When I exit the tube station at Baker Street, I see the tall bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes in front of the station as expected. But, today, there is also a man dressed in a Victorian caped cloak and deerstalker hat having his picture taken with the tourists. He hands me his business card. It says: “Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective.”

Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum

I love Madame Tussaud’s. I get other visitors to take my picture first with Sean Connery and then with Princess Diana.

Upon entering, the museum staff takes everyone’s picture with Arnold Schwarzenegger for a souvenir photo that you can pick up at the end of your visit. Schwarzenegger’s figure is as tall as I remember him to be. I saw him once at the University of Maine, Augusta, at an event sponsored by Governor McKernan; the kick-off of some presidential fitness campaign for which the actor was the spokesperson. He towered over McKernan, who himself is a very tall man.

I peer at royalty, pop stars, political figures, and sports heroes: Henry VIII and all of his wives, Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Blair, and Olympic skaters, Torvill and Dean. The Queen, of course, looks very regal standing beside her son and new daughter-in-law, Edward and Sophie, dressed in their wedding finery. The figure of Bill Clinton doesn’t look very realistic to me, but, his predecessor, George Bush, is spot on.

Most of the figures are gazing off to the side or into the distance, but every once in a while there is one that looks straight out at you. These are eerie. As I read the plaque of an African leader, I look up and the figure’s piercing eyes are glaring at me. It makes me look twice.

During the French Revolution, Madame Tussaud’s job was to make wax death masks of the guillotine victims, including Marie Antoinette. This might account for the museum’s penchant for the grisly. The Chamber of Horrors includes Vlad the Impaler (Count Dracula), Adolf Hitler, Vincent Price, and Britain’s notorious murderer, Dr. Crippen. There is no waxwork figure of Jack the Ripper however because Madame Tussaud would not model anyone whose likeness is unknown. Instead, the museum portrays the 19th century serial killer as a shadow (source).

Madame Tussaud, whose given name was Marie Grosholtz, modeled Benjamin Franklin, King George III, and Napoleon—in real life. She also modeled herself.

Kensington Palace

On the tube today, I am Charlie on the MTA. It takes me three tries before I get the right train to Kensington.

At Kensington Palace, the royal ceremonial dresses are displayed in realistic tableaux. They are set in the Edwardian era so it is a little like Warwick Castle, although not as grand as the Royal Weekend Party. One display shows what young girls would have worn when presented at court; maids helping them with trains and tiaras. The coronation robes of George and Mary and what people would have worn to their 1911 coronation accompany a display of Queen Mary’s dresses. There are also some of the current Queen’s dresses.

A special exhibit of the late Princess Diana’s dresses is lovely, but infuriating. When Brian, Mom, and I came in 1996 just shortly after the Prince and Princess’s divorce, Diana’s wedding dress, which I was yearning to see, had been removed. Apparently the hypocritical palace officials feel it’s OK to showcase the Princess’s glittering gowns and formal evening dresses now that Diana is dead while they they shunned her as the ex-wife of the Prince of Wales.

All of the Kensington Palace state rooms are open too and I wander through them. Kensington is, of course, where Queen Victoria was born. While today’s members of the Royal family live in the private apartments deep in the building, the front part of the palace houses the public state rooms. Dating from the Hanoverian and Stuart eras, primarily used by William and Mary at the end of the 17^th century, they are gilded and lavish.

The red-walled King’s Gallery lined with marble busts and life-sized oil paintings is where King William met with his spies.

In the Queen’s apartments, is the Queen’s bedroom and although it is named for William’s queen, Mary, it is the room in which, “Victoria went to sleep a princess and awoke a Queen at the age of 18.”

My favorite room is the marble and gold Cupola Room where the domed trompe-l’oeil ceiling gives the impression of a dome. There is an amazing 18th century musical clock in the center of the room. Queen Victoria was baptized in this room.

I love the white marble statue of Queen Victoria in front of Kensington Palace all the more when I read that it was sculpted by her daughter, Princess Louise, in 1893. It shows her mother in her coronation robes in 1837 at the age of 18.

