Invergordon, Scotland: Gateway to Loch Ness, Inverness, and the Black Isle

Loch Ness, Scotland's most famous lake, is twenty-two miles long, a mile wide, and over 200 meters deep at its center. The scenery — sheer wooded hillsides dropping into dark water, with Urquhart Castle ruins on a promontory at the midpoint — is independently worth the drive regardless of any interest in the monster mythology. Urquhart Castle occupies a natural defensive position above the loch; it was blown up by its own garrison in 1692 to prevent capture by Jacobite forces, and the ruins are among the most visited in Scotland. The visitor center is well-made.

Inverness, eighteen miles from Invergordon, is the administrative capital of the Highlands and a city of around 65,000. Victorian Bridge Street and Church Street in the center have some handsome Georgian and Victorian buildings. Inverness Castle, on its bluff above the River Ness, was rebuilt in the Victorian era and currently serves as a court; the exterior is photogenic. The Inverness Museum and Art Gallery on Castle Wynd has a strong collection of Pictish stones.

The Black Isle peninsula, just across the Kessock Bridge from Inverness, is not actually an island but a peninsula bounded by the Moray and Cromarty Firths. Chanonry Point, near the village of Fortrose, is one of the most reliable places in Scotland to see bottlenose dolphins — they come into the narrows on the incoming tide to intercept salmon. Arrive early; the dolphins are most active around high water.

Culloden Battlefield, five miles east of Inverness, is the site of the final engagement of the Jacobite Rising of 1745. The battlefield is maintained by the National Trust for Scotland; the visitor center is excellent and the outdoor interpretation of the battle lines is unusually clear. The graves of the Highland clans are marked with cairns.

Fortrose Cathedral, on the Black Isle, is a fourteenth-century ruined cathedral with a well-preserved chapter house. Small, uncrowded, and free.