sashura

A few words about various tickets before I start on the castles.

Trains
The only reasonably priced multiday pass that I found was for three consecutive days. Since we didn't have a set plan on when we were doing what it didn't make much sense to buy it, so all out tickets were bought online the morning of the trip or the night before. Always bought two-way ones - the outbound was for a set time and return is for the rest of the day. In theory, there is an app that can handle the tickets, but for whatever reason it didn't want to work on my phone and after the first trip I was glad it didn't work. On many station one needs to show tickets three times: to get to the train, on the train, and then on the other end to get out of the train station. So, if you are like me and don't always keep your phone charged, it might be a problem.

But there is one more way to get tickets: you buy them online, get a code, and then at the station print them at the ticket machine using that code. It was fast, easy, worked every time and we never saw any lines at the machines. In theory, one can skip the part of buying tickets online altogether and do everything at the station, but the only way to find the schedule is to go to the same site that sells tickets, and if you are already there, then why not buy them?

Museums
Many of the museums in Edinburgh are free, but almost all of the castles require payment to enter. We got
Explorer Passes for everybody (£48 each for adults, a bit less for a family with kids under 15) and it was very much worth it. In all castles they sell tickets for a specific time, so make sure to still go to the individual sites and "purchase" free tickets with your Explorer pass! The more popular the place, the higher the chances are that they will want to see and scan both - the Explorer pass and the time slot registration.

Stirling
Our first trip out of Edinburgh was to the Stirling Castle.

Getting there: 50 min train ride from Edinburgh, then about 20 min walk to the main gate.

The town:

Part of the walking path is between two walls - one has vegetation on top; another one has plants growing right out of it:

Right after the entrance, but still technically outside of the castle walls is a beautiful Queen Anne Garden:

Cannons, of course:

There are free tours run by volunteers in period costumes, which are rather loud and annoying, but if you see a volunteer without a group in front of them, feel free to ask them anything and you will get a 20 min private lecture exactly on the topic you are interested in and without all the silliness. Though be ready for a very strong Scottish accent as these people are definitely locals. At times I felt like first few months in the US - people could easily understand me, but I had absolutely no idea what they were saying :)

Here is one of the volunteer tour guides with a group:

Usually, the Palace outside of the castle, but at Sterling there was enough space within the castle walls to put the Palace in there. All Scottish palaces that we have seen had the same structure: a set of three rooms on each side, one side for the King and another for the Queen:
- The Outer Hall. A large and fairly public room.
- Inner Hall - a smaller and a more restricted area where audiences were granted with the King or Queen.
- The Bedchamber. It had a bed, but nobody really slept there. It was used as a space to recieve the most trusted inner circle visitors.
The actual bedrooms for sleeping were located on higher floors, and nobody was allowed in.

The picture above with the tour guide is an Outer Hall.

The throne in the Inner Hall:

The ceiling:

These are all modern copies of the round wood carvings that are believed to be there. Some survived and on display in a different part of the castle, some are created similar to the ones found in other palaces of the same time.