All along Kensington High Street, the stores are decorated for Christmas. They are lovely, but it is just way too early for Christmas decorations.

Back at my hotel, I go to a restaurant around the corner—the Jagerhuitte, a German restaurant. The veal stroganoff is outstanding.

• In today’s news: The race for Lord Mayor of London is becoming bizarre. Jeffrey Archer, the best-selling author and the leading Tory candidate, bowed out of the race today. Ten years ago, several newspapers reported that he had solicited a prostitute. Archer sued the papers for libel and won. But today’s news reveal that his alibi for refuting the solicitation charges a decade ago was fabricated. True, he wasn’t with a prostitute—he was with his secretary with whom he was having an extra-marital affair—but now he faces perjury charges for lying in the libel case. Goodbye, Jeffrey. Frank Dobson, the Labor candidate that Blair supports, has been dogged by suggestions that he is Labour’s pick. Tony Blair is doing everything he can to make sure Ken Livingston, the other Labour party offering, doesn’t get to stand for election. Livingston is popular and pundits speculate he might win if the Labour party selection committee lets him run. Blair, today, went on the attack, saying that Livingston was part of the old Labour party that nearly destroyed itself in the 1970s. Right now, in this race, it seems that anything goes.

Off to London today. Stacy has arranged for the fellows to tour the Houses of Parliament and, afterwards, the Plowdens have invited us to a cocktail party at their home.

My train pulls into London Euston at 14:20. The hotel that the BC arranged for me, instead of being 10 minutes by cab on Oxford Street, is 35 minutes away in Bayswater. It has a big, bright lobby, but my room (a single with one twin bed) is smaller than you can imagine. The bed is barely big enough for one person and I cannot turn around in the shower.

Being further afield than I planned, I am late meeting everyone at the scheduled time of 3:20 PM at Westminster Palace. I run down Parliament Street, past the statue of Churchill on the corner of Parliament Square Park, arriving breathless about 3:35 PM. I am relieved to see my group is still there. We gather at St. Stephen’s Gate, go through security, and enter one of the most famous buildings in the world.

Parliament is located in Westminster Palace, which most people don’t realize is owned by the Crown, although Parliament has met here since the 13th century. An older building sat on the same site but was mostly destroyed by fire in 1834. It is an enchanting neo-gothic building of honey-colored stone that runs nearly a quarter of a mile along the bank of the Thames. With its fairy-tale spires and towers, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia called the building, “a dream in stone.” (source)

We enter the building and walk along St. Stephen’s Hall towards the Central Lobby. The hall is lined with historical paintings and statues. Our guide tells us these were Prince Albert’s idea to draw attention to Britain’s heritage. Spaced along the hall on both sides are marble statues of the prime ministers.

We have hired a private guide for the evening, Mary, a Blue Badge tourist guide, who is extremely knowledgeable as she explains the significance and symbolism of the State Opening of Parliament that we have all just seen on TV.

In the massive octagonal Central Lobby, soaring Gothic arches are interspersed with stained-glass windows so that I feel like I am in a church rather than a government building. I crane my neck upwards to take in the high, arched windows surrounded by stone statues of all the British monarchs stacked three high. This is the central crossroad between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Two long corridors (the Commons Corridor and the Peers Corridor) lead off from the Central Lobby to each of the parliamentary chambers. The House of Commons with green benches is to the north and the House of Lords with regal red seats to the south. Along the Commons Corridor are paintings of scenes from the Civil War “specifically chosen to depict the struggles through which national liberties were won.” I can’t quite reconcile the idea of greater freedoms with the fanatical Puritan Oliver Cromwell but I suppose they are talking about the greater parliamentary powers that evolved from this conflict.

On the door to the House of Commons, we can see a huge dent from the whacking by the Gentleman Usher’s black ebony stick. Just outside the door is a large bronze statue of Winston Churchill. Like bronze statues do, it has turned black over the years. Except Churchill’s bronze left foot, which is as bright and shiny as a new penny. Mary tells us this is because everyone who passes through the door touches Winston Churchill’s foot. So, of course, we all do too.

