Day Two in Edinburgh

Today we piled into buses and headed off from Edinburgh to two sites that were crucial in Scotland's history: Bannockburn and Stirling Castle. If you've seen the movie "Braveheart," you already know about some of that history -- although one of our guides described "Braveheart" as "great movie, bad history."

The small city of Stirling is home to a castle that was said to be the key to Scotland -- whoever controlled Stirling Castle controlled Scotland. William Wallace -- A.K.A. Braveheart -- successfully defended the castle against England's King Edward I in the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1296. They love William Wallace around here and there are several monuments in his honor.

I asked one of our travel directors if "Braveheart" was filmed at the castle and she said no -- it was filmed on a golf course in Ireland! In fact, there's a key battle scene where, if you look closely, you can see golfers teeing off on a hill in the distance.

Not far from Stirling is Bannockburn, where the Scottish king Robert the Bruce fought off England's King Edward II in 1314, in another of Scotland's many battles for independence. This was back in the days of chain-mail armor and metal helmets and all that -- also the era of hangings, beheadings, drawings-and-quarterings, and the like.

(Why is he Robert *the* Bruce? One explanation, according to one of the guides, is that he came from a long line of Robert Bruces -- his father was Robert Bruce, his father's father was Robert Bruce, and so on. So adding the "the" was his way of setting himself apart.) Like William Wallace, Robert the Bruce is a big hero over here -- there are several impressive statues of him.

Back in Edinburgh, the streets are relatively quiet this evening, the stores are closed, and police officers are all around -- the remnants of a large anti-poverty march held here today in connection with the G8 economic summit. We're told that activists formed a human chain around historic Edinburgh castle and even managed to hang a "Make Poverty History" banner from the castle for a time.

Meanwhile, I'm fascinated by the cars over here. The majority are *much* smaller and apparently considerably more energy efficient than the majority of cars in the United States. In addition to the cars you might expect in Europe, like Peugots and Renaults and Citroens, there are European variants of U.S. cars -- for example, the VW Polo looks like a downsized version of the VW Golf, and there's also the Nissan Micra, the Toyota Varis, the Honda Jazz, and the VW Ludo. There's also a make called the Vauxhall, with such models as the Vauxhall Astra and the Vauxhall Corsa. Some run on gas, some on diesel, some on petrol (which apparently is not the same as gasoline), and some on natural gas. Perhaps part of the reason that energy efficiency is so important is the fact that gasoline is about $8 a gallon right now!

Tomorrow we drive to the port town of Greenock to board the Minerva II, a cruise ship that will take us to Belfast and then on to the other stops on our cruise.