Aberdeen for the non-golfer.

15 miles south on the A90 · cliff-top fortified settlement · 15-min walk from the Stonehaven car park

The greatest dramatic ruin in Aberdeenshire: an entire fortified settlement — great hall, chapel, stables, barracks, the 14th-century keep — spread across a headland connected to the mainland by a narrow neck of rock, with the North Sea on three sides. Cromwell's army besieged it in 1651 trying to capture the Scottish Crown Jewels; a minister's wife smuggled them out concealed in a bundle of lint and buried them under the floor of Kinneff Church, which is why they survived. Allow 2 hours minimum; the cliff walk south from Stonehaven adds another 30 minutes.

City centre, Schoolhill · free entry · reopened 2019 after £35m refurbishment

The collection is stronger than the building's exterior suggests: significant Pre-Raphaelite work (including Rossetti and Millais), a substantial holding of Scottish Colourists, and a contemporary Scottish collection that has been actively built since the 1990s. The refurbishment restored the original 1885 granite facade and opened the roof to natural light. Allow 2 hours; the café on the top floor is reasonable.

20 min walk north of city centre · free · the university quarter

The medieval university quarter sits separately from the Victorian commercial city — a coherent ensemble of granite university buildings, the 15th-century King's College with its crown tower, and St Machar's Cathedral with its remarkable heraldic ceiling of 48 painted shields (the only heraldic ceiling in the world, representing the heads of the European church and secular state in 1520). Walk from King's College to St Machar's and back along the Don via the Chanonry — allow a full half-day.

10 min walk from city centre · historic fishing village at the harbour mouth · free

Footdee is the 19th-century fishing village built at the harbour mouth in two symmetrical squares of cottages facing inward — the backs of the houses turn toward the sea for protection against the weather. It was designed in 1808 by John Smith (Aberdeen's city architect) and the fishermen promptly added garden sheds, lean-tos, and workshops to the backs. The result is a dense, oddly suburban grid of alleys. It is ten minutes' walk from the Maritime Museum along the harbour front and it is consistently missed by visitors who go no further than the beach.

25 miles north on the A90 to Cruden Bay · the ruined castle that inspired Dracula · free access

Bram Stoker was a regular guest at Slains Castle from 1893 onward and used it as the model for Castle Dracula in his 1897 novel — the clifftop setting, the rooms inside the battlements, the view over the sea to the north are all consistent with the descriptions in the book. The castle was unroofed in 1925 by the Earl of Erroll, who couldn't afford the taxes on it, and has been a ruin since. Free to visit; 10-minute walk from the Cruden Bay car park; the coastal path north from the castle to Bullers of Buchan (a collapsed sea cave) is an additional 30 minutes.

Shiprow, harbour · free entry · North Sea oil and fishing history

The museum occupies a converted Georgian warehouse on the hill above the harbour, with a glass link to the 1593 Provost Ross's House. The collection covers Aberdeen's maritime history from the medieval herring trade to the North Sea oil industry — the North Sea section is the largest section, with a working model of an oil production platform and oral histories from offshore workers. Free entry; allow 90 minutes.

16 miles west on the A93 · National Trust for Scotland · Scottish tower house, walled garden

The classic Aberdeenshire tower house — six storeys of L-plan harled granite with the original painted ceilings in the upper rooms (the Room of the Nine Nobles and the Room of the Nine Muses are the most complete 16th-century painted interiors in Scotland). The walled garden is divided into eight sections with planting that has been developed by successive NTS gardeners since 1952. Allow 3 hours.

South of city centre · free · one of Europe's largest indoor gardens

The Victorian public park on the south bank of the Dee has the David Welch Winter Gardens — a large heated glasshouse complex with a tropical house, a cactus house, and a corridor of temperate plants. Free entry year-round; particularly good in winter when the outdoor city offers little. The park itself has a rose garden, a boating pond, and the kind of Victorian municipal confidence that doesn't get built any more.