Westminster Palace’s clock tower—Big Ben—is Great Britain’s iconic symbol. Big Ben is not the name of the tower or the clock, but of the 14-ton bell, named after Sir Benjamin Hall, a Welsh politician and engineer who oversaw the bell’s installation. Mary tells us a red light on the top of the clock alerts people to when Parliament is in session. I did not know that!

We exit through the 900-year-old Westminster Hall, yet another huge cavernous hall and the only original part of Westminster Palace not destroyed by fire. England’s second King, William Rufus, built Westminster Hall in 1097. Rufus, only one generation out from the Norman invasion and still trying to cement the dynasty, intentionally built the large hall—the largest in Europe at the time—to impress his new subjects. Charles II and Guy Fawkes were tried and convicted here 44 years apart.

After leaving the Houses of Parliament, we walk to Westminster Cathedral, not to be confused with Westminster Abbey. The abbey, by the way, looks very clean and bright as we walk past it. I remember how black with grime it was when Mom, Brian, and I visited a number of years ago. Our guide said it took 25 years to clean; slow work because of the soft stone which had to be treated carefully.

Westminster Cathedral, near Victoria station, is a Catholic church. Its mosque-like architecture is beautiful and unique and a contrast to the Gothic abbey. Constructed in 1903, when Catholics were not allowed to buy land, the church hierarchy had to get a middleman to purchase the site for them. Just shy of 100 years later, but in time to celebrate the Millennium, church officials have planned a march from Westminster Abbey, the Anglican church, to Westminster Cathedral, the Roman Catholic one. We go in, but there is a mass going on, so we don’t stay long.

We are a smaller group now as those with children go back to their hotels to take care of meals and sitters. The rest of us head to a pub. After two pints in the smoky pub, we walk to Victoria station. Tube travel always takes longer than you expect, and we arrive about 45 minutes late for the Plowden’s party, which is already in full swing.

William and his wife, Veronica, live in south London off the Stockwell tube stop. It is a narrow townhouse with 3-1/2 levels filled with books. I ask Veronica where the bathroom is and she says there are two, one at the top of the stairs and one off the room where we stashed our coats. I chose the latter but, unless I am losing my mind, there is only a bathtub and linen closet in there, no toilet. Why she told me to use it, I have no idea. Sometimes I don’t understand the Brits.

William offers us drinks and I am soon talking with Elizabeth Mitchell again, who is there with her husband this time. I also meet the Atlantic Policy Program’s other Maine fellow—Tom Judge from Port Clyde—a 1996 fellow. So, the three of us from Maine stand in a circle and speculate about the Maine connection to the fellowship program. I mention George Mitchell, but Tom is convinced that is not it.

I meet lots of interesting people. One, a news reporter, has a Scottish accent that makes him sound like Sean Connery. Stacy questions him about the lack of coverage of the Scottish Parliament in the English papers to which he has no good answer.

I leave around 10:30 PM taking the tube at the Stockwell station, changing at Victoria, and back to Bayswater. I fall asleep almost immediately.

• In today’s news: Blairs expecting a baby. Tony Blair and his wife Cherie are expecting a new baby—the first for a serving prime minister in more than 150 years. Mrs. Blair, 45, and her husband are said to be delighted at the news though it came as a “total shock.” The couple already has two sons, Euan, 15, and Nicky, 14, and a daughter, Kathryn, 11. The baby is due in May.

The Inverness sky this morning is pink with light-gray mackerel clouds unlike anything I have seen before. It is pink, not just where the sun peaks through the clouds, but all over. As the sky lightens, the pink fades into daylight yellow and I realize it hadn’t been quite daylight; the pink sky part of the brimming dawn.

I arrive early at the train station and settle in for my 3½-hour ride to Edinburgh. The ride passes uneventfully until, just outside of Edinburgh when there is an announcement, which of course I can’t understand, followed by the train coming to a complete stop. Suddenly we are going backwards at a fairly high rate of speed. I don’t know why we are going backwards away from Edinburgh rather than toward it. However the British Rail employee assures us that we will be at Waverley Station within 15 minutes, and, indeed, just as he says this with a glance at his watch, we pull into Haymarket and then, shortly thereafter, into Waverley. I have no idea what just happened.

