Hadrian's Wall is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. It ran from the banks of the River Tyne near the North Sea to the Solway Firth on the Irish Sea, and was the northern limit of the Roman Empire, immediately north of which were the lands of the northern Ancient Britons, including the Picts.

It had a stone base and a stone wall. There were milecastles, small forts with two turrets, every mile.  There was a fort about every five Roman miles. It is thought the milecastles were staffed with static garrisons, whereas the forts had fighting garrisons of infantry and cavalry. In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts.

Remnants of the wall still stand and can be followed on foot along the adjoining Hadrian's Wall Path. The largest Roman archaeological feature in Britain, it runs a total of 73 miles (117.5 kilometres) in northern England.  Regarded as a British cultural icon, Hadrian's Wall is one of Britain's major ancient tourist attractions.

Hadrian’s Wall marked the boundary between Roman Britannia and unconquered Caledonia to the north. The wall lies entirely within England and has never formed the Anglo-Scottish border.  While it is less than 0.6 mi (1.0 km) south of the border with Scotland in the west at Bowness-on-Solway, in the east at Wallsend it is as much as 68 miles (109 km) away.

On Rick Steves' suggestion, we took the brief ridge walk next to the wall from Stell Rigg to Sycamore Gap to Housesteads Roman Fort to get what he calls the perfect taste of the scenery and history.

                                              Lots to see at the National Museum of Scotland

                                                                     Dolly (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003) - the first mammal cloned

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  Neat masonry in the form of rope.                                    View of the Great Hall at Stirling Castle:

Wikipedia:
Stirling Castle is one of the largest and most important castles in Scotland, both historically and architecturally. The castle sits atop Castle Hill, an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location has made it an important fortification in the region from the earliest times.

The castle construction began in the early 12th century, but most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the 15th and 16th centuries. A few structures of the fourteenth century remain, while the outer defenses fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century.

Before the union with England, Stirling Castle was also one of the most used of the many Scottish royal residences, very much a palace as well as a fortress. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1542, and others were born or died there.

There have been at least eight sieges of Stirling Castle, including several during the Wars of Scottish Independence, with the last being in 1746, when Bonnie Prince Charlie unsuccessfully tried to take the castle.

Aerial view as posted in Wikipedia by Andrew Shiva:

Our B&B room is very small, but we were able to get a good night sleep.  Even though it is a Bed & Breakfast, the breakfast is not included in the price and they want £15 per person, so we decided against it.  Today we have a Rick Steves walking tour of St. Andrews to follow, so we will just grab something to eat along the way.

The walk starts at "The Old Course"of the St. Andrews Golf Course where golf has been played since the 15th century, and is considered the oldest course in the world.

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) is the oldest and most prestigious golf clubs in the world, founded in 1754.  It sits close to the 18th green as can be seen in the second photo.

Just across the street from the 18th green and the R&A golf club is the Hamilton Grand.  It is rumored that Samuel L. Jackson has an apartment here.

We continued our walk and was about to arrive at St. Andrews University, but first we passed this ridiculous name for a street.

Right in front of the gateway into the campus is the initials "PH".  This is where Patrick Hamilton, a student at the university, was burned at the stake on 29 February 1528 at the age of 24.  He was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death for teaching Lutheran doctrines he had learned from Martin Luther.  This made him the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation.

According to student legend, if you step on the initials, you will fail your exams.

We entered under the clock tower into this beautiful quad surrounded by building dating back to the 1400's.

Here is a crazy student tradition as stated in Wikipedia "When wearing their traditional red gowns, students in each year may be identified according to the way they wear their gowns. In the first year, the gown is worn on the shoulders, in the second year it is worn slightly off the shoulders. In the third year arts students wear their gowns off their left shoulders, and science students off their right shoulders. Finally, fourth years wear their gowns right down to their elbows, ready to shed their scarlet gowns for the black graduation gown."

We were lucky enough to visit the campus while students were providing tours, so we saw this gown wearing tradition.

Here is the campus chapel that dates back to 1450.  This is where the famous alums Prince William and Kate Middletown wed.

We left the campus and walked by the ruins of St. Andrews castle that was destroyed during the Scottish Reformation.

Next came the ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral built in 1158 and yet another casualty of the Scottish Reformation.

