruins of the first castle built on this site, a 12th century castle built by the Scots.  There are only small ruins of this castle, though, so the bigger 17th century Huntly Castle is the main attraction.
 Huntly Castle was a very beautiful and huge castle with many rooms and features, but its most distinct feature was the beautiful carvings on the doorway and over the fireplaces.  There was al so some huge writing, in Latin I think, on the front wall of the castle.  I think the carvings on the doorway were the most impressive, though.  They represented a timeline displayed in pictures.  On one part of the timeline, they even had a carving of Jesus Christ being resurrected on the cross.  Huntly Castle was probably tied with Edinburgh Castle as my favorite castle.
 
 
 
Huntly Castle (Front)
 
 
Huntly Castle (Back)
 
When we had gotten to the end of the castle route, we started on a new way home with straight roads.  We did this because my sister had been getting a little sick on the car ride to Braemar because of all the twists and turns on the that small road. 
 About 60 minutes into that long drive home, we came to a town called Aberdeen, where we decided to stop and get dinner.  It was a Fish and Chips restaurant, so I decided to have that with my Mom and Dad.
 After dinner, we all drove up to a castle we had seen coming into the town.  We were prepared to find this one closed because of the time, but we could see it pretty well from where we were standing.  We also learned a little bit about the castle, too.  It was called Dunnottar Castle and it was at this castle where William Wallace took about 200 Englishmen and stuffed them into the walls of the castle, then burned them all alive. 
Then, after looking at Dunnottar a little more, we got back in the car and drove back to the hotel. As soon as we got back to the hotel, we all immediately went to bed.
 
 
Dunnottar Castle
 
Pitlochry, Scotland
Day 7 - 4/12/01
 
 Today we woke up and had breakfast. I had my usual, bacon and cereal with milk and OJ, and got in the car to drive to Inverness.  The drive was about a 2-hour drive, but we stopped at Colloden Moor Battlefield about 90 minutes into the drive.  This battlefield is probably the most important site in all of Scotland.  It was there that Bonnie Prince Charlie led his 5,000 Highlanders against the 9,000 Englishmen.  This battle was fought to bring Bonnie Prince Charlie back to Britain from France so that he could be king over Scotland and England.
 Unfortunately, though, for the Scots, the English crushed Charlie’s men, the Jacobites, and this marked the end of all uprisings for freedom in Scotland.  This also marked the end of all tartan and kilt wearing and Highland clans.  For 20 years after this battle, the English went around raiding and terrorizing every Scottish town they came across and it was a terrible time for Scotland.  Bonnie Prince Charlie also fled to France, where he lived until he died of old age.
 So, this was a very interesting battlefield, and even though the battlefield was closed due to foot and mouth disease, we were allowed to walk along the path where all the Highland clans had been buried.  Along this path there would be a gravestone saying a specific clan, and then behind it would be a big mound where all the Highlanders who had died at Colloden would be buried. There were dozens of these because all together 1,200 Highlanders died at Colloden.
 After we had walked around the graveyards and visitor’s center, we all piled into the car and drove to a tiny town called Dromnadochit, where we had lunch.  I had a BLT with some fries and a diet Coke.  The restaurant where we had lunch was also the place where we were getting picked up by a bus to go to the Loch Ness, so we just walked outside when we were done with lunch and waited for the bus.
 Finally, it came and took us on the 5 minute ride to the dock where we would be boarding our boat that would take us out on our ride on the Loch Ness.  When we got to the dock, our bus driver hopped out and got into the small boat.  It turned out he was the guy who would be taking us on our tour.  We all stepped onto the boat, and he started to pull away from the dock.
 As we approached the middle of the loch, the boat driver started telling us some facts about the hills around us and about Urquart Castle, which was a castle on a promontory, stretching out into the loch.  He also invited any of the passengers to come up and look at the sonar.  I was deeply interested in the sonar, and I stayed up near the driver’s seat studying the sonar for the whole rest of the voyage.  When our hour was up, the driver started to head back to the dock.  As we were approaching the dock, our driver showed us a camera on one of the houses on the coast of the loch.  It turned out that this camera was a 24-hour camera for people at their homes trying to spot Nessie.
 After our tour had finished, we all got on the bus and went back to the little restaurant.  Near the restaurant, there was also a Nessie exhibit.  We decided to go in this before it closed, and it turned out the exhibit was just seven movies about different topics having to do with the Loch Ness monster. I learned many different facts about the Loch and Nessie during these films, but the most interesting one was probably the fact that the whole world’s population could fit in the Loch Ness 3 times and still have more room.  I had no idea that the Loch was so big.
 When we had finished watching the last video, we all got in the car and drove to Urquart Castle, the castle we had seen from the Loch Ness.  This castle was a beautiful ruin facing the Loch Ness, but also a very important one at its time, which is why Robert the Bruce destroyed it.  He did this so that the English couldn’t capture this castle and use it against the Scots.  The castle had some ruins left, though, and more were being discovered.
 
