Culloden and Edinburgh- Saturday, Aug 3, 2013

We deliberately took longer to get up this morning because we knew today was going to be a long day.  We left the bed and breakfast after 9:00, and went to the other side of Inverness to the Culloden battlefield.

Perhaps no other battle stands out in Scottish lore the way that Culloden does.  It was here, in 1746, the Bonnie Prince Charlie led his Highlanders against the redcoats of the government in an attempt to retake the throne of Britain.  His defeat here led to a crushing out of the Highland culture.  The events here were long remembered by the Scots, and many songs were written then and later about Bonnie Charlie and his supporters.

The visitors center at Culloden seems quite new and is very innovative in its approach.  First, you wind your way down a hall which has exhibits about the background and causes of the battle, but the left side of the hall gives the story from the government's point of view, and the right side shows the story from the Jacobite point of view.  The hall's two stories come together for a movie about the battle, which is also told in quite an experimental way.   It's shown on four different walls, with the viewers standing in the center, able to turn any direction.  The scene we see before us is the battlefield.  Two of the walls show the Jacobite lines with their kilts, beards, and broadswords.  The other two show the redcoated troops fighting for King George.  A viewer finds himself in the middle of this re-enactment of the Highlander's failed charge, the climax of the battle and the high water mark for Charlie's failed attempt to return.  But through the fight, there is no narration, leaving a viewer alone to make sense of the chaos that breaks out around him.  Julie felt that it needed some narration, but Scott liked this approach.  He felt the visuals here were explained well in the next room and on the battlefield.  Emma was a bit overwhelmed by the fighting shown here though.  The next room explores the battle itself.  There are many artifacts that archeologists have excavated here.  There is an excellent map projected onto a large table.  The view on the map pans and zooms to focus your attention on particular parts of the battle, but all in one continuous shot that appears to show each individual soldier on a 1:1 ratio.  It is also in this room that the girls tried on clothes of the time.  Anna was a soldier of the king, while Emma wore the blue bonnet and kilt of a Highlander.

The battlefield itself was quite stark in its simplicity.  Near the Visitor's Center was a row of four large red flags, marking the line held by the government troops.  Across the field stood four blue flags, marking the starting position of the Jacobites under Prince Charlie.  There was very little else besides some pathways and interpretive signs.  However, there was a large round cairn of stones in between the lines, put there to mark the location of where many of the highland troops were buried, and it is visible from nearly every part of the field.  

The sun was out this morning, but the temperature was cool and the wind was gusting fiercely.  The three girls walked out a short ways on the battlefield and decided the wind was to strong and it was too cold.  The three of them went back into the visitors center where they could rest and use the WiFi.  That meant Scott explored the field on his own, which was nice because it left him alone to contemplate what happened, but also left him juggling two cameras (the video and still cameras), the battlefield audio guide, and his own MP3 player, all in the gusting winds.  The audio guide was interesting because unlike others we've had that require you to put in the number of the spot where you are, this one worked with a GPS signal and automatically knew where you were.  In between its narration, Scott listened to several songs, both old and new, about the battle and the Bonnie Prince.  He was quite moved to be there. 

Online, Julie got directions and tips for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo tonight.  She read that when you go to the Tattoo, you should dress like you're going to a football game, which we hoped in this case meant soccer, not American football (We were wrong).  Either way, the weather has gotten chilly, a far cry from the heat wave we had when we first got to France and London.  The girls needed some long pants and maybe even mittens, hats, and jackets, so we went shopping at a Tetsco, which is kinda like our Walmart or Target.  We got some sandwiches for "take away" there too for a late lunch.  Then we headed south towards Edinburgh, which is over 150 miles from Inverness.  We tried to enforce a nap time on the drive and had the girls put away their iPads for a while.