I take a taxi to the Roxburghe Hotel where the BC has arranged for the fellows to stay. It is in lovely leafy Charlotte Square in Edinburgh’s New Town. Despite its name, New Town isn’t really all that new; designed and built in the early 1800s with lots of lovely Georgian architecture.

The square’s center is marked by an equestrian statue of Prince Albert. The former St. George’s Church―now the National Records Office―dominates the west side of the square. No. 6 Charlotte Square is the official residence of the secretary of state for Scotland. The “Georgian House”―a period-furnished historic house owned by the National Trust for Scotland―is at No. 7. Our hotel is opposite at No. 38.

I walk through the tranquil Princes Park; a respite from the bustle of the busy Princes Street above. There is a huge cast-iron fountain in the center of the park—Ross Fountain—brought back from France’s Great Exhibition of 1862. I climb the long paved path up the steep slope to the Royal Mile.

The Camera Obscura and Outlook Tower is at the top of Royal Mile. Victorian town planners installed the “camera” in 1853. Using technology with mirrors similar to a periscope, moving images of streets outside are reflected onto a white table. These original Victorian moving pictures caused a sensation at the time. Although dull compared to today’s videos and camcorders, back then it was the closest thing the Victorians had ever seen to live moving images.

On the round white table, the attendant points out the Royal Academy of Art building on the Edinburgh skyline. He says that Sean Connery, in his youthful days as a milkman in Edinburgh, used to pose as a nude model for the artists at the art academy to earn extra money. It is amusing to think of a load of nude Sean Connery portraits stashed in a basement somewhere in the art building waiting to be discovered.

From the balcony of the viewing tower, I have tremendous views of Edinburgh.

I shop for wool tartan scarfs. I buy one for myself in a lovely Isle of Skye pattern. It’s a new tartan—instigated and registered by Mrs. Rosemary Nicolson in 1992, an Australian of Skye descent. The tartan’s colors—green, black, and purple—depict those of the watery island. I also purchase a scarf for my boss at home—a red, black, yellow, and green weave newly commissioned to mark the millennium—called the Millennium Tartan.

I admire the monuments on Princes Street—the massive Scott Memorial, commemorating Sir Walter Scott, and the David Livingstone statue.

The 200-foot-tall Scott monument looms large over the city skyline. By comparison, the Paul Bunyan statue in Bangor ME stands just 31 feet high. It is blackish in color and ornately decorated with 64 smaller statues sculpted by different Scottish sculptors of Scott’s literary characters including Rob Roy, Rebecca from Ivanhoe, and Bonnie Prince Charlie from Waverley, the novel for which Waverley train station is named. In the center of the monument under the dark Gothic spires is a white marble statue of Scott himself.

A few yards from Scott is that of David Livingstone, the Scottish doctor/missionary/explorer who worked tirelessly in Africa and who was located there by Henry Stanley in a famous encounter (Dr. Livingstone, I presume?).

I bump into Carolyn and Frank in the hotel and join them for a drink. Later all the fellows meet in the lobby and we head out together to dinner.

The BC treats us to dinner at the Tower Restaurant on the rooftop of the Museum of Scotland where there are marvelous night views of the floodlit castle on the hill. If you visit Edinburgh, I recommend this restaurant for the views alone. But the food is excellent too. I have the Aberdeen Beef and probably a bit too much red wine.

Breakfast at the B&B consists of porridge and toast. And the coffee is great. I drink the whole small pot. My tour is not until 10:30 AM, so I have time to kill. I walk down to the River Ness, cross over the Ness Bridge, and up to Inverness Castle.

Made from red sandstone, Inverness Castle has a pink hue. Today’s castle is not original; Scottish soldiers blew that up in 1742 so the English couldn’t use it. It is a pretty, Victorian-style castle that now houses the Sheriff’s Court, but is not open to the public. In front is a statue of the intrepid Flora MacDonald—Scotland’s heroine who helped rescue the fleeing Bonnie Prince Charlie by dressing him in women’s clothing and pretending he was her maid.

