Friday, September 30

We got up early & headed back towards the Culloden historic site before driving south to Pitlochry.

Just a couple of kilometres from the Culloden site are the Clava Cairns. These are Neolithic burial chambers dating 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. The site is in some ways like Stonehenge. There are numerous standing stones surrounding the largest stone cairn. The entrance to each cairn is lined up with the setting sun at the winter solstice.

It was very special for us to be there early in the morning as there was no one else around. We had the site all to ourselves.

It’s amazing that this was created so long ago & that it still exists today.

We spent about an hour at the site all by ourselves. We just got in the car & a large tour bus arrived in the parking lot. Timing is everything! On to Pitlochry!

We booked a room at a classic hotel in Pitlochry – the Atholl Palace Hotel. It looked really great on the web — & it was even better in reality!

This hotel was built in the late 1800s & was intended to draw people to come to its spa facilities for healing of ailments & relaxation.

Our first step in our relaxation process was to partake in the hotel’s high tea.

After enjoying the tea, sandwiches & cakes we went for a nice long hike in the hotel’s woodland trails to burn off some of the calories we had just taken in.

We had originally planned to spend some time touring around the townsite of Pitlochry but the hotel & its surroundings were so beautiful that we decided to leave the car parked for the rest of the day.

This place is going to be hard to top!