After a fun evening in Inverness, it was time for us to head to the last destination of our trip to Scotland with our friends – Aberdeen.
I’d picked Aberdeen as there was a castle I wanted them all to visit (more about that in our next post), plus it had a good flight option for our friends to fly down to Heathrow in order for them to fly back to the US.
The journey to Aberdeen included a lot of fun stuff too. From standing stones to a pyramid on royal grounds to whisky distilleries to a quirky castle and more, there’s a lot to do on the 3 hour drive from Inverness to Aberdeen. Here’s what we got up to.
Leakey’s Bookshop
After having a cooked breakfast at the local Wetherspoons (a large pub chain in the UK), we stopped in at Leakey’s Bookshop. That was just a couple of minute’s walk from our hotel and is the largest used bookstore in Scotland.
It’s a cool bookshop set over two floors, with a spiral staircase leading to the second floor. They have a fireplace in the middle of the store, but it wasn’t cold enough the day we visited for them to have that going.
Culloden Battlefield
We didn’t actually stop there, but I wanted to mention Culloden Battlefield in this post. Just 15 minutes east of downtown Inverness, it’s a significant part of Scottish history because in 1746 it brought about the end of the Jacobite rising that had started a year before.
If you’re a fan of the Outlander books (our affiliate link) and/or TV series, you’ll probably be familiar with the Battle of Culloden. Shae and Megan are both Outlander fans, so we’d originally hoped to visit the site to learn more. However, when researching it online it looked like we’d need at least a couple of hours to do it justice which wasn’t time we’d have that day if we wanted to visit other places on our list.
We therefore made the decision to give it a miss this time around, but hope to visit Culloden Battlefield in the future. Seeing as it’s so close to Inverness though, I wanted to mention it in this post in case you’re planning your own trip there.
Clava Cairns
Just a few minutes away from Culloden Battlefield is Clava Cairns. Dating back to the Bronze Age about 4,000 years ago, there’s a set of four large stone cairns…
…as well as three stone circles.
It’s a fascinating place to visit, especially because the cairns and stone circles are still in such good condition. The cairns themselves are thought to have been used as burial chambers.
Glenfiddich Distillery
Glenfiddich is one of the most popular and well-regarded Scotch whisky brands, so it was ideal that it was along our route to Aberdeen.
We didn’t really have time to do a tour, plus we’d already done a distillery tour at Ben Nevis Distillery in Fort William. Instead, we stopped in at their gift shop and bar to do a tasting.
The bar at Glenfiddich has an extensive range of whiskies, gins and other spirits you can choose from for tasting. They also have a variety of pre-selected flights, so both Mark and I chose The Pioneering Range which features the following four whiskies:
- Glenfiddich 12 year
- Glenfiddich 15 year
- Glenfiddich 18 year
- Glenfiddich 21 year
All four of the whiskies were very good; the 18 and 21 year ones were my joint favorites, then the 15 year, then the 12 year.
Royal Lochnagar Distillery
While having a drink at Glenfiddich, we all got chatting to another couple who were having a drink there too. They both work in the Scotch whisky industry and when we mentioned that we were going to Balmoral next, they asked if we were going to Royal Lochnagar Distillery.
We’d not heard of it, so they shared that it’s on the grounds of Balmoral – one of the royal residences. Balmoral Castle was bought by Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) back in the 1800s. In more recent years, it was better known as the property where Queen Elizabeth II spent her summers.
When arriving at Balmoral, we stopped in quickly at the visitor center. We knew we didn’t have time to tour the castle (it was about to close), but we hoped to have enough time to do a quick tasting at Royal Lochnagar. The visitor center staff weren’t optimistic about our chances, but we headed up there quickly to check it out.
Sadly we were out of luck as they said it was too late to do a tasting, so I was resigned to just getting a bottle instead. However, our friend Megan worked her magic, sharing that we were on a Scotch whisky birthday trip for me, so one of the staff members kindly let us do a quick tasting of one of their whiskies – woohoo!
Something that was fun about Royal Lochnagar – and one or two other distilleries that we visited during our trip – was that they had an opportunity to pour your own bottle of whisky.
Prince Albert’s Cairn
The reason we’d wanted to visit Balmoral wasn’t to tour the castle (although we’d like to do that at some point in the future). Instead, we were there to check out a quirky feature on the grounds that our friend Mark had heard about.
Prince Albert’s Cairn is a pyramid that Queen Victoria had built in memory of her husband Prince Albert. It’s an unexpected thing to find on royal grounds, so we wanted to take a look as it looked fascinating online.
It turns out that I didn’t do quite enough research about it. When viewing its location on Google Maps, it appeared to be near other stuff, so I figured it’d be a short walk there.
Nope!
It’s not a particularly long walk; probably less than a mile. However, it’s pretty much uphill all the way and it’s fairly steep.
Having done a whisky tasting at Glenfiddich and then having a little more at Royal Lochnagar, a steep hike wasn’t what I had in mind! Despite that, Mark and I decided to continue up there. The closest parking lot would’ve made it an even longer hike, so Shae and Megan dropped us off as close to the start of the trail as possible, then they waited in the car for us.
