Who’s the king of the castles?

On Sunday and Monday we got to explore two more Scottish castles, both very different.

The weather forecast was for fine-ish weather for Sunday but heavy rain on Monday so we planned around the weather, again. On Sunday we drove south down the west of Loch Ness and took a boat ride on the Loch. It took us up close to Urquhart castle, or at least, the ruins of it. After the boat ride we went to the castle itself and had a look around. As per many castles over the centuries it had parts built on, knocked down, rebuilt etc. In it’s heyday it would have been quite something as it was rather large and sitting on the edge of the lake/loch it would have been rather prominent.

This was taken a day or so later but it looks amazing with the mist surrounding it

In the afternoon we visited a heritage site called Culloden where a battle took place in 1746 between Bonnie Prince Charlie’s sympathisers, known as Jacobites, and the government forces. The battle was very short and bloody with over 1500 Jacobites being killed in less than an hour, while government troops only lost about 50. We looked around the museum and then were able to walk around the battlefield outside. By this time it was drizzling with rain which made the place even more sombre. (Sorry no photos of this due to rain)

Monday was raining as predicted so we headed north of Inverness to see Dunrobin castle. This is a complete contrast to Urquhart. It is not in ruins, for a start, and is still owned by descendants of the original Earl. This place was built like a French chateau with turrets etc and beautifully laid out gardens, still being kept ever so precisely today. We were able to view a large number of rooms with furniture and clothing belonging to various generations of the family on display. But one of the highlights of this castle is that there is a fabulous collection of paintings. They were stunning and I’m sure art lovers and those who know their painters would have been more wowed than us.

One of the lowlights of Dunrobin is that the owners in the early 20th century (can’t remember if they are Earls or Dukes) were into trophy hunting and seemed to have done many hunting trips to Africa and Asia. As we were walking around the house we saw animal heads and mats made from lions and tigers (with heads still attached) There is also a building on the grounds set up as a museum to house all thee taxidermed animals (or heads) or even skeletons. We took a quick look in the door and exited quickly. We have seen a number of trophy animals in places throughout our trip and can’t help but think how far the world has come (thankfully) in the past century regarding protecting wildlife, even though we know hunting still happens, but not to the same extent as previously, we hope.