For the Outlander lovers ... anyone?

I won't lie. I'm slightly obsessed with "Outlander". I've binged 3 series on Netflix the last few weeks and when we decided to come to Scotland, I was secretly excited to go through the stones and find Jamie on the other end ... I mean, be in 1743 Scotland and all that! What I didn't expect was how much I would learn about Scotland's past and the history of the Jacobites.

Our first stop was Culloden, near Inverness. We stayed in the Culloden House hotel, which was home to Bonnie Prince Charlie in the days leading up to the infamous and bloody battle of Culloden. A gorgeous country estate, with sprawling grounds and secret walled gardens, grand rooms with open fires and decked in tartan, it was the perfect hideout for our Outlander escapade.

On our way up to Inverness we found ourselves lost on the back roads of Culloden. And there it was, the sign to Clava Cairns, somewhere I had not even marked on our itinerary. It was a sign, a calling... Jamie? So the stone circle in the show 'Craig Na Dun' may not really exist, but this was apparently one of the stone circles that inspired the story.

Up in the Highlands, where the fictional Outlander series is intertwined with the history of Scotland and in particular the Jacobite uprising, Culloden Moor and the surrounds are very much real. This was a piece of history I knew very little about until watching Outlander, and as a half-Scot myself, it was surely time to take to the history books.

The battlefield of Culloden Moor is a sombre and barren place, the sight of the 1746 battle between the Jacobites and the English. Around 1250 Jacobites were killed. Any wounded survivors were butchered where they lay and the brutal English tore apart the Scottish highlands in retribution, destroying highland culture forevermore.

Of course, the "Clan Fraser" stone stood out to me, but so many other memorial stones with single roses dotted the battlefield. I even came across a Clan MacTavish plaque - my mum tells me this is our McTavish crest, with the spelling changed over time, as we were originally from the Highlands, on the shores of Loch Ness near the castle (nice piece of history right there!)

Of course, many of the locations are fictional. Lallybroch, Jamie's home, is the ruined Midhope Castle on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I couldn't come all the way to Scotland and not sit on the steps of Lallybroch and stare down the path awaiting Jamie to come riding in on his horse! It's basically a derelict castle, so you cannot go inside, but the outside is exactly as it is in the show. Definitely the highlight of any Outlander tour!

I hope someone out there is actually a fan of the show as much as I am!

Scott, is not.

A xx