GEEO Scotland Google Earth Presentation

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USA

Today I’d like to share with you a great experience I had over the break. I traveled to Scotland through a non-profit organization called GEEO that helps educators travel abroad so that they can learn more about different cultures to share with their students. I was joined on my trip by teachers from all around the United States.

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Europe

We traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Can you name any countries in Europe?

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United Kingdom

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and is located on the island of Great Britain. The main island on the right is Great Britain, and the smaller island on the left is Ireland. Together, they’re known as the British Isles.

The United Kingdom (UK) is made up of four different countries: England, Wales, and Scotland on Great Britain, and Northern Ireland on Ireland. Each of the four countries is sovereign and autonomous in many ways, which means they govern themselves for the most part.

Our trip was exclusively to Scotland, which is in the northern part of Great Britain.

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Scotland

Scotland has a 96-mile border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the Irish Sea to the south, and the North Sea to the east. While most of Scotland is located on Great Britain, it also has more than 790 islands.

The Kingdom of Scotland became an independent sovereign state in the 9th century and stayed independent until 1707. Then, Scotland and England formed a political union to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. This union wasn’t entirely peaceful, but we’ll talk more about that later.

Today, Scotland has a population of nearly 5.5 million people.

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Edinburgh

Our trip started in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland and its second most populous city. Edinburgh is one of Europe’s most beautiful cities, sitting on rocky hills overlooking the sea. It’s also home to the world’s biggest arts festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, held every August.

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The Royal Mile

The Royal Mile is a street that runs through the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. The Royal Mile is overlooked by impressive church spires and tall tenements (old apartment buildings). Between the buildings, steep cobblestone closes (alleyways) and narrow stairways branch off from the main street.

Today, the Royal Mile is an eclectic mix of shops, restaurants, pubs, and visitor attractions. During the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the High Street becomes crowded with tourists, entertainers, and buskers.

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Holyrood Palace

The Royal Mile is about one Scots mile long, which is a bit more than one English mile. It’s called the Royal Mile because it runs between two important royal sites in Scotland’s history. At one end is the Palace of Holyroodhouse, or Holyrood Palace. Holyrood Palace has been the main royal residence in Scotland since the 16th century. Queen Elizabeth II used to stay there for one week every summer, where she carried out various official engagements and ceremonies.

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Edinburgh Castle

At the other end of the Royal Mile is Edinburgh Castle. The castle sits atop an extinct volcano called Castle Rock, and there has been a royal castle on the site since at least the 12th century. The site continued to be a royal residence until 1633. As one of the most important strongholds in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in many historical conflicts in Scotland. It has been put under siege 26 times in its 1,100-year history, giving it a claim to having been the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attacked in the world. It is now a museum that we were able to visit.

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National Museum of Scotland

This is the national Museum of Scotland. One of the more notable exhibits is the stuffed body of Dolly the sheep, the first successful cloning of a mammal from an adult cell.

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Greyfriars Kirkyard

Greyfriars Kirkyard is a nearly 500 year old graveyard. The author J.K.Rowling wrote much of the first Harry Potter book nearby. Although she has never admitted it, it seems as though she was inspired by the names of tombstones in the kirkyard. If you walk through you may recognise many famous characters on the tombs like Potter, McGonagall, Moodie, Charles Black, and even Tom Riddle. The graveyard is also associated with the tale of Greyfriars Bobby, the loyal dog who guarded his master’s grave.

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Three Bridges

After exploring Edinburgh, we drove north and stopped to see the Three Bridges. These bridges cross an estuary called the Firth of Forth, located in a fjord. On the right is the Forth Bridge, a train bridge completed in 1890. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a symbol of Scotland.

On the left is the Queensferry Crossing, the UK’s tallest bridge, completed in 2017 for cars. It was built to replace the older bridge in the middle, the Forth Road Bridge, which had structural issues. The Forth Road Bridge was repaired and reopened in 2018 for pedestrians, cyclists, and certain restricted vehicles.

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Cairngorms National Park

Our next stop was Cairngorms National Park, the largest national park in the United Kingdom. The Cairngorms mountain range lies at the heart of the national park. We went for a hike inside the national park and looked for the reindeer that live in the forest.

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Inverness

In the evening we arrived in the city of Inverness, the largest settlement in the Scottish Highlands and our home for the next two nights. The Highlands is a sparsely populated region in northern Scotland and is the most mountainous part of the UK.