After the walk we were supposed to play a round of putting at the putting greens that are open to the public, but I misread the hours and we missed it. So, we walked back to the 18th hole of the Old Course at St. Andrews to have one more look.

This morning when we were there, we noticed that they were setting up for the Alfred Dunhill Championship that begins tomorrow.

When we looked up to the tee area, we noticed camera around someone getting ready to drive.  We figured it was someone famous so we took a few photos.  We found out later that it was Jon Rahm, a professional golfer.  I guess they are playing a practice round today.

The next player on the tee was Rory McIlroy.

After watching these pros hit a few balls we were ready to get on the road.  The guidebook mentioned a town called Anstruther with a great fish and chips place.  Come to think of it, we met a couple at a bar and they mentioned this same place, so we drove the 45 minutes to Anstruther and walked around the harbor some.

We were finally ready to try the fish and chips, so we headed to Anstruther Fish Bar.  They even told us what fishing boat caught today's fish.

I have to tell you, the fish was really delicious. By this point we have eaten fish and chips multiple times, and this was definitely one of the best.

After eating, we decided to walk around town a little to work off some of the grease we just digested.  This town really is beautiful.

We got back to the car and drove 2 hours to Stirling.  After getting settled into our apartment we headed into town for dinner.  Oh, did I mention that today is Tim and my 10th anniversary!   Tim picked a really nice place, but when we got there they were booked, so we walked around looking for another place to eat.  We settled on an oriental restaurant that had a little of everything from Japanese to Chinese to Thai to Korean.  We decided to order a bottle of wine and eat sushi for dinner.

After a nice dinner we went back to the apartment and called it a night.  We are in Stirling for two nights, so tomorrow morning we can relax a bit and not rush to get ready and checkout.  That is a nice thing.

Today we are driving to St. Andrews, but Rick Steves suggests we stop in Dundee to visit Discovery Point and the RRS Discovery along with Verdant Works Jute Museum.  Both of these museums are marked in his book with a triangle symbol meaning they are both "worthwhile" to see.  Usually we take his advice, but a jute Museum?  I didn't even know what jute is.  It turns out that these two museums have a combo-ticket and the jute museum has free parking, so what the heck.  We headed there first.

It turns out jute is a plant that grows predominantly in India and can be processed into a fiber that is woven to make such things as burlap.

thIn the 1830's, Dundee businessman developed an industry built around the processing of jute which had a huge market before plastic was invented.  Burlap was used for sacks, rope, sails, canvases, and carpeting.  This lucrative industry made Dundee a thriving metropolis for 70 years until jute factories opened up in India and then eventually the development of plastic.

The cool part of the museum is they had small working models of the actual machines that were used to process the jute from the raw material to woven sheets.  There was a volunteer that demonstrated each step by turning on the machine to let us see it work.

Here are some photos Tim took of the facility. 

Can you believe that we spent over 2 hours learning about jute?  It was definitely more interesting than we ever thought possible.  Again...Rick Steves was right.

Next stop is the Discovery Point Museum and the RRS Discovery.  This museum tells the story of the Royal Research Ship (RRS), and the research missions to Antarctica.

Below is a representation of the construction of the Discovery.  At the end of the 19th century, ships of any size were pretty much being built of steel, but wood could take the crush of ice and icebergs better than steel, and so they built this ship of sail (and steam powered propellor) specifically for the mission of discovery.

Displays showing geology (depth soundings) and biology (drawing animals), elements of the first mission of 1901.

Here is the RRS Discovery - not a replica! - the actual ship.

We board - with the top end of the steam engine before us.  Actually the only significant part of the ship that wasn't preserved was the boiler and steam engine - the boiler was scrapped for steel for WWII, and the engine sold off.

Gerri in a coal hold.  The slots just above her head hold salt which soaks up any leaks from the outer planks, as well as abating rotting of wood from the moisture.

Crew quarters for the seaman (enlisted).

Officer's mess, with their quarters surrounding it.

The bridge - open to the elements.  The structure behind is a "way out there" art museum.

The sail rigging still standing tall - however, the ship isn't maintained in a 'going to sea' condition.

That art museum was just around the corner, and free, so we checked it out.  It's called V&A Dundee (Victoria and Albert).

It's art - a robotic arm creating bubbles.