 
 
 
Urquart Castle on the Loch Ness
 
We walked around this castle for a while, and learned about its history, but after awhile Mommy got too cold - it was very windy out there - and we headed back to our hotel.  On the way back, we stopped at a town called Aviemore and had dinner in a big restaurant called Hamblettes.  I had steak with mushrooms and a creamy sauce, which was the best dinner I had eaten on the whole trip.  After dinner, we continued our long drive back to the hotel, and when we finally got there, we went straight to bed.
 
Pitlochry, Scotland
Day 8 - 4/13/01
 
 Today we suited up for a day of just walking around town.  We got up, had breakfast, of course I had bacon and cereal with milk and OJ, then started walking down to the town.  After we had walked for about 5 minutes, Emily and Mom saw a store they wanted to look into and I came with them, and started to read a book called What’s Under the Kilt, because my Mom always wanted to know if the Scottish had anything on under their kilts.  As I was flipping through the pages, I saw a guy dressed up as William Wallace in Braveheart. When I looked closer, I realized that the man in the picture was a guy who posed for pictures outside of Edinburgh Castle.  Emily and I had gotten a picture with him as a matter of fact.  Seeing that guy in a book about 80 miles away from Edinburgh was pretty cool.
 When Emily and Mom were finished looking in that store, we continued our walk until we came to the Pitlochry Fish Ladder.  It was not what we expected, though.  We expected it to be a natural fish ladder where the fish jump out of the white water and up the stream, and sometimes where bears wait to catch them.  Instead of a natural fish ladder, though, it was a man-made fish ladder.  This was a series of tanks with pipes in them that the fish could swim through until they got to the end of it. So, we were just a little disappointed, and we kept walking down the river.
 After a short hike through the forest, we crossed an old, shaky footbridge made to look like a suspension bridge that was built in 1910.  That was kind of fun, and when we got to the other side of the river, we came to a cute little restaurant called the Armory, at which we made reservations for dinner.
 After we made our reservations, we walked back into town and stopped for lunch at a small tearoom. I had an appetizer of the combo basket, which had potato skins, onion rings, and fried mushrooms, and a BLT for my core lunch.
 When we had both finished lunch, Emily and I looked in some shops while Mom and Dad finished eating.  In one of the shops we were looking in, I found some sugar-free chupa chups, so of course I bought some and started eating them.
 When Mom and Dad had finished eating, we all walked back to the hotel to get the car. After Emily and Mom got some things to take with us, we all got in the car and drove to Dunkeld again. This time, though, the cathedral was open and we decided to go inside.
 The front interior of the cathedral was like a regular church, with pews and an altar.  It also had something different, though.  On the front wall of the cathedral, there were some red blocks mixed in with the gray ones.  These red blocks were from the 9th century, while the rest of this part of the cathedral was from the 13th century. In the back of the cathedral there were some beautiful ruins and a graveyard. These ruins and graveyard were from the 12th century and were extremely beautiful sitting on the bank of the River Tay. They totally took your breath away.
 After we had finished walking around the cathedral, we got in the car and drove to the House of Bruar to go on a hike.  When we got there, we decided to go on a hike called the Falls Walk, which led to a big waterfall.  It was a beautiful walk through the forest, and as we walked to the big waterfall, we also walked along smaller, but longer, waterfalls. On the way up to the waterfall, my Dad and I played swords with sticks and my Dad also even stole a foot and mouth warning sign for a souvenir.  Finally, we got to the waterfall, and it wasn’t as big as we expected, but it was pretty beautiful.  After we observed the nature around the waterfall, and the waterfall itself, we started back down the trail, and got down there in about 20 minutes.
 When we got to the bottom, we all got in the car and drove back to the hotel to get dressed for dinner. We each wore something nice because it was a fancy restaurant, and got in the car to drive there.
 As we were being seated at the restaurant, my Dad remembered that he had forgotten his wallet, so he made a quick trip back to Wellwood House while we ordered drinks.  After that, my Dad got back and we started ordering appetizers and our main meal. I had a few buns and venison with mashed potatoes.  It was very delicious and it was my first time eating venison, so I was very happy.
 After dinner, we drove back to the hotel, watched some TV, got packed up and went to bed.
 
