Central Scotland.
First of all, I just want to address the fact that Glasgow
and Edinburgh that area is typically
what people call central Scotland, the central belt.
I'm not talking about that I'm talking about places
that you can go either as a day trip from those cities to the north
or places that would make a relatively easy overnight stop.
Not the far north and the far Highlands
and also not the central belt or below the border regions
this area, including St Andrews, where you see on the map
Kenmore, Stirling, and some other places.
By the way, this is a map of our guided tour of Scotland.
Most of the slides that I'm going to show you follow this route
or come from somewhere on this route, with the exception of one or two.
At any rate, let's get started. Stirling Castle
is probably the most popular day trip from Edinburgh or Glasgow
and it's well worth visiting.
Even if you visited Edinburgh Castle
it's absolutely worth visiting.
It's only about 30, 40 minutes by train from either of those cities.
Again, it's just beautifully, beautifully situated.
There are a few other sites associated with it
but the castle itself, of course, is a castle complex containing
lots of different sites within it.
You have the Great Hall
that was the largest secular medieval space in Europe at one point.
You have this Stirling heads gallery.
These are giant oak medallions that would have been
at one point, colorfully painted and stuck
to the ceiling of the king's chambers in the castle.
Of course, there's thoughtfully explained
and everything like that.
It's very fascinating.
My favorite part of Stirling Castle is actually the kitchens.
You can go down a staircase into the dark kitchens.
They have all this fake foods setup.
You can learn about what it took to feed this entire community
of people living within the castle walls.
A lot to be seen.
You have docents in character and in costumes.
You can ask them about what it's like to live in the castle
and serve whichever king and queen they were serving at that time.
North of the Forth, Stirling Castle
was really important because
it was the only place that you could get
from the lowlands into the Highlands.
It would say, whoever holds Stirling holds Scotland
because it's up on that hill
you can defend it very easily
and you can see for miles and miles and miles.
The reason that you can't just go north is because it's cut-off
by a body of water.
Eventually, a river turns into this big inlet
and this body of water is called the Firth of Forth.
To go straight north from Edinburgh
you cross over the Firth of Forth.
At any rate, that's what we're going to do right now
for some of the sites just to the north.
If you have a car, a good first stop heading north
from Edinburgh might be Curtis Palace.
It looks like Call Ross but it's Curtis.
What it is, is a medieval royal butter, a berg.
The palace itself is actually just a house
that belonged to this rich industrialist at the end
of the 1500s and early 1600s.
You get to see what his life was like
what his home, the inside of this home looked like
and you can take a tour of it.
It also has a beautiful Market Square
Market Square in the town itself that you can check out.
It's just a really lovely little town to explore
and a fascinating site from historical perspective.
Anybody who's a fan of Outlander
the Outlander series, also, they filmed some
of the episodes or some scenes
from some of the episodes also
in Curtis Palace and in Curtis town.
St. Andrews is a bit further north.
Of course, St. Andrews is famous for being the home of golf.
It's also a university town
but I think if you're a golf person
you absolutely have to take a trip to St. Andrews.
You may not get to play on the old course
in fact, you probably won't
but there are plenty of other great golf courses in the area.
Don't be put off you can just have a stroll around
or you can go partying just next door at the Himalayas
which I just think is such a cute name for putting green but at any rate
golf lovers might also enjoy the Golf Museum
which is a lot of fun.
Really, I'm not a golfer but I love the golf museum.
It's a lot of fun to just learn about the history of the sport.
Non-golfers will just enjoy the beautiful beaches in St. Andrews
or exploring the ruins of their Cathedral.
St. Andrews was a very important ecclesiastical center.
It's the epicenter of the Scottish reformation.
For a long time before that, that's where pilgrims went.
You can see the ruins of its Cathedral today.
It's free to roam around or you can pay to go up in the tower.
Another stuff that you might consider
that's often overlooked is the city of Dundee.
It's a smaller city, I think about 150,000 people
but it's a good place to stop for a few reasons.
One, there is the RSS discovery ship and center.
This was an Arctic exploring
three-masted traditional wooden vessels built in 1900
I think, and that was what Ernest Shackleton
and Falcon Scott went exploring in the Arctic in.
There's the whole visitor center and you can--
That's where the ship is docked
and it was built in Dundee originally so it's in its home.
Adjacent to the RSS discovery
is the new Victoria and Albert Museum of design.
There's the one in London
and now there's one in Dundee
which is a city that's well-known
for its contributions to design.
Dundee was also an industrial powerhouse like Glasgow
and the primary thing that was made there was jute.
They have a wonderful museum called the Verdant Works
and it's all about the jute industry
so you have some of the old machines.
It doesn't necessarily sound like the most fascinating thing
but it really is a great museum.
If you're driving north anyway
I would encourage you to stop in Dundee for a quick look around.
One of my favorite small towns in Scotland is the town of Dunkeld.
Dunkeld you can drive there
but it is also on the train line going north.
It's a sort of a twin town, Dunkeld and Birnam.
Birnam of Birnam Wood thane
for those who know their Shakespeare.
At any rate, Dunkeld is a beautiful little town, very cute.
It has a gorgeous arched stone bridge over the river
that was built by the famous Scottish engineer Thomas Telford.
It's just a lovely place to wander around
and check out the shops have a nice pub lunch by the river
and it also has some cathedral ruins.
Before, St. Andrew's Dunkeld was sort
of the ecclesiastical center in Scotland.
After the Vikings came and they moved inland
I'll talk about that later, but Dunkeld was a very important center.
Today, the cathedral itself is in ruins
but the internal part is still used
as the church for the town.
It's a nice visit.
Dunkeld it is situated in a part of Scotland called Perthshire.
Perthshire is Scotland's Big Tree country.
It kind of reminds me of the pacific northwest a fair amount
but what that means for travelers
is that it's a great place to go hiking
or just hillwalking or just on a nice gentle walk in the forest.
A popular walk just outside of Dunkeld
is called the Hermitage
and it's an easy path as you can see here.
It was just the property of one of the local aristocracy
who built a little-forested getaway and a little fake cave
a little cave where it had a fake hermit hideout
and surprises guests to woo them.
Another option for a quaint small town to stay
would be the Village of Kenmore.
It's really quite small, but absolutely
beautifully situated as you can see.
It does have one kind of must-do in my opinion site
which is the Kenmore Crannog Center.
You might be thinking what on earth is a Crannog?
What it is is basically a fortified dwelling
that would have been habited basically back in the iron age.
They found remnants of these in lakes all over Scotland
and in Ireland as well, and this is one
that's been thoughtfully reconstructed using
all of the same methods that
it would have been constructed all those years ago.
It's a museum.
You actually can go out into the Crannog
and all the people who work there are
just really passionate about life back then
life in the iron age.
They'll tell you all about what happened
what the people ate, how they lived
how they built things, how they survive.
It's very fascinating.
You even get to learn about some of that iron age technology
making fire with sticks and all that type of thing.
After you visit the Crannog Center or the Crannog itself
then you come back onto land
for a demonstration of some of that technology.
I absolutely love it.
It just takes you right back in time and it's fabulous.
Also, in the area are a lot of whiskey distilleries.
Of course, this is true for most regions in Scotland.
This isn't the only place that you can go to a distillery
but it's a nice option if you don't have a ton of time
and maybe you're in Glasgow and Edinburgh
and then maybe you just have a day or two to do an overnight
you can't get that far north and you want to be
in the countryside and check out a distillery or two.
Lots in the area. Just throwin' that out there.
Usually, you can get a tour and then that comes
with a tasting at the end so I encourage you to check that out.