With a little bit of work, we found our way into Edinburgh and found a place in a parking garage just below Edinburgh Castle where the Tattoo takes place.  We asked for help to find a place to eat, which ended up being an "American" pizza place in the area called Grassmarket.  Then we explored as much of Edinburgh as we could.  The buildings are beautiful, but the roads we found ourselves on seemed to be designed by Escher.  We don't know what Edinburgh is like normally, but we arrived during festival time, which means that it packed with people and is a crazy place.  There were all kinds of people out, including one group of men dressed like rabbits for some reason, and lots of people who would have looked at home in Comic Con.  The Fringe Festival meant that there were many street performers and let's just say, not all of them were great.  One thing we've noticed is that many "street performers" are trying to make an act out of making fun of people around them.  We weren't the targets of any of it this time, but it's not a trend that we like.  We did a little browsing in the Scottish stores.  Scott was very tempted to buy a kilt and even bagpipes, but ended up not getting anything.

As the planning for this trip was coming together, we realized that we had only left about three days to see Scotland and wondered if that would be enough.  When we realized that we could see the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, we figured that we had found a way to really fell like we've seen Scotland.

Our tickets were for the second show tonight, which started at 10:30 and lasted for 90 minutes.  We heard the fighter jets fly over to begin the first show, and around 8:30 we started lining up to go in.  The gates didn't open until 9:45.  Since the Tattoo takes place in the Esplanade, the area in front of Edinburgh Castle, there is only one way for the entire crowd to exit and enter the viewing area.  Once the first show had emptied out, we were among the first into the stands.  We were in row BB, which was the highest row in Section 12.  We got to pick the location of our seats when we bought the tickets on-line, and we picked seats at the top of a stairway.  We might have to move when people were coming in, but once the show began we figured we'd have lots of room and relatively unobstructed views.  The girls were very excited when they saw the seats and thought they were "The best seats in the house."  There was an added bonus that we didn't expect.  We were under the row of lights, and so the last row was the only row that had a covering over it just in case it started to rain (which it didn't).  It WAS really cold, and we were very glad for the stop we made to buy some extra clothes.

The gate and towers of Edinburgh Castle act as the backdrop for the Tattoo.  It's seems so much like a stage backdrop that it's almost easy to forget that this castle is the real thing.  There are many images and colors that are projected onto the castle itself during the performances.  We had to turn left to see those images.  It wasn't hard to turn, but we were so caught up in what was going on below that we often didn't notice the castle until one of us would say, "Hey, look at that!"  

The Tattoo itself is best described as a grand pageant featuring military bands from all over.  There are bagpipes, to be sure, but the acts feature many different styles of music from all over the world.  This year's theme was "The Year of Natural Scotland," but much like the Rose Bowl Parade the acts can pretty much do just about anything they want.   The Massed Pipes and Drums from Scotland's famous "Black Watch" and other Scottish regiments opened the show, along with pipe bands from Ireland, Mata, and Oman too.  Highland dancers performed, but there were performance groups from the government of South Korea  and an enormous mariachi band from Mexico.  The Mongolians made snow fall throughout the entire viewing area before their performance which made it feel even colder than it already was.    Emma's favorite part was probably the Imps Motorcycle Team, which was made up of young boys, some of whom were even younger than her.  They did trick riding stunts that had her gasping and clapping.  The New Zealand Army band was a real crowd pleaser.  The humor and enthusiasm that they brought made them look and sound more like a college pep band than an army band.  They even danced Gangnam Style.  As the show wound down, "The War Horse," made an appearance-- the large, life-like puppet of a horse used in the stage show.  "Wild Mountain Thyme" was among the last songs played, before the fireworks, the hymn "I Vow to Thee My Country", and the famous lone piper on the castle walls.  "God Save the Queen," and "Auld Lang Syne" were sung, and of course, "Scotland the Brave" was among the songs played as the entire cast marched out.

We had to wait to a long time to get out.  Since we were way at the top, the rest of the rows had to leave first.  It meant a long wait, but by the time we got back to the car, it wasn't hard to get out of the parking garage and the traffic wasn't too bad.  We had a long ways to go to get to our hotel in Glasgow.  The girls fell asleep quickly in the backseat, and Scott tried talking to Julie to help her stay awake as they both tried to find the next hotel.  

As we left the Esplanade, Anna said she really liked the seats we had, and would like to sit there again next time.  That made us smile.