Pitlochry, Scotland
Day 9 - 4/14/01
 
 Today we got up extra early, and had breakfast, I had bacon and cereal with OJ and milk, then got in the car with all our luggage and drove to Stirling.  It was about a 45-minute drive, and when we got there, we got our tickets and went straight into the castle.  In front of the entrance of the castle there was a statue of Robert the Bruce, a little bigger than the one at Edinburgh Castle.
 
 
Stirling Castle
 
The special thing about this castle, though, was its strategic placement.  Its placement was perfect because anyone trying to get into the town had to go through the castle.  The only other way to get to the town of Stirling beyond the castle would be to climb the rocky crags on either side of the town. 
 The English and the Scottish both occupied this castle for a time.  Throughout its history, the castle kept switching from Scottish to English until finally it became permanently owned by the Scots, thanks to Robert the Bruce.
 As Emily and I were walking around the castle, we lost Mom and Dad. We kept looking around anyway, though, because we knew we were pressed for time.  When we finally found Mom, she showed us the Great Hall.  We all agreed that this was the most magnificent Great Hall we had ever seen.  It was the biggest Great Hall in all of Britain, and it had five fireplaces.  After we were done looking at the Great Hall, we took a quick look at the dungeons, then got in the car and drove to the Wallace Monument.  This was a tall tower overlooking the town of Stirling and totally dedicated to the Guardian of the Realm of Scotland: Sir William Wallace.
It was a very hard and tiring walk to where this monument stood, with 169 steps leading up to it, plus the long footpath up to the steps.  The monument stood on a big and steep hill overlooking the town of Stirling.  This was nothing, though, compared to the monument itself.  In all, the monument had four floors and 246 steps to the top.  Only my Dad and I went to the very top, while my Mom and sister stayed on the first floor.
 The first floor was by far the most interesting floor in the monument. This floor contained William Wallace’s great sword, the Wallace sword, an audio visual of Wallace himself talking about his life, and boards going all the way around the room telling about his life.  The boards were titled names like The Life of William Wallace, the Battle of Stirling Bridge, or even The Death of William Wallace.  I went around and read all of these boards, but I was most interested in the Wallace sword.  It was in the biggest corner of the room and it had a red light shining on it to make it look majestic, and majestic it was. It was roughly five feet tall and by the height of this sword, historians estimated that William Wallace had to be at least 6 foot 6 in order to handle a sword that big, which is funny because Mel Gibson is only 5 foot 6 in Braveheart.
 After my Dad and I had finished looking around the first floor, we proceeded to climb the remaining steps up to the top. It was a long journey to the top, with frequent stops for people coming down the winding stairway. When we finally got to the top, though, it was very beautiful, but at the same time, also very dangerous.  It was so windy up there that if you weren’t careful, you could easily get blown off the tower.  What made it even more dangerous was the fact that the gates were only waist high, which made it easy to fall off.
 So, because of the powerful wind, my Dad and I didn’t stay up there for very long. We started to climb the steps down, and on the way, I stopped at the second floor. This floor had many statues of kings of Scotland like Robert the Bruce, and it also held many old swords, but I didn’t stay long enough to study them and see what they were. I just glanced at some of the statues and swords, and then continued my descent to the bottom.  
 When I finally got down to the ground floor, Mommy and I bought our lunch, and made the walk back to the car.  When we got to the car, we all got in and started the 45-minute drive to the car rental place.  On the way there, I ate my lunch, which was a ham and cheese sandwich and a BLT, with applesauce and some 3D Doritos.  Right after I finished my lunch, we stopped at a gas station because Dad had gotten a flat tire. He fixed it within 15 minutes, though, which was very impressive.
 When we finally got to the car rental place, we said goodbye to our car and took a cab for the remaining 30-minute drive to the train station. Upon arriving at the train station, we immediately went to where our train was boarding, and barely made it onto the train. Then we sat back and relaxed for the first time that day.
 The train ride was too short, though, due to some construction work on the track. So, the train ride was only 45 minutes, and when those 45 minutes were up, we had to get off the train and board a bus for a 2-hour bus ride. During the bus ride, I mostly just slept, and before I knew it, we were boarding another train. This time, though, the ride was 4 hours, so now we could really spread out and get comfortable. During this train ride, the bus ride, and the first train ride, I kept a list of what I saw, and it went like this:
· nuclear power plants: 10
· rabbits: 1
· ruins (of any sort of): 11
· flocks of sheep: over 100 (too many to count)
· herds of cows: 5
· cathedrals, churches, and abbeys: 38
· lighthouses: 1
· horses: 94
· herds of horses (any group of 3 horses or more): 13
· castles (ruined or not): 13
This list kept me busy during the long trip to King’s Cross Station in London.  The other things I did to keep busy were play endless games of gin rummy with my sister and look out the window.
 When we finally got to King’s Cross, it was about 9:00 p.m., so we got right into a cab to go to our hotel, the Holiday Inn.  The cab driver took us to the wrong hotel at first, though, so that delayed us even more.  Finally, though, we got to the right hotel, and Emily and I immediately plopped down on our beds and watched the Karate Kid. When the movie was finished, Emily and I went straight to bed and slept like rocks.
 
