Historic St. Andrews and Medieval Edinburgh Scotland

We end our trip to Scotland by stopping off at Culloden, then to a picturesque Blair Castle in Pitlochry, historic St. Andrews and medieval Edinburgh. Here is the path we took on our trip:

Culloden

The battle of Culloden in 1745 was the last battle between the Scottish and English. You may remember from my earlier blog that King Henry 8th started the protestant movement after the pope refused to allow him to have a divorce from his first wife. This was in 1521 and during the time between 1521 and 1745, Britan’s aim was to spread Protestantism throughout the UK and to convert Catholics to Protestants.

Bonnie Prince Charles Stuart was a Catholic and a Jacobite (loyal to King James) and wanted the Catholics to regain the British throne. Prince Charles was Scottish and he found backing from a long-standing Scottish alley: France. After years of fund-raising and planning for a rebellion, the battle was short. It took less than an hour for the Jacobite rebellion to be over and Culloden was the battlefield.  Almost 2,000 Jacobites were killed in the brief yet bloody battle.

We visited the Culloden battlefield during our visit to Scotland. Not much remains but an open field and a few headstones that mark the clans that participated in the rebellion.

During our visit to Scotland, I learned a lot of British and Scottish history. One of the travellers in our group mentioned a Starz TV series called Outlander. After returning from our trip, we began to watch the TV series and really enjoyed it.

It begins in 1945 when a British combat nurse witnesses a witch ceremony that transports her back to 1743, just 2 years prior to the battle of Culloden. She falls in love with a Jacobite Scottish warrior who is part of the planning of the rebellion. Being from 1945, she knew the fate of the rebellion and works to try to prevent it. It is a really cool concept for a show.

Blair Castle in Pitlochry

Our next stop was Blair Castle, a castle occupied by several Jacobites including Bonnie Prince Charles Stuart twice.

The castle is quite a spectacle surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Historic St. Andrews

Making our way towards Edinborough, we stopped off at St. Andrews Cathedral, a Roman Catholic cathedral built in 1158, long before King Henry 8th tried to put Catholicism behind the British empire.

As you can see, it sits in ruins today because in 1559, the new Protestants stripped the cathedral of its altars and images. By 1561, it was abandoned and fell into ruin.

Just steps from the cathedral is the University of St. Andrews, the college where Prince William and Kate met. They pointed out the coffee shop where they met as we made our way to the cathedral.

Our next stop was at the St. Andrews Golf Course, the iconic Scottish golf course that’s known to most as the “home of golf” because golf was first played there in the 15th century.

The Old Course is the home of The Open Championship and has hosted this major 29 times since 1873, most recently in 2015.

Medieval Edinburgh Scotland

Our final stop in Scotland was the Medieval city of Edinburgh. It is also the capital of Scotland and the 2nd most populous city. Notice the castle at the top right of the picture below, it is the Edinburgh Castle.

The castle is heavily fortified with cannons.

From the top of the castle, you can see the entire city.

Our guide was a stoutly Scottish fellow with a bit of disdane for the Brits. As he told us about the history of the castle, he intermingled British jabs along the way.

If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, Edinburgh will feel very at home to you. JK Rowling lived here while she wrote the Harry Potter series. She wrote a lot of the script in a coffee shot on Potter street and was influenced by the medieval look of Edinburgh. The owner of that coffee shop was named Harry. Howarts was influenced by this Edinburgh building:

During our stay in Edinburgh, we were lucky that the 2016 Royal Military Tatoo was being held. It was an incredible parade of military bands, music, dance and theater. It is held at the base of the Edinburgh castle at the beginning of nightfall. They shine images on the walls of the castle that are in time with the playing of the band. It’s really not possible to fully appreciate this event unless you see it yourself. One of the more moving parts of the show was a lone bagpipe man playing atop the castle.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed following along with our trip to Ireland and Scotland. In case you missed any of the other blog posts, here is a full journey of our trip:

• Dublin Ireland – 10 million pints of Guinness
• Waterford Ireland – Studs, Crystal and Craic
• Ring of Kerry, Ireland: Vistas, Limericks, and Spoons
• Galway, Ireland: A Cosmopolitan College Town
• A Tale of 2 Countries: Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland
• Giant’s Causeway and Belfast Northern Ireland
• Scotland: Glasgow and Isle of Skye
• Searching for Nessie, 007 and Herding Sheep in Scotland

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Searching for Nessie, 007 and Herding Sheep in Scotland

The next leg of our trip to Scotland takes us to Loch Ness, Eilean Donan Castle, and to a small sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands. Here’s our route so far:

Loch Ness

From an early age, I learned about the Loch Ness monster. Portrayed as an aquatic dinosaur, it has eluded capture for ages. I was happy that we were visiting the famous home of Nessie.

There have been accounts of an aquatic beast living in Loch Ness for 1,500 years but the first official sighting was in 1933 as reported by the Inverness Courier.  Since then, there have been numerous sightings tracked here.

In the 1960s several British universities launched expeditions to Loch Ness, using sonar to search the deep. Nothing conclusive was found, but in each expedition the sonar operators detected large, moving underwater objects they could not explain. In 1975, Boston’s Academy of Applied Science combined sonar and underwater photography in an expedition to Loch Ness. A photo resulted that, after enhancement, appeared to show the giant flipper of a plesiosaur-like creature.

Loch Ness is a beautiful lake surrounded by rolling hills.

It is a huge lake, there is more water in this lake than all the other lakes in Scotland, England and Wales put together.

The lake is over 22 miles long and a depth of 754 feet.

