Culloden Moor or another day in Edinburgh?

Posted by Linnae (Minneapolis/St. Paul) on 07/31/24 02:13 PM

Hello! I will be heading to Scotland in late August/early September. I'm flying into Glasgow and then taking the train to Aviemore for a few days to hike/be in nature before heading back to Edinburgh to connect with a multi-day Rabbie's tour. I'll have three days in Edinburgh on the back end (one of those days will include a trip to Stirling Castle) before flying out of Glasgow again.

I'm debating if I should spend one of my Aviemore days going to Culloden Moor/Clava Cairns (about a 40 minute train ride), or give myself another day in Edinburgh? I know there will always be more things to see than what I have time for :-). As a note, I'm traveling solo (minus the Rabbie's tour), and I would consider myself a fairly "efficient" traveler. E.g., I don't speed through sites just to check them off my list, but I'd say I probably process what I'm seeing a bit faster than the average traveler, thus when I'm traveling solo I can pack quite a bit more in than when I travel with others.

Posted by gramwalt

07/31/24 03:07 PM

87 posts

We really enjoyed Clava Cairns. It had a spooky feeling to it. (But not in a bad way-LOL) It's down the road from the Culloden Battle site.

If you have time, farther down the road a bit is the Cawdor Castle which is open for tours, which we found to be delightful. https://www.cawdorcastle.com/ That was our favorite site of these three places we visited that day.

Posted by isn31c

Lake District, England

07/31/24 03:16 PM

7299 posts

Culloden Moor is 40 minutes by train to Inverness then a further half hour by hourly bus #27, from the almost adjacent bus station.
So hit the timings wrong and it could take you 2 hours each way.
Sometimes the connection may work better from the other end of the bus route at Inverness Airport Railway Station.
If you don't go down to the Airport the best way to ticket that is to buy an Inverness Plusbus ticket with your train ticket, for unlimited buses in Greater Inverness that day.

Posted by TC

Atlanta

07/31/24 03:53 PM

5138 posts

...spend one of my Aviemore days going to Culloden Moor/Clava Cairns...or give myself another day in Edinburgh...

We found Culloden and Clava Cairns both to be very moving sites. Culloden was of particlar interest to me because many of my ancestors came from Scotland. Historically, Culloden was a very big and important event, and some have compared it to the more modern D-Day battles. If we find ourselves close enough, we'll probably go to both of them again. But the really inportant thing to consider is your interest and what you want to do -- not just what we think.

Posted by wasleys

Lincolnshire, UK

07/31/24 04:51 PM

2194 posts

A lot depends on what you like... and no one else can answer that for you!

I visited Culloden earlier this year (after a long, long gap) and enjoyed it much more than I expected. There is a very good visitor centre and a guided tour of the battlefield is included in with the entry price. This is well worth doing as it begins to put the battle into context and the absolute shambles it was. You really do need to understand the history and backgground to appreciate the site. Not only was it the last battle to be fought on British soil, a victory for the Jacobites really would have altered the course of British History. Although there are information panels around the battlefield, if you just walk round the battlefield, you will miss a lot.

Clava Cairns is now very much on the tourist itinerary and popular as it is believed to be the inspiration for Craig na Dun in the very popular TV series ’Outlanders’. The cairns date from 3000-4000 years ago and are a major prehistoric site. I've always been fascinated by then.

There would be no contest as far as I was concerned , but then different people like different things...