Gran hadn’t watched the TV series, preferring, she told Elle, to keep her own image of the characters in her head. Elle, on the other hand, had loved seeing her favourite books recreated on the screen, and was now more than a little excited to be heading out to visit the locations used to bring Claire and Jamie Fraser’s story to life.

The driver, a redheaded Scottish woman named Gillian, made Elle smile as she gave a running commentary of Edinburgh’s history as they drove through the streets and out of the city. The tour, though touted as an Outlander day trip, also covered a lot of Scottish history, which seemed to interest the men a lot more as the day wore on.

Their first stop was Doune Castle, used as Castle Leoch and also the place where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. The village of Doune was a quaint, pretty place standing in the shadow of the great fort. As the big bus squeezed its way through some narrow streets and crossed a little bridge, Elle caught her first sight of the castle and her excitement grew as they prepared to visit their first Outlander location.

Stepping inside the cold stone walls, armed with her headphones for the recorded guided tour, Elle found herself momentarily disappointed that there was nothing Outlander like about the place. The courtyard looked much smaller than in the TV series and was empty of the carts and horses and blacksmiths she had somehow expected. Elle suddenly had a new appreciation for all the smoke and mirrors of movie-making that managed to create a TV set out of the bare bones of the original castle. However, her disappointment was soon forgotten as she followed the tour and began to learn about the real-life history of the castle—which had more highs and lows than any fictional show could hope to dream up. All the while Gran was chirping in her ear, talking over the recorded voice on her audio guide, sounding like an excited school kid on an excursion.

On the bus Elle found herself chatting to a fellow tourist, a woman named Bridget from Texas, who proved very entertaining with her low drawl and love of telling a good story. Bridget was in Scotland alone, doing an Outlander tour while her fiancé was away on a boys’ fishing trip in Alaska.

Well, that seems like a marriage doomed to failure, Gran whispered.

The next few stops were a lot more Outlander-looking, as they stopped at Culross and Falkland—both villages used in the series, and both looking exactly like they did on the screen—then on to Midhope Castle. Of all the places they ventured during their tour, Midhope was the one Elle had most wanted to see. Used as the fictional Lallybroch, it looked exactly like it did in the show and as she had imagined it while reading the books years before. But more than the Outlander connection to these places they visited, Elle loved the real history attached to them. The castles were all ruins now, but they were each home to a long, prestigious and fascinating history.