Apparently Falkirk is not a big tourist destination - especially in winter. For us, it was easier than staying in Edinburgh, but most importantly, it is home to the Falkirk Wheel, a big deal for engineers all around the world. More on that later.
We stayed in a cute little 1st floor (that means up a flight of stairs) flat that overlooked the Forth and Clyde canal. We had four windows that overlooked the canal, and that first night when I couldn't sleep (thank you jet lag!), I dreamed of getting outside and walking/biking along that canal.
View at night
View in the morning
And finally we unpacked everything and I got out my new baby bike, which survived checked luggage just fine.
Riding on the canal paths was just as good as I hoped!
One direction about 2 miles along the canal took me to the Kelpies.
The other direction took me to the famed Falkirk Wheel. It was closed for renovations, but you can start to see the scale of this engineering feat. Canal boats transiting from the Union Canal (high up in the air here) to the Forth and Clyde can float into the top part of the wheel, then rotate down to the lower level.
Back on the Forth and Clyde, there were almost 10 small locks between us and the Falkirk Wheel. If we'd been on a canal boat, we would have opened and closed these ourselves - not like the lock and dams in Minnesota!
Pretty canal boat.
Wendy took a turn on the baby bike!
The canal was teeming with birds, including these swans.
Incidentally, Falkirk is also a historic town. Falkirk sits on a hill/ridge, so it's no wonder the Antoine wall runs though it - the furthest extent of the Roman empire into Britain, around 140 AD. The Romans didn't hold this line very long, falling back to the Hadrian wall until they retreated from Britain altogether in 450 AD.
There's a kirk from the 7th century, and the "current" town dates from at least the 1700s.
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