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Places to visit in Scotland

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Beinn Ghlas

A Munro of 1,103 metres above the north shore of Loch Tay, climbed by the zigzag path from the National Trust for Scotland's car park on the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve.

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Quiz22 hours ago

The pale 'sand' of the Coral Beach near Dunvegan is really made of what?

Place of the day21 hours ago

Blair Castle.

The white-harled seat of the Dukes of Atholl at Blair Atholl, begun as Comyn's Tower in 1269, home of Europe's only private army, with the Hercules Garden.

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NewNew today

Bidean nam Bian

A Munro of 1,149 metres behind the Three Sisters on the south side of Glen Coe, climbed from the A82 by Coire nan Lochan.

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Did you know21 hours ago

The youngest prisoner of war held at Edinburgh Castle was six years old.

He had been captured at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and brought here with the rest. The vaults under the castle took prisoners from France, America, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, Denmark and Poland through the 1700s and 1800s, and the first of them were French privateers caught in 1758, soon after the Seven Years' War began. They slept in hammocks slung in rows in the dark, as they are slung here now.

See Edinburgh Castle
In Issue 13The magazine

Romantic Rituals

Rosie Steer explores the magical allure of a Scottish elopement, past and present.

Read it in Issue 13
Today20 hours agoAberdeenshireDrum CastleAttractionAberdeenshireHuntly CastleAttractionAberdeenshireCastle FraserAttractionAberdeenshireFyvie CastleAttractionAberdeenshireCraigievar CastleAttractionLochalshEilean Donan CastleAttraction

Today calls for a castle.

10° and mostly cloudy across Scotland. Dry enough for the ramparts and the walk round the walls.

See them all
NewNew today

Spidean Mialach

A Munro of 996 metres above the north shore of Loch Quoich, climbed from the Kinloch Hourn road by its grassy south-west slopes.

Find out more about Spidean Mialach
In the Highlands20 hours ago

Beavers are coming back to the River Ness, after NatureScot approved the release of up to 15 families round Loch Ness.

Trees for Life and the Beaver Trust have the licence, and the families will go to agreed sites over the next three years. Beavers were last recorded in Scotland beside Loch Ness, in a chronicle from 1526.

Read about it
Did you know19 hours ago

In 1892 Tommy Dewar set off round the world to sell his family's whisky, and threw bottles into the sea along the way.

Tommy was one of the two sons of John Dewar who built the family's distillery at Aberfeldy, in Perthshire. He left in August 1892 on a sales tour that lasted two years. Among his less usual ideas was to throw bottles overboard with notes inside, telling whoever found one to get in touch with Dewar's for a whisky by way of reward. By the time he came home he had appointed 32 agents in 26 countries and opened an office in New York, and his travel journals became a book, A Ramble Round the Globe, in 1894.

An old Dewar's advertising painting in the museum at Dewar's Aberfeldy distillery.See Dewar's Aberfeldy · Perthshire
From Issue 10 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 1019 hours ago

Craft and Soul

Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens on Bard, their shop and gallery on the shore at Leith, where Scottish craft and design are chosen for the stories behind them.

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From the magazine19 hours ago

When Robert Pooley, father of the interior designer Katharine Pooley, first saw Forter Castle in Glenisla, Perthshire, it was a complete ruin with trees growing among its blackened walls.

The 16th-century castle was restored to its original layout, and Katharine oversaw the design of its rooms, which stay authentic while adding plenty of 21st-century comforts. Look up in the Great Hall and you will see an ornate ceiling that took 30 days to paint by hand. The bedrooms have four-poster beds, stone fireplaces and carefully chosen family heirlooms, which give each one a character of its own. Today the castle is rented out for special occasions as a whole, and weddings can be held in its basement chapel.

Read the full story in Issue 5
From our Isle of Skye guide18 hours ago

The Cuillin Hills Hotel in Portree, on the Isle of Skye, was built as the Macdonalds' shooting lodge in 1865, and the family spent more time there once Armadale Castle fell into disrepair.

Armadale Castle, in Sleat in the south of the island, had been the family's main residence, and the shift to Portree came in the early 20th century. The Portree house was sold in the 1950s and was briefly used to house workers from Holm Mills, before it was converted into a country house hotel in the 1960s. It is still family run, with some of its rooms up in the turrets and many with views out over the bay. The restaurant looks out to sea, the bar keeps more than 130 malt and grain whiskies, and the harbour is an easy walk down the hill.

See Cuillin Hills Hotel · Isle of Skye