At 10:30, I board the minibus with Gordon, our tour guide, and 12 other loud Americans (American tourists always seem to be loud—and demanding) for a tour around Loch Ness. Gordon―a poet, biologist, and historian―takes us first to the north shore of Loch Ness with a splendid view of the staggering 23-mile-long and 750-feet-deep lake. We walk along the rocky beach made of small, smooth, pink stones.

In the distance, at the other end of the beach, we can see a black object with a long, thin neck sticking out of the water. We know it is only a piece of driftwood, still we eagerly take pictures. Gordon tells us the lake is too cold to support reptiles and so impossible for a Plesiosauria, which Nessie is supposed to be, to live in it.

No one really believes in the Loch Ness monster since the man who took the only reliable photograph in the 1930s made a deathbed confession last year that it was a fake. There is no other proof of any “beastie,” but the tourist trade still thrives on its legend.

We stop to see the ruins of the 15^th century Urquhart Castle—once one of Scotland’s largest castles―before the British blew it up in 1692. From its perch on the top of a high sheer cliff, it still holds a commanding presence on the headland of Loch Ness. It is one of the favorite Nessie spotting sites; supposedly the most tourist sightings of the prehistoric lake monster have been made here.

It is a particularly beautiful spot.

We travel on to Invermoriston where we can see the historic, vaulted, stone Telford Bridge. It is a pretty view of rippling water and autumn-gold, leafy trees.

Next we drive on to Fort Augustus at the southern tip of Loch Ness―a small village where the air is redolent with pungent, smoky peat fires.

At lunch in Fort Augustus at in a little place called Scot’s Kitchen, one of the Americans turns up her nose at the fish & chips special. She doesn’t like them and can’t understand why any self-respecting British person would either. I would love to order them in front of her, but I am not that hungry. I get the tuna melt.

After lunch, I walk with my fussy lunch companions to see the Caledonian Locks; a Victorian engineering marvel. Fort Augusta connects three others lakes―Loch Oich, Loch Lochy, and Loch Linnhe―to Loch Ness via the Caledonian Canal. The locks at Fort Augustus raise and lower the water level to let ships pass from Loch Ness to the other lakes. Thomas Telford, who designed the Telford Bridge at Invermoriston, engineered the 60-mile canal and lock system in the early 1800s that features 29 locks in all with four aqueducts and 10 bridges.

Back in the minivan, we turn and head north along the eastern shore of Loch Ness. We pass some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen. The Highland mountains are covered with heather. Although it is not in bloom, it is still beautiful. We stop to admire the view and Gordon tells us we must romp in the heather—a very Scottish thing to do. Although I wouldn’t call it romping, I do walk up the hillside.

All along the drive we see wildlife—pheasants and Scotland’s red deer.

As we drive home, the sun is setting behind the mountains at our backs. Gordon says this is what the Scottish Highlands look like at their best. He stops in the middle of the road and we all pile out to watch the sunset. I will never forget how beautiful it is. As the sun goes down and the mountains dissolve into inky twilight, Gordon reads us the Robert Burns’ poem, Tam O’ Shanter:

Tam O’Shanter is an old Scottish legend that Robert Burns turned into a narrative poem. In the tale, after a long day at market Tam (Tom) stays drinking until near the witching hour (the hour between night and day) against his wife, Kate’s, warnings. As he rides his mare, Meg/Maggie, home, his course takes him past the haunted Alloway Kirk (church). Through the church windows, he sees witches dancing and then has to flee for his life as they give chase. He makes for the brig (bridge) over the River Doon, knowing that the fiendish creatures cannot cross running water. Despite the horse being a fast one, by the time Tam reaches the middle of the arch of the bridge, the “pursuing, vengeful hags” are so close at his heels, that one of them actually springs to seize him but only manages to grab the horse’s tail. Poor Meg’s tail never re-grew and her tail-less condition serves as a reminder to the local farmers not to stay out too late drinking.

Myths and Legends website

Here’s an excerpt from Gordon’s reading of Tam O’Shanter:

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin! 

