Culloden

This was the final act. Each side had some 7000-8000 men but the Jacobites under Bonnie Prince Charlie were poorly armed, badly led and not trained for disciplined attack: they simply lunged forward wielding swords and axes. The government troops under the Duke of Cumberland held their ground, their nerve and their bayonets. One hour later 2000 clansmen lay dead, the Prince and his men were in flight, and the Jacobite claim to the throne was ended. There were harsh military reprisals across the Highlands, tartans and bagpipes were outlawed, and the clan system was destroyed. The battleground is free and always accessible but it's worth paying the admission to the exhibition in the visitor centre, which has a cafe and shop.

A group of tombs and standing stones, one of the best preserved Bronze Age burial sites in Scotland, from 2000 BC. The Balnuaran cairns are aligned north-east to south-west, with the end tombs being passage graves, and the central one being circular with a sunburst of stone paths leading to the standing stones. Nearby are the Milton Cairns and other remains including a medieval chapel. There are about 50 similar "Clava Cairns" in the area around Inverness.

15th-century tower house with many later additions plus extensive gardens. Most visitors come for the Shakespeare connection: in the play, Macbeth (see Birnam infobox) is already Thane of Glamis, he's then made Thane of Cawdor as the witches had prophesied, and begins his spiral into hell. The real Macbeth was Lord of Moray, which included most of northern Scotland. The King of Alba (the southern part) was Duncan I, who attacked Moray but was defeated and killed, and Macbeth came to be King of Scotland 1040-1057. There was probably an earlier castle on or near this site in those days, but no trace of it remains. So you can't see the bedroom where Macbeth murdered King Duncan because a) it's been knocked down and the present castle wasn't built for another 400 years, b) anyway the murder was at Inverness not Cawdor, and c) none of those things really happened, as the Earl of Cawdor's family are fed up with explaining.