Haggis Tour (part one)

Ok, only have fifteen minutes to descibe six days of Scotland... hmmm... will see how we go...

First of, for those who don't know, Glasgow and Edinburgh are in the central belt of Scotland (the lowlands) while everything north of the mountain range is called the Highlands (the majority of Scotland's land area but minority of population). Don't know why I think that's an important fact to know but meh. Now you've learnt something.

We left Glasgow and caught the train to Edinburgh (which leaves from Queen St, not Central as I assumed, resulting in an impromptu tour of Glasgows pubic transport system for my cousin Michelle) and wandered up to the line of big yellow buses denoting our touring company.

Jumping on the bus, we got a quick intro to Edinburgh (basically it's all world heritage listed, like most of Europe, and they use to drown and burn witches. A lot.) and then we went to the William Wallace memorial.

Now here is my dilemma. Do I drown this whole post with a pile of historical intrigue, drama and fact or just do dot points? Lets go for the compromise...
1. William Wallace memorial - has a god-awful statue of Mel Gibson as Wallace. Commemorates the Battle of Stirling Bridge where the Scots used the brilliant tactic of enticing the heavily armoured, horse-riding English across the old wooden Stirling bridge and then hacked the bridge apart, sending said English scum to their deaths. Wallace was made Defender of Scotland, a big deal for a commoner. Oh, and he was from the area around Glasgow (which means he never wore a kilt) and the blue paint from Braveheart was used about 600 years before the Wars of Independance. And the French queen he gets it on with in the movie was actually about 6 years old at the time. And Braveheart doesn't actually refer to Wallace, it's a reference to Robert D'Bruce (he'll pop up later).
2. Doune Castle. "Your mother was a hamster and your father smells like elderberries". I couldn't find the Grail, bloody lying French bastards.
3. Glencoe. Sight of the infamous slaughter of the McDonalds - the Campbells signed a treaty with the English so the king got them to kill all the McDonalds because they were late in following the kings orders... The Campbells pretended to be their friends, took advantage of their hospitality and then killed every man, woman and child in the village. To this day, the Glencoe pub doesn't allow anyone named Campbell to stay there. An American guy tried to sue them because they refused to let him stay... the pub won.
4. Oban - a seaside town on the East coast, saw Dunollie Castle. Not much else.

Ok - that took a wee bit longer than expected. Will write another post soon... with photos!!!