After a night in Liverpool, the four of us continued our journey up to Scotland where we’d be spending the next 1.5 weeks. We had five different places that we’d be staying at in Scotland, the first of which was Falkirk.
None of us had ever been to Falkirk before, but there were a couple of quirky attractions there that we wanted to check out. Here’s what we got up to on that third day.
A British-American Breakfast
The hotel we stayed at in Liverpool didn’t have breakfast included in the room rate, so after a quick bit of shopping to pick up a couple of things, we grabbed breakfast before checking out.
It ended up being a bit of a British-American affair. Just around the corner from our hotel was a Dunkin’ store which might not seem all that special considering how ubiquitous they are in the US, but there are currently only ~35 of them in the UK.
It’s always interesting going to US chains overseas as they usually have some different foodstuffs to those back in the US and Dunkin’ in the UK was no exception. There were all kinds of flavors I don’t remember seeing in the US, including some that came filled with caramel and then topped with Biscoff cookies and caramel.
Other donuts included Lemon Zing Zang Meringue, Hazelnut Pie which came both filled with and topped with Nutella, another that had Nutella icing and which was topped with a Kit-Kat and more.
It initially seemed like they didn’t have any savory/protein breakfast items to go with the donuts (it turned out that they did), so we popped over to Greggs which was opposite the Dunkin’ to get bacon sandwiches and sausage sandwiches. Greggs is a large UK bakery chain and you’ll find one – or many – in every town in England.
Motorway Services Lunch
It was a ~4 hour drive from Liverpool to Falkirk, so we ended up stopping for lunch along the way. In the US, highway rest areas usually just consist of restrooms, a couple of vending machines and some picnic tables. Because the UK is much smaller, the motorway services (as they’re known) come much better equipped.
There’s usually a large building with restrooms, several restaurants and stores, a gas station and electric vehicle charging stations, as well as a hotel in many cases. The Moto Southwaite Northbound that we stopped at had a Greggs, Burger King, Pret A Manger, WHSmith, Costa Coffee and a Krispy Kreme stand inside, along with a West Cornwall Pasty Co food truck outside.
It’s always hard to say no to a Cornish pasty, so I got my lunch from West Cornwall Pasty. This was a traditional pasty containing beef, potatoes, and swede and was delicious.
When walking around Guildford the previous week, Shae had seen a sign in a Costa Coffee store advertising their Nacho Chilli Cheese & Chicken Toastie. She’d tried to get one elsewhere a few days before, but they were out that day. However, the Costa Coffee at this service station had them available, so she had that for lunch. She really enjoyed it, so it’s definitely something she’d get again.
The Falkirk Wheel
A couple of years ago, I’d seen a video of The Falkirk Wheel. It’s the world’s only rotating boat lift, transporting barges (narrowboats) from the Forth & Clyde Canal below to the Union Canal above and vice versa. Canals normally use a system of locks to move barges up and downhill, but this solution is much faster and elegant. Here’s a quick video showing it in action:
I’d been interested in stopping by there to watch it in action in person, but then discovered that we could go one better. Scottish Canals – the organization in charge of the canals and The Falkirk Wheel – sells tickets to take a ride on a barge on The Falkirk Wheel.
We got a little bit unlucky during our visit because their regular couple of boats weren’t working properly. That meant they had to borrow a boat from elsewhere in order to keep running rides which was great. However, a normal tour involves boarding the wheel, ascending to the top and going for a short journey on the canal above before returning down. Due to the makeshift seating on the replacement boat, they weren’t able to take us for the short journey on the canal, so we simply did a full rotation on the wheel instead.
The Falkirk Wheel rotates fairly slowly. It moves fast enough to be able to see that you’re moving, but not fast enough to actually feel the motion. In all, it took about five minutes to rotate 180° and reach the top.
The Union Canal is 35 meters (115 feet) above the Forth & Clyde Canal below, although The Falkirk Wheel only lifts barges 25 meters (82 feet). As a result, the barges have to traverse two locks at the top of the wheel in order to journey the final 10 meters (33 feet) “uphill”.
Once at the top, the rotation stopped for about 10 minutes and we were able to go out to the front of the boat to look around. The crew on the boat pointed out a few of the different sights in the distance, such as the Kelpies which we were off to see next.
After looking around, it was time to head back down. Although our trip was truncated compared to the normal experience, it was still fun getting to experience this feat of engineering.
The Kelpies
After finishing our ride on The Falkirk Wheel, we made the short drive to The Kelpies. These are two sculptures of the heads of mythical water horses that are 30 meters (almost 100 feet) tall.
We visited later afternoon, then returned that night as they get lit up after dark.
We wrote separately about the Kelpies, so check out this post for more.
Rosebank Distillery
The purpose of our trip up to Scotland was to visit as many Scotch whisky distilleries as possible for my birthday. Our first distillery – in theory – was Rosebank Distillery in Falkirk.
I’d come across this when looking for places to eat and drink near our hotel, as it was just across the road. We figured we’d be able to do some kind of tasting of Rosebank whisky and maybe take some to go.
That sadly didn’t work out as planned. You can do a tasting at Rosebank Distillery, but only as part of a distillery tour and we arrived too late that day to do one of those. As we took a look around the gift shop though, they did pour us a complimentary dram of their Malt of the Moment – a cask-strength bottle of Glengoyne.
The whisky was very good, but at £65 (~$87) for a bottle, we decided to save our money for other whiskey later in our trip.
Premier Inn Falkirk Central Hotel
As mentioned above, our hotel that night was just across the road from Rosebank Distillery. When planning our trip, I figured we wouldn’t end up spending much time at our hotel in Falkirk, so all we needed was somewhere cheap, clean and comfortable to spend the night.
There’s a large hotel chain in the UK called Premier Inn which fits that bill. Their properties are always reasonably priced and provide a consistent experience. From what I can remember, there are three Premier Inns in Falkirk; the one we booked was the Premier Inn Falkirk Central.
The room was only £47 (~$63) which was great value, although we did also pay an extra £10.99 (~$14.75) per person for breakfast in the morning. As expected, our room was indeed clean and comfortable and we got a decent night’s sleep that night before continuing on to Fort William where we’d be staying somewhere much more exciting – a castle! More about that in a future post 🙂
Saga 2025 Trip To London, Liverpool & Scotland – All The Posts
Here are links to all of the posts in this series:
- Saga 2025: Trip With Friends To London, Liverpool & Scotland – An Intro
- Saga 2025 Day 1: London – Police Station Hotel, British Museum, Dinner In Darkness & Abbey Road
- Saga 2025 Day 2: Liverpool – Cavern Club, Hard Day’s Night Hotel, Cocktails & More
- Visiting The Kelpies In Falkirk, Scotland By Day & By Night
- Saga 2025 Day 3: Falkirk – Kelpies, World’s Only Rotating Boat Lift & More
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