An homage to Scotland's eastern seaside cliffs - the exterior look of the building (not ships as we had guessed) - we experienced many of these cliffs in the days just before.

Onward to St. Andrews, after checking into our little BNB, we took in another brewery...

...and Gerri followed it with a flight of gin and tonic.

Tomorrow we continue our tour of St. Andrews - you'll read some things that didn't work out, but some things did.

We had our last night in one of the best AirBnB's we have stayed in on this trip.  We packed up the car and were out just before 10 AM.  Today we will start with a history lesson and visit the Culloden Battlefield. 

The Battle of Culloden (16 April 1746) was fought between the Jacobites, with a strong support of Scottish Highland clans, and the currently reigning King George II.  The Jacobites were lead by Charles Edward Stuart (AKA Bonnie Prince Charles) who believed the throne belonged to his family.

Leading up the this battle, the Jacobites were doing well and won many smaller battles.  They even considered marching into London, but turned back and returned to Scotland.  By this time, the Government had time to study and figure out the Jacobites weaknesses.  When the two sides finally met in Culloden, the Jacobites were decimated in under 1 hour losing about 2,000 troops to the Government's 400 troops.

In the aftermath, the Government went after and killed all who sided with the Jacobites to ensure an uprising never happened again.  They also went after the Gaelic culture and pushed to undermine the Highland clan system by taking away land and making it illegal for non-military to wear tartan.

This is a memorial erected on the battlefield in 1881 to remember the commemorate the highlander who lost their lives.  There are also headstones marking mass burial sites of clans.

Just on the other side of a fence from the battlefield were three highland cows.  They seem to like posing for the camera.

Can you believe that we spent over 3 hours at this battlefield?  Wow...I think we now know more about this battle than any other.

We can't have a drive in Scotland without a stop to see at least one Neolithic rock formation.  Here is the Clava Cairns.  This formation consists of 3 Neolithic burial chambers along with stone rings 3,000 - 4,000 years old.

We made it to our overnight town on Pitiochry around 4:30 PM.  We checked into our hotel and then walked down into town. 

We were quite hungry, so we first ate (me: fish and chips; Tim: donnar kabab) then continued walking around.

Here is a nice display commemorating the 2019 Solheim Cup, a match tournament between the top American and Europe women golfers.  The tournament was just last week...by the way, Europe won.

Our town walk continued and took us on a pedestrian bridge over the River Tummel.  Tim loves this photo of a tour guide waiting for his group to catch up.

After crossing the river, we walked up to and over the Pitiochry Dam.

View from the top of the dam.

Tim took this shot as we entered back into town.  This is the Pitiochry Church of Scotland. 

We made our way back up the hill to our hotel.  We stopped at the bar and had a pint of beer and tried a couple of different gins (Me) and whisky (Tim).  We then went back to our room and called it a night.

We were able to sleep in this morning since we are where we are going today.  Today we walk around Inverness and see what this town has to offer.  We got up and had a casual breakfast.  It was raining outside, so we hung out on the comfy reclining sofa for a couple of hours catching up on the blog and watching TV.  The rain finally stopped, so we left the apartment right at noon.

It is a 15 minute walk to get to the center of town where our walking tour began.  This clock tower was built in 1791.  It was the collection point for local taxes.

Across the street, is the City Hall (1882).

Up the hill from the City Hall is the Inverness Castle.  This castle is now the courthouse, but we walked up to it to see the view.

Here is the view of the town from the castle above.

The architecture in Inverness is Victorian from the 1800's.

About halfway down this street was the Abertarff House, the oldest house in Inverness.  There was a sign in front of it stating free entry, so Tim and I went in.  It was just a room, but there was a young worker that took the time to tell us the story of lots of kings and queens with numbers after their name.  I don't know how these people keep all these kings and queens straight.  He pretty much built up the story that leads to the Battle of Culloden which is a battlefield we are visiting tomorrow.  He stopped just short of the battle and said the story will continue for us tomorrow ta the battlefield.

This is the Old High Church which dates from the 1000's.  This is where, in the sixth century, the Irish evangelist monk St. Columbra brought Christianity to the Scottish Highlands where he preached to the Picts (pagans).

That down there is a pedestrian bridge called the "Bouncy Bridge."  As soon as we got on it, we knew why it was called this.  I was so amazed at how much this bridge bounces as you walk along along.