Inverness

Our next stop was Inverness. Inverness is located on the River Ness at the end of Loch Ness.

We only spent a few hours in Inverness but if I return I would like to spend a lot more time here. It is a large enough city to have lots of things to do yet it felt like a quaint city with a lot of character.

It also home to the Inverness Castle, a red sandstone structure that was erected in 1836 by architect William Burn.

Earlier castles have stood where Inverness Castle is located today and have been recorded as far back as 1548. Here is a drawing of The Castle of Inverness of 1548 (thanks to Wikipedia for the photo).

Eilean Donan Castle

On our way to Culloden, we made our way to Eilean Donan Castle.

Eilean Donan is one of the most iconic images of Scotland. Located on an island where 3 lakes meet, it is surrounded by beautiful hills, valleys, and lakes.

First inhabited around the 6th century, the first fortified castle was built in the mid 13th century and guarded the lands of Kintail. Since then, at least four different versions of the castle have been built and re-built.

It has also been home to numerous movie sets. In 1986, Highlander was shot here. If you’re a James Bond fan like me, you may remember the 1999 movie “The World is Not Enough“, parts of it were filmed here.

Sheep Herding

It was a real treat to stop at a working sheep farm. I was taken aback at how the farmer had such incredible control over his dogs. He would send a single dog out to round up dozens of sheep and the dog would take direction from whistles and hand gestures.  Many times the dog would be a quarter mile away and could still hear his commands.

Pictures can’t do this justice, you would have to see it in action to truly appreciate it.

 

Next Stop: Edinburgh

We spent 2 weeks on this trip to Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and I will finish up our trip blog next week. The last blog will cover our visit to Culloden, St. Andrews, and Edinburgh, Scotland.

If you are not subscribed to our blog and would like to subscribe so that new posts come directly to your email, scroll up to the right top section of this page and type in your email address.

If you missed the prior posts, you can see them here:

• Dublin Ireland – 10 million pints of Guiness
• Waterford Ireland – Studs, Crystal and Craic
• Ring of Kerry, Ireland: Vistas, Limericks, and Spoons
• Galway, Ireland: A Cosmopolitan College Town
• A Tale of 2 Countries: Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland
• Giant’s Causeway and Belfast Northern Ireland
• Scotland: Glasgow and Isle of Skye

 

 

Scotland: Glasgow and the Isle of Skye

The next leg of our trip takes us out of Ireland and into Scotland. We started our trip in Glasgow and made our way up to the Isle of Skye. Here is a retrace of our trip so far:

Glasgow

Our introduction to Scotland was a scenic ferry ride from Northern Ireland to Scotland. We drove up to Glasgow — the largest city in Scotland.  Glasgow is like any large metropolitan area, it has lots of shopping and restaurants. The city center has statues and is the gathering place for tourists and locals alike.

They have a difficult time keeping the younger crowd from putting pylon cones on the statues in town, I took a quick picture of one on the back of Queen Elizabeth’s statue. As soon as the officials take them down, someone puts them back up again.

While we were there, they had a tennis court where you could receive serves from one of their more famous celebrities, Andy Murray. Of course, it was not the real Andy Murray, it was a machine that serves the ball as fast as Andy. If you were able to return 1 out of 2 serves, they would enter your name into a drawing for a prize. If you want to see my pitiful attempt at this, check it out here.

Glengoyne Distillery

In the neighboring community of Glengoyne sits a distillery for fine Scotch. It is located in a beautiful valley. In Gaelic, Glen means valley — that’s why you’ve heard of other Scotch whiskeys like Glenfiddich, they mostly put the distilleries in the valleys because it is away from the hustle and bustle of cities.

While there, we toured the distillery and were able to sample their Scotch. I’m not much of a Scotch drinker but it was very smooth.

We capped off our day with a dinner at Arta, a hip restaurant in the middle of Glasgow.

It had a cool and funky vibe, we walked into the restaurant with James Brown playing over the speakers.

It was described as a Mediterranean restaurant but it was an eclectic mix of styles. It was a very interesting place to eat, I would highly recommend it if you find yourself in Glasgow.

Loch Lomond

Our next stop was Loch Lomond. By the way, Loch means lake in Gaelic, so when you hear of Loch Ness or Loch Lomond, you will know it is a lake.

After boarding our boat, we toured Loch Lomond. Each year, thousands of people hike the nearby mountains and Loch Lomond is a stop along their way.

As you cruise around the lake, you see hotels and waterfalls, it’s breathtaking.

Isle of Skye

After a quick visit to Loch Loman, we headed north towards Isle of Skye. To get there, you must take another ferry. Isle of Skye is made up of a lot of sheep farms and fishing villages.

The island is pretty remote and you can’t count on Internet or other modern conveniences we’ve come accustomed to. The hotels are very basic but the scenery is wonderful. The hotel we stayed in had a dock that fishing boats came and went from.

There were some really old boats that I had to capture on camera.

Next Stop: Loch Ness

We spent 2 weeks on this trip to Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, so I will continue chronicling our journeys over the coming weeks. The next blog will cover our visit to the Loch Ness Scotland (maybe we will spot the Loch Ness monster).

If you are not subscribed to our blog and would like to subscribe so that new posts come directly to your email, scroll up to the right top section of this page and type in your email address.

If you missed the prior posts, you can see them here:

• Dublin Ireland – 10 million pints of Guinness
• Waterford Ireland – Studs, Crystal and Craic
• Ring of Kerry, Ireland: Vistas, Limericks and Spoons
• Galway, Ireland: A Cosmopolican College Town

• A Tale of 2 Countries: Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

• Giant’s Causeway and Belfast Northern Ireland