On Monday 15th June we left Edinburgh and crossed north over the Forth Bridge.

We visited Culross Palace and Garden (National Trust for Scotland) on the north shore of the Firth of Forth.

In the late 16th and early 17th Century this town had pioneered coal mining and had been a thriving international port. However as the world moved on the place failed to adapt to change and became stuck in a time warp!

The inside of the Palace looks a bit like the interior of a wooden ship as apparently it was built by ship engineers.

The Palace Gardens are an eclectic mixture of flowers shrubs and vegetables.

From the top of the steep gardens there are great views out south over the Firth of Forth.

From Culross we went north to the village of Fowlis Wester near Crieff where there are some amazing Pictish carved stones preserved in the church.

There was a very strange incident when we arrived in Fowlis Wester. The inhabitant of the house pictured here started shouting at us from his garden saying that the village square where we had parked was private land and we had to leave. I offered him my name and address and suggested that he do his worst but instead of taking my details he scuttled back inside his house. We were then approached by another member of the community who told us that they welcomed visitors to their village and that the man that had been berating us had no right to do so and that it was fine for us to park there!

We stopped for the night in a very nice woodland car park by the river Braan close to the town of Dunkeld.

It was a really pretty place.

There were fine waterfalls.

And a deep gorge.

Altogether a very nice stopping place.