On the way in from the Inverness Airport on Thursday my shameful ignorance of historic Scottish geography was exposed as we saw a sign to the Culloden Battlefield. Whoa! I didn't know it was right here!Thanks to intriguing info in our Rick Steves travel book, we decided to visit the site Friday morning and were so glad this bit of serendipity happened. The brand new visitor center is full of great displays that illuminate every aspect of this sad, but significant, story. Including a 360° video immersion room where you're in the middle of the battle, as staged by some very convincing re-enactors.
And walking the battlefield itself is a moving, haunting experience. Especially with the wind howling as it was on our day (or maybe it's like this all the time?). I haven't done much battlefield touring but my appetite was whetted by this experience. We even, perhaps, saw a marker of family history in this mournful place: were some of our Stewart relatives being memorialized by the stone shown above? Here's a panoramic view of the site. The large stone structure in the distance is a memorial cairn.
Right on the outskirts of the largest city in northern Scotland, with suburban housing developments looking on nearby, it still has a feel of the world of 1746, when much of modern history was, possibly, decided.
Rick Steves also noted another historical site nearby that sounded worth visiting—the Clava Cairns at Balnuaran. It's just minutes from the Battlefield, but being there takes you back thousands of years. The site is always open and no admission is charged, but it does have informative information boards that point out interesting archaeological features. In the midst of a lovely stand of trees, with the wind rustling through their nearly bare branches, it could have been a spooky place, but I rather found it to be peaceful and calming. I wonder if it would feel differently to stand there in the springtime? Autumn seems the perfect season for it.
Here's the first cairn we came to, looking head on into its entrance-way, which was aligned with sunset on the winter solstice.
And here's what the center of the last of the cairns looks like close up:
As a bonus, each cairn was ringed with smaller versions of the Avebury stones, one of which you
can see at the left.An altogether fascinating place! And so easy to get to and visit. Rick Steves is certainly a genius at what he does—finding neat stuff to recommend to travelers! However, I will be dropping him an email about his directions to Culloden, which need some revising. We also thought we'd email the visitor center about their highway signage: there's a brown-cultural sign at the turn-off when you're heading to Inverness from the airport, but not one heading the other way! (Tip: take the first turn you see marked Culloden.) We did a bit of extra driving trying to find it, and it's such a wonderful place they should make it as easy as possible for people to visit.
