Glenfinnan, on the shores of Loch Shiel, is significant as the location of Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter films. Harry Potter fans will also recognize the viaduct of the West Highland Railway, which the Hogwarts Express takes to get to the school (and under which Ron and Harry drove a flying car). But Glenfinnan is also historically significant as the location where Bonnie Prince Charlie (Prince Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of the exiled King James II), and the clansmen he gathered (known as the Jacobites), raised his standard in 1745 – ultimately leading to the Battle of Culloden and his retreat to France, never to return.
I took photos of both the monument to the Prince, as well as the distant location of Hogwarts on the edge of the loch, and the viaduct. I still haven’t ridden the train, but I did get it chugging along, blowing its whistle and belching out steam, on video on a later trip.
Close to the Isle of Skye, three sea lochs – Loch Duich, Loch Long, and Loch Alsh – meet at a little island called Eilean Donan. On the island is one of the most photographed castles in Scotland. The castle was originally founded in the 13th century by the Mackenzies and was destroyed by government ships in 1719 due to the owner’s involvement in the Jacobite rebellions. Between 1919 and 1932, the castle was restored and has been open to the public since 1955. We didn’t get to tour it on this trip, but I did a few years later. Loved it! It has been used in several films, most notably in “Highlander”.
Further north, the waters of Loch Maree were once thought to have curative powers – as a cure for lunacy. I can just hear my friends and family who are reading this saying, “Did you have your swimsuit with you?” Due to its remote location, it doesn’t get a lot of tourists. But it is beautiful.
On the shores of Loch Ness are the remains of Urquhart Castle. Nessie is rumored to hide out in an underwater cavern beneath the castle. The present castle ruins date from the 13th to the 16th centuries and was built over the ruins of a medieval castle. It is now one of the most visited castles in Scotland and is one of the largest in area.
After a photo stop at Urquhart, we went on to the Loch Ness Centre & Exhibition at Drumnadrochit. It was an interesting collection of items, photos, etcetera of Nessie through the years, beginning with a reported encounter between St Columba (the guy who founded the monastery on Iona) and the monster in 565. Just outside (after an extensive gift shop) is a replica of what Nessie is thought to look like in a pond. Then we boarded boats for a ride on the loch.
I love to go for boats rides, so was perfectly happy to go out on the loch and look for Nessie. It was a beautiful, calm day with very little wind, so the water was as smooth as glass. The water is quite murky because of the high content of peat, so any rolling water looks black and looks like there could be something large and black moving just below the surface. The wake of the boat frequently looked like something could be following us. Add to this the fact that the loch is exceptionally deep. The entire Eiffel Tower could be upended and immersed in Loch Ness with room to spare.
It is really quite a pretty place. Due to the Loch Ness Monster legend, however, over the years the loch and the area around it, has attracted all sorts of people looking for monsters, or practicing witchcraft and/or other dark arts. They had a fairly prominent warlock (male witch) living on the shore in a pretty good-sized house and estate back in the late 1800s. I seem to remember them saying that he met a rather odd end — something to do with a kelpie (a legendary water horse, prevalent in Scotland, that likes to drown people).
We stayed the night in an old Victorian hotel just across the river from Inverness Castle (which is where the government offices are located). We really enjoyed the hotel’s atmosphere, food and location. After dinner, we went for a walk along the river and over the bridge to the other side and back. It was in the river where St. Columba had his encounter with the Loch Ness Monster, which was supposedly why it fled the river to the loch.
Our next stop was the Culloden Battlefield. The date was 9/11 in 2003 and was raining hard when we got there. They didn’t yet have much for visitors to see (now there is plenty to see and do, including a wonderful visitor center) and we hiked quite a ways in the mud to get to what little could be seen. But the tour director led us in a moment of silence and prayer once we got to the small memorial they had at the time.
In 1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s followers, who were mostly Scottish Highland Clansmen, faced down a much larger force of the British Army and some Scots who weren’t interested in backing the Stuart claim to the throne. The battle itself didn’t last long. Those Jacobites who backed Bonnie Prince Charlie who weren’t killed outright, we either slaughtered in the aftermath or taken as prisoners to Carlisle or the Tower of London. Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped and fled to the Isle of Skye (where the whole story of Flora McDonald comes in) and on to France.
The kilt, bagpipes, tartan in general, the Scots Gaelic language – basically anything really Scottish – were outlawed. No Scotsman could own a weapon of any kind and large numbers of entire Scottish families fled to Australia, Canada, and the American Colonies (which is one reason, along with the later Highland Clearances, why so many Scots ended up in places other than Scotland). The song “Auld Lang Syne” that everybody sings on New Year’s Eve was written about the “Days Long Ago” before all of this happened. The British National Anthem, “God Save the King/Queen”, was appropriated from the song that had been used by the Jacobites and made its debute four months after the battle. It wasn’t until King George IV made a visit to Scotland in 1822, wearing a kilt, that it started to become okay to be Scottish and keep Scottish traditions again. Later, Queen Victoria’s love of Scotland, and all things Scottish, made it very popular.
After Culloden, we visited a distillery and learned how Scotch whiskey was made. We also found that one of the byproducts of the whiskey distillation process is a cattle feed that is given to the cattle in Scotland. This feed kept them free of the mad cow disease that plagued so much of the rest of Britain. The feed also produces a very tasty meat.
Many of the roads in the Highlands of Scotland are what they call “single track”. This is a single lane road, but with small areas to pull over should you meet someone coming from the opposite direction. The idea is that, whoever is closest to a passing place, pulls over and lets the other party drive past. We were in Braemar and nearing Balmoral when we passed by a fella who had pulled over for us. We found that it was Prince Phillip. He gave us a wave as we went by.
A while later, we stopped in a lovely village for lunch at a pub there. A couple of dogs called the pub home. They walked around and greeted everybody who came in, then found a spot to lie down and keep an eye on everyone. I was missing my dog by that point. They allowed for some petting upon arrival, but then they had a job to do. The pub was very old with lots of dark wood and stone. Very cozy. After lunch, we needed to get across a hump-backed bridge about a mile down the road, so we all got off the bus and walked across to lighten the load.
We turned south near Dundee and arrived in St Andrews for an afternoon break. Most of the people on the tour were interested in the Old Course and the Museum of Golf. The tour coach parked next to the museum. Mom and I were interested in the castle and the cathedral, even though they were in ruins. We nearly flew down the road to get to the castle and maybe see a little of it before we needed to head back to the coach. Unfortunately, the person in front of me in the shop (which was where you also bought the tickets) had loads and loads of questions. So we ended up spending our entire time standing behind this guy, looking at our watches. Our time was up before the other person was finished, so we sighed and headed for the exit. The person behind the register said, “I’ll be with you in a minute.” But we had to respond, “Our time is up. We’re on a tour.”
That can be one problem with a tour – limited time in a location where you’d love to stay longer. But I recently had lunch and an entire afternoon in St. Andrews, which was also on a tour. This tour in 2003 was a short (nine days) introductory tour of Scotland. So all of our visits were fairly short. On longer tours I have had much longer periods of time to see what I want to see. But in 2003, I was just getting a taste of all that Scotland had to offer, which is a lot.
From St Andrews, we continued down to Edinburgh, the topic of the next post.