In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin! 

In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin! 

Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman! 

Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 

And win the key-stane of the brig: 

There at them thou thy tail may toss, 

A running stream they dare na cross. 

But ere the key-stane she could make, 

The fient a tail she had to shake! 

For Nannie far before the rest, 

Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 

And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle; 

But little wist she Maggie’s mettle— 

Ae spring brought aff her master hale 

But left behind her ain grey tail: 

The carlin claught her by the rump, 

And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

         Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read, 

Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed, 

Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d, 

Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, 

Think, ye may buy the joys o’er dear, 

Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mear. 

Robert Burns, Tam O’Shanter

As we make our way home, Gordon points out the kind of bridge that Tom would have fled across as he narrowly escaped the witches. He also points out the exact bridge that a fleeing Bonnie Prince Charlie used as he made his way, defeated, from the battlefield at Culloden. As we approach Inverness, the city’s lights twinkle all along both sides of the river.

Inverness Terror Tour

I go on a walking “Terror Tour” with tales of ghosts, ghouls, and torture. A funny little man with long hair dressed in a black frock coat and tattered top hat carrying a walking stick—in the persona of the ghost of Deacon Brodie—guides us through the streets around the castle.

Deacon Brodie, an 18^th century graverobber, inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde. In the day, medical students and doctors would pay for cadavers for dissection. Deacon Brodie, being the entrepreneurial man that was, began killing people to get more corpses and increase his earnings.

Our tour ends in a haunted bar where our tour guide swears, “Some really strange things have happened.” He doesn’t elaborate―odd for someone leading a ghost tour―but says that Inverness is one of the most haunted towns in all of Britain.

Tonight the pub is full of “drunken eegits,” as the Deacon calls them, watching the England-Scotland football game. I have a cider and soon leave. The streets are full of soccer fans; men in kilts, two with tux jackets over their kilts, some staggering, many singing. I am not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

I switch on the TV and watch Cliff Richardson singing. I remember Caroline telling me how wonderful Cliff Richardson is (often called “Britain’s Elvis”). On another station is the military tattoo being televised live from Albert Hall where Prince Charles is in attendance.

• On the web: I find a webcam of Loch Ness so I can look for Nessie anytime I want.

It is not yet light at 7:00 AM when I get up. The sky is gray and Edinburgh Castle looms starkly over the city.

The train ride to Inverness is another long one—more than three hours—but delightfully scenic. We pass over the Firth of Forth via the landmark red-oxide Forth Rail Bridge; its tracks spanning more than a mile and a half. Today, the water is gray and dull unlike the sparkling blue memory I have from September. The bay is littered with fishing trawlers, cranes, and other commercial fishing rigs.

The train travels along the coastline for about 20 minutes. It is low tide and for a few minutes we ride along some muddy flats that extend to the sea with mountains in the hazy distance. People are digging for clams. Then the shoreline turns to a sandy beach before the railroad cuts into the craggy hills and I lose the sea view. In Kinghorn, the coastline reappears and it is dotted with small trailers. They look about half the size of U.S. mobile homes, but they have the best oceanside views. The next stop is Kirkcaldy. Then we turn inwards to Markinch, past the Firth of Tay, briefly, and on to Perth where a man gets on the train wearing a Blackwatch plaid kilt.

In Dunkeld, the sun comes out but with clouds so low they touch the tops of the trees and castle turrets. From my train window, the sun shines bright and clear in the west but, to the east, the hills and trees are shrouded in what can only be the famous Scottish mist. Soon the train is enveloped too and we ride north in and out of the morning mist. I expect the mythical Brigadoon to emerge at any minute.

My train pulls into Pitlochry amidst brilliant sun. It seems to be a town of grey stone and turrets. I see one impressive stone house nestled in the dark woods among pine trees and moss. It is just like Queen Victoria’s description in her Scottish diaries. She wrote

We passed Pitlochrie, a small village…then came to the Pass of Killiecrankie, which is quite magnificent; the road winds along it, and you look down a great height, all wooded on both sides, the [River] Garry rolling below it. I cannot describe how beautiful it is. Albert was in perfect ecstasies.