Tim took this nice panorama from the bouncy bridge.

After completing our walking tour around Inverness, Rick Steves suggested walking along the bank of the RIver Ness.  We walked about 1.5 miles.  The trail along the east bank is "Ladies Walk."

After about 10 minutes we arrived at the WWI memorial.

What a beautiful walk.  There was actually an island in the river that a pedestrian bridge went to.  We saw lights hanging from trees and posts.  This walk would probably be amazing at night.

When we got to Bught Park it started raining...as usual.  We walked back on the west bank of the river and stopped at a local pub called Tarry Iie Bar.  I picked it since it looked like a dive on Google maps, and I was right. I felt like this could be a local bar in any small town in the United States.  There was even a birthday cake and singing Happy Birthday to one of the bartenders.  It was a nice pint.

We then walked back the apartment and snacked on food that we have on hand.  TV watching, surfing, and blogging and then to bed.  Tomorrow we have a 2 hour drive to Pitiochry with a couple of stops along the way.

Oy...it was a very early morning.  Tim got out of bed at 5:10 AM which at least gave me another 45 minutes or so to sleep.  We showered, dressed,  packed up the car, and were ready to leave just after 6:30 AM.  We have to check into the 7:45 AM ferry by 7:15 AM.

We made it by 7 AM and loaded onto the ferry just before 7:30 AM.  Unlike the ferry we came over on that had very little people on it, this ferry was filled with teenage boys rugby teams.  We managed to find a seat in an area with only a few of them.  Tim slept while I played with the phone. It was only a 1 hour ride and we arrived back to the main land before 9 AM. 

We disembarked the ferry and headed east 5 miles to John O'Groats that marks the northeastern corner of the Isle of Britain with the other end being Land's End, 874 miles to the southwest in Cornwall.  By the way, we plan on being in Cornwall in about 1 month.  Here at the end, is a signpost that tells you how far places are.  New York is 3,230 miles and Edinburgh is 273 miles.

Here is another sign near-by that states we are at the end of the Isle of Britain.

Although this spot has the glitzy sign, the actual end is Duncansby Head Lighthouse, just up that road.

Here we are...at the actual end.

Rick Steves mentioned 1 mile hike from here to the Duncansby Stacks.  We had no idea what he was talking about, then we walked over a rise and there they were.

Getting closer....

Wow...pretty cool.

We made it.  It was a bit windy, but well worth the 20 minute walk.

Here is Tim enjoying the sites.

We made it back to the car and headed south towards Inverness, the stop for tonight.  The road south wasn't as scenic as the road we took to to get to the north, but it was beautiful plus a two-lane road, so definitely easier to drive.

Just before Inverness, we stopped at Black Isle Brewing Company and had some tastes.  It was really good beer, so we bought four of them to take with us.

This brewery is set on a farm where they grow their own ingredients. It was a really nice setting.

Onward to Inverness.  But, before we check into our AirBnB, we decided to check out Loch Ness and see if we can have a sighting of Nessy.  By coincidence we wound up here on the same day as there was a meetup started on Facebook called "Storm Loch Ness, Nessy Can't Stop Us All."  This was obviously an answer to the Area 51 raid planned in the United States.

Is this a sighting of Nessy?  Is this one of Nessy's teeth that Tim found on the shore?

Who knows...but I do know that Loch Ness, is beautiful and Nessy picked a great place to hang out.

We then drove a few more miles up Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle.  Like other castles in Scotland, we didn't go inside, we just enjoyed the amazing view.

We then drove the 25 minutes back to Inverness and checked into our AirBnB.  As soon as we entered Tim loved it.  He said this is his favorite AirBnB we have stayed in during this trip so far.  At this point he only saw the TV and the leather sofa / recliner...ha.  It wound up that this is a really nice place, so I'll give it to him that this is one of the nicer ones.

After checking in, we walked to town.  It winds up that the brewery we stopped in at the way here has a taproom in town that serves their beer on tap and pizza.  So we went there, had a few pints and a couple of pizza, went next door for gelato, then returned to the AirBnB.

Since we were up just after 5 AM this morning, we made an early night of it.  I went to bed around 9:30 PM and Tim soon followed.  Tomorrow we spend the day exploring Inverness.  No rush to get up, so it should be a relaxing morning.