Culloden Battlefield

Yesterday was a traveling day as we made our way from St. Andrews, Scotland to Inverness. Along the way, we visited the Glamis Castle (birthplace of the Queen Mother) and enjoyed a very interesting one hour guided tour of the castle. After arriving at our home for the next two nights, Culloden House, Josh and Jessica went off to a local pub to watch the U.S. - Scotland rugby match whilst Claire and I saw some local sights.

Culloden Battlefield was the decisive battle in which the English put down the Jacobite rising of 1745 (led by Bonnie Prince Charlie). There is an informative visitors center as well the best done audio guides I've ever experienced. With GPS tracking, the audio guide recognizes when you've reached a point of interest on the battlefield and provides narration and dramatizations relevant to what you're seeing. I left the battlefield pretty much understanding what happened on that fateful day ... and why.

Our final stop was Clava Cairns, just a few minutes drive from the battlefield. This is a 4,000 year old burial site with several large burial mounds, circled by standing stones. The openings of two of the mounds are situated so that sunlight will illuminate the inside of the burial mound on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. An interesting (and free) attraction that's worth a visit after you see Culloden Battlefield.

copyright  (c)  2015 by David Ourisman LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

... and I'll be in Scotland afore ye

O ye'll take the high road, and I'll take the low road,

And I'll be in Scotland afore ye

Just fifteen days until my next trip, so it's time to start getting excited! I'm headed to Scotland, still part of the United Kingdom, and I'm looking forward to the beautiful, rugged scenery and the opportunities for landscape photography. Photography has been my avocation since childhood, and travel photography is my primary reason to see the world's beauty and capture it on film on my digital camera. I'll be sharing my best shots on Travel Horizons and on Facebook, so ask to friend me if you'd like to see what I see.

My trip to Scotland is also an opportunity to inspect hotels and gain familiarity with the destination so that I can help clients plan their trips. Here are some of the anticipated highlights:

Flying on an Airbus 380. Never before flown on one of these double-decker behemoths, and I'll be on Air France's version, flying business class from SFO-CDG (and connecting on a smaller plane to EDI). I've heard the 380 is eerily quiet — and that AF's 380 business class seat product is flat but not completely horizontal — but I was able to use DL miles for a complete roundtrip in business.

Our itinerary in Scotland starts in Edinburgh where we'll be staying at The Caledonian, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel. From there, we'll take the longer coastal drive to St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf. Due to a tournament going on during our stay, we are not able to stay at the Old Course Hotel. We then we take the high road into the Scottish Highlands, spending two nights near Inverness and another two nights in Wester Ross.

Going south, we head to Oban in the Argyle and Bute region of Scotland. Why Oban? It's the home of Susannah — leisure travel sales manager for Four Seasons London. Her husband owns a B&B on the coast (and they've offered to do our laundry). Our penultimate stop will be the Gleneagles Resort which, I'm told, is the nicest resort in the U.K. Looking forward to being pampered at Gleneagles before our final two nights in Glasgow.

One final day in London where we'll spend the night at The Goring (home to the Middletons the night before the Royal Wedding) and have site inspections of the Rosewood London and newly reopened Lanesborough.

Flying back on Virgin Atlantic from Heathrow to San Francisco, it will be my first experience of Upper Class. If anyone has any tips on how to ensure your limo driver can access Virgin's Upper Class Wing (or anything else I've discussed), please let drop me a note.

copyright (c) 2015 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.