Day 15 - Edinburgh, Stirling and Dunfirmline

I have already posted about Stirling Castle so drop over to that post.


We drove over to the Wallace Monument but decided at the last minute not to visit it as we had been there before.


On our previous visit we saw the statue of Braveheart as Mel Gibson and it made us laugh. I’ve since learned the following:

In 1997, a statue of Gibson as "William Wallace" was placed outside the Wallace Monument near Stirling, Scotland. The statue, which includes the word "Braveheart" on Wallace's shield, the work of sculptor Tom Church, was the cause of much controversy and one local resident stated that it was wrong to "desecrate the main memorial to Wallace with a lump of crap".[9] In 1998 the statue was vandalised by someone who smashed the face in with a hammer. After repairs were made, the statue was encased in a cage at night to prevent further vandalism. This only incited more calls for the statue to be removed as it then appeared that the Gibson/Wallace figure is imprisoned. The statue was removed from the site in 2008 to make way for a new restaurant and reception to the visitors' centre.

We then decided on having dinner at Bar Roma on Queensferry just a stone’s throw away from Princes St in Edinburgh’s west end. Our cab driver knew the place well and gave it glowing recommendations.


It is a huge family oriented, very Italian feeling place. It was very busy as it was Friday and there was also a large birthday party group.

The food was excellent, our waiters were very entertaining and we were given a glass of Lemoncello at the end of the meal.