It was a pretty walk through the forest…
…passing by Princess Beatrice’s Cairn along the way. I’d assumed it was named after Princess Beatrice who’s the daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson (Fergie). However, it’s actually named after a different Princess Beatrice and was built to celebrate her marriage to Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885.
That was an impressive stone sort-of pyramid, but Prince Albert’s Cairn – found at the very top of the hill – was even more impressive.
Although it was strenuous work hiking up the hill, it was well worth the effort. The pyramid was cool and the views looking out were beautiful.
After admiring the pyramid and views for a little while, it was time to make the much easier hike back down.
If you find these cairns intriguing, there are apparently 16 on the grounds of Balmoral. I’m not sure if all of them are accessible to the public though.
Craigievar Castle
It was about 5:30pm at that point and we still had another ~1.5 hours of driving ahead of us. Our final stop before reaching Aberdeen was another quirky attraction – Craigievar Castle. Craigievar Castle is in Alford (about 45 minutes west of Aberdeen) and dates back to 1626.
Seeing as we didn’t arrive until 6:30pm, the castle was closed when we got there. However, we were able to park in the parking lot and walk over to the castle to wander around outside.
This castle is quirky in a number of ways. For starters, it’s pink! Second, it’s much more compact than you’d expect for a castle.
For me though, what was most unusual was the placement of all the windows. Craigievar Castle apparently only has seven floors, but the haphazard location of all the windows makes it look like there are more than ten floors. I’m assuming some of the small windows are to provide daylight in stairwells, but it’s very weird!
Holiday Inn Express Aberdeen City Centre
That was our final stop before getting to Aberdeen. We’d booked a stay at the Holiday Inn Express Aberdeen City Centre as it was good value (only 15,000 IHG One Rewards points or $88.41 for the night), plus it included complimentary breakfast. I currently have Diamond status with IHG and so I’m eligible for complimentary breakfast anyway, but it was handy to have it included by default for our friends.
Our friends only needed to stay there one night as they were flying down to London the next night before heading back to the US. Shae and I had a few days to kill before needing to drive back to Fort William to ride the Jacobite steam train, so we ended up staying there a total of five nights.
It was a perfectly nice place to stay. Clean, comfortable and good value, plus it was in a great location for walking around the city.
Foundry Aberdeen
We checked in at about 8pm, so we were definitely ready for some dinner by that point. We ended up going to a nearby pub restaurant called Foundry Aberdeen; it was Friday night, so the music was pumping.
I decided to get their chippie feast – fish and chips with a battered sausage, peas, bread and butter, chip shop curry sauce and tartare sauce. I enjoyed my meal as the fish and chips were good, it was the first time I’d eaten a battered sausage in years and the chip shop curry sauce was decent. The peas didn’t seem very warm though.
Shae went for their 10oz rump steak which she wasn’t very impressed with. She found it to be fairly flavorless, plus her peas were even colder than mine were.
Saga 2025 Trip To London, Liverpool & Scotland – All The Posts
Here are links to all of the posts in this series:
- Saga 2025: Trip With Friends To London, Liverpool & Scotland – An Intro
- Saga 2025 Day 1: London – Police Station Hotel, British Museum, Dinner In Darkness & Abbey Road
- Saga 2025 Day 2: Liverpool – Cavern Club, Hard Day’s Night Hotel, Cocktails & More
- Visiting The Kelpies In Falkirk, Scotland By Day & By Night
- Saga 2025 Day 3: Falkirk – Kelpies, World’s Only Rotating Boat Lift & More
- Saga 2025 Day 4: Drive From Falkirk To Fort William – Castles, Distillery, Monument & More
- Hotel Review: Inverlochy Castle Hotel In Fort William, Scotland
- How To Watch The Jacobite Steam Train On Glenfinnan Viaduct (Harry Potter Hogwarts Express Train)
- How To Find 6 Harry Potter Filming Locations Near Fort William, Scotland
- Jacobite Steam Train Review: What It’s Like Riding The Hogwarts Express
- Saga 2025 Days 5-7: Fort William – Harry Potter, Castles, Waterfalls, Mountains, Distillery & More
- Review of The Two Byres – Vacation Home On The Isle Of Skye, Scotland (Booked Via Cottages.com With Wyndham Points)
- Talisker Cask Draw & Tasting Experience – Fun, Tasty & Strong!
- The Three Chimneys Restaurant Review
- Saga 2025 Days 8-9: Isle Of Skye – Whisky, Fairies, Castles, Waterfalls, Views & More
- A Tearoom Where You Can Feed Highland Cows? Yes Please!
- Saga 2025 Day 10: Skye To Inverness – Coos, Castles, Nessie, Another Whisky Experience & More
- Saga 2025 Day 11: Inverness To Aberdeen – Standing Stones, Pyramid, Castle & More
- Saga 2025 Day 12: Aberdeen – Time Travel, Castles, Coos & More
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