Queen Victoria’s Scottish Diaries

I can see why Prince Albert loved it so much.

We travel deeper into the tree-covered mountains, their tops obscured by mist. The track goes through dark tunnels cut through rock, across small rivers and streams. and then suddenly bursts into a bright open field full of grazing sheep, then plunges back into the mountains, now bare and grass covered. In Blair Atholl, everything is covered with a heavy frost.

In the distance I can see the white turrets of Blair Castle. Home of the dukes of Atholl, British soldiers besieged the castle during the 1745 uprising. Queen Victoria stayed here in 1844 on her second visit to the Highlands.

The further north the train travels, the more barren the landscape becomes. Still mountainous, but bare, brown, and rocky instead of tree-lined and lush green. In Dalwhinnie, I can see the Dalwhinnie whisky distillery with its odd-looking turrets, something akin to Japanese pagodas.

We follow the River Spey to Kingussie. As the sun turns to clouds, it becomes bleaker. I am cold, but the buffet cart has run out of hot water for tea, which is annoying.

Then suddenly the scenery opens up wide to the Moray Firth with Inverness nestled at its mouth.

I disembark and follow my map to Crown Street. A set of stairs, three stories high, takes me up to a residential area. In a neighborhood where nearly every other house is a B&B, I find the Pitfaranne Guest House about three blocks down. Jim Morrison, the host, answers my knock and greets me warmly with his Scottish brogue. He appears to be about 40. His long dark-blond hair makes him look like a skinny Mel Gibson as William Wallace. His wife, Gwen, shows me upstairs.

Culloden Moor

My walk to the tourist information center gives me a nice view of Inverness Castle and information about the bus, which I board and take to the Culloden battlefield.

Culloden Moor is the site of the final brutal battle between the English and Scottish in 1746. The Scottish clans fought to put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the British throne; the grandson and heir to the Catholic Stuart King James II who fled England after being deposed in 1688. It was an uprising that nearly destroyed Highland society.

It is a stark, desolate field with rows of red and blue flags marking the armies’ lines. The Scots were slaughtered here even after they surrendered. The Duke of Cumberland, the English army leader, who the Scots call “The Butcher,” gave furtive orders to kill anyone left alive after the battle was over. Then, a series of English laws forbade wearing kilts, playing bagpipes, speaking Gaelic, and outlawed countless other traditional Scottish customs. This was the story of William Wallace in Braveheart.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, a romantic figure to this day, survived the battle and escaped to France. He died in Italy 40 years later; the last of the Scottish line of kings.

The battlefield is quiet with a sad and bleak mood. Some people say that Gettysburg feels the same way; the weight of the death of so many men hanging in the air.

A 20-foot-tall, round, stone cairn commemorates the battle. But mostly, it is a grassy field with plain, moss-covered boulders engraved with the names of the clans of the Scotsmen who fought and died here.

I walk along the wide grassy pathways reading the clan names on the stones: Macintosh, Donald, MacGillverary, Stewart, and one engraved “Mixed Clans”.

I snap a picture of the grave of the Fraser clan where someone has left two blood-red “remembrance” poppies. These are the Frasers so well known to fans of the wonderful Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon.

There is small museum with artifacts and a battle table that shows how the armies progressed and clashed.

Culloden was also on my “must-do” list and although there is not a lot here, it is definitely worth doing.

Back in Inverness, it grows dark early. It is just after 5:00 PM and most of the shops have closed. I walk around the town and end up at the local cinema where I watch the new Disney movie, Tarzan. Some would use the excuse that it was only movie playing, but I could not get away with that since everyone knows how much I love Disney movies.

I have dinner at Long Johns, a pub/restaurant with a WWII theme. There is a toy train chugging around the ceiling and lots of WWII memorabilia; boogie music plays in the background. The booths are made from leather seats made over from an old train carriage. A notice on the wall next to my table instructs Brits on the home front what to do in case of German invasion: “Stay put unless there are specific government orders to evacuate. People fleeing on their own are in danger of being shot from the air.” What people lived through during the war; I really can’t imagine.