Linlithgow Palace

Yesterday, we wandered through the ruin of  Linlithgow Palace, the castle where Mary, Queen of Scots was born. Yet it was not a ruin...the once proud and colorful fountain in the courtyard still stands, streaked now with the green moss and black water stains that characterize the old stone of this country. All of the walls are as strong as ever, though the wood that once formed floors between them has vanished. And the Great Hall, now open wide to the sky and drizzle and dominated by a vast fireplace at one end echoed, I thought, with the long-ago roars of laughter and merry talk. The nearby St. Michael's Parish Church of Linlithgow, founded in 1242, was quite as magnificent, arrayed with a spectacular stained glass window on the front wall that was inscribed with Psalm 104.
It is striking how beautiful sad things can be.

Here you can see, at left, the steeple of the parish church, crowned recently by a strange bit of modern art, supposed to be Christ's crown of thorns, to replace the original stone spire, which fell off. Not sure if it quite fits...

One of the palace's towers. We were allowed to wander through nearly all of the castle at will and to climb the spiral staircases inside of the towers.

An inside wall of the palace. The larger depressions are where there were once doorways onto the absent wooden floors. You can see lines of notches beneath their thresholds were the wood was once lodged into the stone.

View through a palace window.

The Great Hall. Isn't that something?

Buras boys for scale next to the fireplace. Needless to say, there was plenty of pretend Medieval warfare going on.

A passageway above the Great Hall.

The entrance courtyard and fountain.

This wall was probably once where sentries paced on guard duty.

A shot inside the palace. Note the fireplace at middle right.

A view from the top.

The guard tower at the highest point of the palace still standing. One could go inside if one so desired, though not to its crown.