London, England
Day 10 - 4/15/01 - Easter Sunday
 
 Today, we got up and quickly went down to breakfast. Our flight would be leaving at 12:45, so we had to hurry and get to the airport. We had a relatively quick breakfast, I had bacon, sausage, beans, a hash brown, and some watermelon with OJ and milk. Then we got on the Hoppa Bus to Heathrow Airport, which we could see from our hotel windows, so it wasn’t a very long ride.
 When we got to Heathrow, we got all of our luggage and went to the Red Carpet Club to wait for our flight. While we were there, Emily and I stole some of the tiny, free cokes until a security lady yelled at my Dad, and so we had to return a couple. After about 45 minutes of waiting in the Heathrow Red Carpet Club, which is much nicer than the Dulles International one, our plane finally started boarding. It turned out that our plane was a United Boeing 747, and we were seated in the hump. This was very cool for me because it was only my second time being on a 747, and I had never even been in the hump. There was also much more room then in the 777, and we even had a storage cabinet on the side of us bordering the window.
 
 
Boeing 747 picture
 
After we had taken off, Emily, Dad and I watched the movie “Finding Forrester,” which we all agreed was an excellent movie.  Then I watched the end of “The Family Man,” and wrote in this journal. Emily and I also played a few games of gin rummy, and by that time it was almost time to land. We landed at 4:30 p.m. American time, which was 9:30 p.m. European time.
 When we got to Dulles Airport, we had to wait a long time before we finally got our luggage. Then we wheeled it out to the bus that would take us to our parking lot. After the 5-minute ride to our car, we loaded all of our luggage into our car and after a brief stop at my grandparent’s house for Easter, we went home after another safe and successful family trip.
~THE END~
 
Danny Chase, 13, gets good grades, enjoys girls, baseball, basketball, traveling, rough-housing with his Dad, and all the usual things. He is an eighth grade at White Oak Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland.