Falkirk Whee!

Yesterday, I went along on yet another Pomona-sponsored excursion where, under the guidance of our Study Abroad Liaison and fearless leader Tom Barron, we travel around this great nation looking at things that we should be looking at. This week: Lilithgow, Stirling and Falkirk. (Pictures and details of the trip to come in subsequent posts.) But first, this.

Above are two pictures of the Falkirk Wheel. I generally do not have any invested interest in architecture and engineering, but I was very impressed by this giant thing-a-ma-jigger. Built in 2001 and christened by the Queen during her Golden Jubilee in 2002, the structure transports ferry boats between the Lowlands two great canals: the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal. The canals were used in the 1800s by the growing industrial companies around Edinburgh and Glasgow and had fallen into disuse by the mid 1900s. In the late '90s, the Scottish Executive decided to refurbish the canals and construct this massive structure to help connect them. Today, it's mainly for use by tourists and casual boaters on holiday. (Apparently, inland boating holidays are kind of a big thing here.)