Inverness has a great location on both sides of the River Ness. There is a lovely castle that towers over the city and lots of great restaurants.

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Clava Cairns

The next morning we started off the day with a visit to the Clava Cairns. A hugely significant and exceptionally well preserved prehistoric cemetery, Clava Cairns is a great example of the distant history of Highland Scotland, dating back about 4,000 years.

There are about 50 cairns like this in the area around Inverness. They were prehistoric burial sites, and nothing is known today about the people who were buried there.

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Culloden Battlefield

Next, we visited the nearby Culloden battlefield. This is the site where a rebellion called the Jacobite Rising of 1745 came to a tragic end.

Jacobitism was a political movement dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England and Scotland. It started when King James II of England, a Catholic, was overthrown in 1688 and replaced by the Protestant William of Orange (James’s son-in-law). James was then forced into exile in France, and the British who continued to support restoring him to the throne were known as Jacobites (which means supporter of James).

In 1745, Jacobite forces under Charles Edward Stuart (the grandson of James II) were decisively defeated by British forces, putting an end to the Jacobite rising. In less than an hour, around 1,600 men were killed, 1,500 of them Jacobites.

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Urquhart Castle

After visiting the somber battlefield, we drove to the ruins of Urquhart Castle. Founded in the 13th century, Urquhart played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century, when Scotland fought against England to remain independent. The castle was partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent its use by Jacobite forces and was then left in ruins.

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Loch Ness

The castle overlooks Loch Ness, one of the world’s most famous lakes. Loch is the Scottish word for lake. Loch Ness contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined, and the lake is best known for alleged sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. We took a cruise on Loch Ness, keeping our eyes peeled for the famous “Nessie.”

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Skye

The next day we drove to the Isle of Skye, which is home to some of Scotland’s most iconic landscapes. Skye is the largest island in an archipelago known as the Inner Hebrides. Do you know what an archipelago is? (A: a cluster or chain of islands) The Inner Hebrides are the islands off the western shore of Scotland.

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Dunvegan Castle and Gardens

One of the highlights of our visit to Skye was Dunvegan Castle. This is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the ancestral home of the Chiefs of clan MacLeod for 800 years. The castle also has several beautiful gardens.

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Fort William

That evening we traveled by ferry back to Great Britain and continued on to the town of Fort William. It is the second largest settlement in the highlands and a popular place for travelers and hikers. Towering above Fort William is Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles. The summit is 4,413 feet above sea level. To put that in context, the highest mountain in the U.S. is Mount Denali in Alaska at 20,310 feet above sea level.

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Glenfinnan Viaduct

We started the next day by visiting the Glenfinnan Viaduct. Glenfinnan attracts thousands of visitors from around the world to experience the stunning scenery, but also to catch a glimpse of the famous Jacobite steam train—also known as the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter novels and films—travel across the Glenfinnan viaduct.

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Glenfinnan Monument

Nearby is the Glenfinnan Monument, a tribute to those who fought in the Jacobite Risings. It commemorates the clansmen who fought and gave their lives in support of Charles Edward Stuart, who you will remember was the grandson of James II. He is sometimes referred to affectionately as “Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

The monument is surrounded by spectacular Highland scenery at the head of Loch Shiel.

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Achriabhach Hike

Afterward, we stretched our legs with a forest hike in the Achriabhach Forest, a 2.2-mile trail around the base of Ben Nevis.

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Black Mount

The next day, we drove through gorgeous scenery on our way to Glasgow. This is Black Mount in Glen Coe, a valley in the Highlands. The area is featured in James Bond’s Skyfall and several of the Harry Potter films.

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Glasgow

We ended our trip in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city and the fourth-largest in the UK. Glasgow is a port city on the banks of the River Clyde and is one of the UK’s major economic centers outside of London. It’s also famous for its Victorian architecture, a rich legacy of the city’s 18th-20th-century prosperity when it was an industrial powerhouse in Britain.

Today, it’s a cultural hub, home to the Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, and National Theatre of Scotland, as well as wonderful museums and a thriving music scene, ranging pop and rock to Celtic music and opera.

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Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

One of Galsgow’s most famous sites is Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. This amazing museum is free to visit (like many museums in Scotland) and has an eclectic collection, ranging from paintings by famous artists like Dali, to dinosaur skeletons.