Scotland - Day 3-Falkirk

Okay, what the hell is up with the whole urban planning thing over here???? It's like you have to walk EVERYWHERE! I mean I'm okay with a brisk stroll every now and then, but it's like they had no other plans....just walking. Everywhere you go, you have to park a mile away, and then when you get to the spots, it's like something out of some twisted psychotic Denise Richards workout video. "Here, welcome to the monument, you have to climb the two hundred and sixty steps to get to the top and view it....-oh oh, but that's after you take the 1 mile and a half sloping path at a 65 degree angle that winds around the cliff that we're on....oh c'mon and buck up...just think of the cardio workout you're getting. What? No we don't have any defribilators. Why?"

So Sunday, I decide to light out for Stirling to visit the castle, and battleground and Wallace monument. Pop into the the little Corsa (that's the car I have, think of a Geo Metro merged with a Plymouth Roadster.) and light off for Stirling. In my head I can see visions of warrior poets charging the fields at Bannockburn, and hear a Scottish brogue speak, "I shall tell you of William Wallace..." Having finally figured out what to do in the damn roundabouts, I'm set.

And I'm driving, pleasant day. It's about 11:30am so there's still plenty of sunlight. And I notice Falkirk's on the way. So I figure, I'll pop off over there, and see what memorials they have. Not Scotland's not like the US where we have things like street signs (I'll come back to that), but they do have pretty good directions for the monuments. Unfortunately they don't have a description of what the monuments are. So I'm heading to Falkirk and they keep having signs for the "Falkirk Wheel", which I've never heard off, but okay. Maybe it's like the round table or some ancient celtic ceremonial piece. So I follow the signs (because it would be too much to put the distance on them) and finally get to the parking lot....which is like 5 miles from the damn thing...okay it was more like .5, but it was on an incline!

The Falkirk Wheel, it turns out, is a marvel of engineering. It's the latest in modern canal connection. Instead of having a boat go through a series of locks with spillways and water levels, the Wheel simply rotates the ship from one level to another on the "Wheel". It's pretty fascinating and a big attraction. I enjoyed watching it go for awhile and then upon leaving got to watch as a boat was let through the mini canal I had crossed on my way in. There's a manual opening bridge that a person opens up to let boats travel through. I also got some good pictures of swans swimming and looking for food.

And then it was back into the car, disappointed at not finding any kind of a battlefield memorial, but satiated by the magic that is the Falkirk Wheel.