Highland tourist route

June 12, 2023

Culloden Moor -to- Clava Cairns -to- Urquhart Castle

Sunday June 11

Sunday was our second full day in Scotland. Christine’s husband Herb picked us up from our hotel at 930 and we headed out for a short drive to Culloden Moor. For all of you non Outlander fans - or, ok, history fans, Culloden was the scene of a harrowing battle fought on the 16th of April 1746. It took less than an hour. Contrary to popular belief the battle was not between England and Scotland but between the Jacobites and the Hanoverians (royal house of German origins). The Jacobites were led by the infamous Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie. The main aim of the Jacobites was to reinstate the Stuart line to the British throne. Culloden was the last pitched battle on British soil and, in less than an hour, around 1,300 men were slain – about 1,250 of them Jacobites.

Then we headed to a group of standing stones called Clava Cairns. The Clava cairn is a type of Bronze Age circular chamber tomb cairn. There were 3 tomb areas and a temple area. To get there, we had to go down a fairly scary one track road. When a car was coming at you, one or the other had to pull off to the side in little cutoffs. We made it in and out in one piece! Along that road there was also a very high train trestle that looked very Roman aqueduct-ish.

Last but not least in the tourist mode, we went to Urquhart Castle along Loch Ness. Once one of Scotland’s largest castles, Urquhart saw great conflict during its 500 years as a medieval fortress. Control of the castle passed back and forth between the Scots and English during the Wars of Independence. The power struggles continued, as the Lords of the Isles regularly raided both castle and glen up until the 1500s. We showed up at the castle and the people at the gate looked at us like we were crazy that we hadn’t bought our tickets ahead of time and sent us away. Christine saved the day by immediately going online and getting us the last 3 tickets for entrance into the castle in 10 minutes! Yeah! As a side note, we have seen many tourists on this trip, but we saw the most nationalities of any other place at Urquhart Castle.

After the touring, we headed to our condo for the week, and for a great dinner in Dornoch Scotland. More about that tomorrow.

Mary

Ps I don’t have any pictures - yet - but I got to see my first Scottish hairy coo (cow) today!

The next 13 pictures are from our visit to the Culloden Moor battleground.

The day started out just a wee bit rainy, but quickly cleared up.

We decided to take the guided tour of the battle site, so here we are waiting for the guide to start

The red flags denoted the Government line. There aren’t any pictures with the blue flags which denoted the Jacobite line.

The low scrub is called Gorse which is a very thorny bush. At the time of the battle it covered the landscape.

This memorial marker and all the grave markers were installed 100 years after the war. It is very very unlikely that they indicate the clans correctly. But the area is all a beautiful memorial.

Listening intently

Of course I would put this marker first.

By the markers were several mounds where approximately 100 men were buried in each.

A view of the mounds.

This house served as a field hospital for the government troops.

One last look back at Culloden. I am so glad we visited.

Clava Cairns. This stone, that we are trying to commune with, was in a ring of stones outside of a temple area and seemed to have something to do with the yearly calendar, but who knows? We tried, but didn’t hear any buzzing or feel like we were transporting. But then again, it wasn’t summer solstice. The next 8 pictures are from the same place ending with the one where I tried to escape through the stones again!

This was a tomb surrounded by a ring of standing stones. There was a big storm in the background- notice the clouds.

Temple of stone above and below is a tomb.

Christine and I checked out the inside of the tombs (top and bottom pictures). They would have been covered with rock ceilings that have collapsed.

Christine thought this looked like a Ent.

Nope -still didn’t work!

This train trestle outside of Clava Cairns was really cool looking and looked like the Harry Potter train trestle (but it wasn’t).

Hello from Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness. We saw Nessie, but weren’t quick enough with our cameras. The next eleven pictures are different views of the castle. We had a great time wandering around the ruins.