Scotland - Day 3

Day 3

Well, today was another cloudy and cold day.  The first stop was the Culloden Battlefield which was the site of the last Jacobite uprising which many mistakenly think was a battle between the Scots and the British or a religious battle between the Catholics and Protestants, but was really just a battle for who two groups wanted to have at the King of England.  Scottish clans fought for both the Jacobite army and the English Government Armies.

The history here was interesting to hear about and to see where it all happened.  The biggest surprise to me was to hear that the mass graves there each contained close to 100 men women and children in each and there were many of them scattered around the battlefield.  If you have some time and interest, you should read up on the history here.

After leaving there, we headed into the city to visit Inverness Castle.  The city turned out to be bigger and busier than I expected and finding a place to park was super difficult.  After all the trouble in finding a place to park, it turned out that the castle isn’t open to walk through and appeared to have been converted into a courthouse or something.  There was entry to the highest tower though which would give you a 360 degree view of the city so I had to go up and take a look and shoot a few photos from up there.  It was so windy up there though that I couldn’t stay up there too long.

There was one last stop today but that one stop turned into two when we passed by this very old graveyard and church.  After a short stop here we continued on to see Red Castle.  We learned from a local that the castle was now a ruin.  The owners of the castle had been hit with extremely high taxes on the castle and were at risk of losing everything and so they burned the castle down, or at least attempted to destroy it.  There was nothing left but the stone walls…. And then this is all that was left of those after all these years.  The ruins were off limits though due to its protected status and the fact that it had become too dangerous to enter any longer.