Forvie National Nature Reserve, north of Aberdeen at the estuary of the River Ythan.
 
   

Monument erected in 1911 on the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Harlaw commemorating the men from Aberdeen who fought there. It was a major indecisive battle between Highlanders and Lowlanders and many died on both sides.  The story of the battle is also told in a well-known traditional song named after it:

"...Gin onybody spier at ye o' them that marched awa'
I'll tell ye plain and very plain they're sleepin' at Harlaw"

   The site of the battle (approximately)
   


The ruins of Kildrummy Castle above its gardens.


Driving through Cairngorms National Park... To the right is Corgarff Castle, which was used as a Jacobite base and turned into a barracks for the British military forces in the aftermath of the risings.
 

The cliffs on the coast of the North Sea, near Gardenstown in Moray and the ruins of St. John's Chapel above them.
   

We went for a trip on a boat called the Puffin to look for wildlife along the coast between MacDuff/Banff and Troup Head, which is a promontory that has a colony of gannets. We saw lots of birds - a few puffins (but no pictures of them), razorbills, guillemots, seagulls (obviously), shags, and gannets.  There were also Minke whales farther out to sea, and common seals laying on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs.
 
< the gannet colony at Troup Head























This is one of my favorite castles that I've seen. We had to walk out to the highest part of the headlands before we could even see it and then we looked down and there it was, way out on a promontory. A castle was built here in the 13th century and inhabited until the mid-1600s when the Ogilvie family abandoned it in favor of a new (more easily accessible) residence at Cullen.






The ruins of Elgin Cathedral.  It was abandoned around the time of the Reformation.


   
   



Inverness and the River Ness (looking north towards the city centre)


The battlefield of Culloden, 1746, a very bloody day and decisive turning point in British and Scottish history.  The Jacobite army under Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) marched through the night hoping to surprise the forces under Lord Cumberland, but they failed to do so and instead went into battle exhausted.  In about an hour the Jacobite army was routed and took heavy losses. In the aftermath Bonnie Prince Charlie made his escape to the Highlands and finally to France, never to return, and Cumberland gained his nickname 'The Butcher' for his harsh treatment of Jacobite supporters and the local population.