Glamis Castle
Rain-proof10 miles east via A926/A94 · Adult £18.50 · Open April to October
The largest occupied castle in Scotland and one of the most significant — childhood home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, birthplace of Princess Margaret, and the setting for Shakespeare's Macbeth (though Macbeth himself never visited; the Glamis connection is legend rather than history). The castle has been home to the Lyon family (Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne) since 1372. The State Rooms, the chapel, the Dutch garden, and the Italian garden together make a serious half-day. The great hall is the height of the castle and arguably its most impressive space.
Dunkeld & The Hermitage
12 miles northwest on A9 · NTS Hermitage; free, parking charge · Open year-round
Dunkeld is one of the most attractive small towns in Scotland — a cathedral ruin on the River Tay, a Cathedral Street of whitewashed 17th-century houses, and enough good cafés to make a morning of it. The Hermitage, 1 mile west at Ossian's Hall, is a NTS woodland walk through Douglas fir forest to a viewing platform above the Black Linn Falls — one of the better waterfall walks in Perthshire, and well-maintained. Combined, Dunkeld and the Hermitage easily fill a half-day.
Alyth Glen Walk
7 miles east on B954 · Free · Year-round
Alyth is a small Perthshire town with a market cross and a glen walk up the Barry Burn to a waterfall. The walk is 2 miles return, not demanding, through deciduous woodland. Alyth Golf Club (an 18-hole heathland course) is here too — useful if the golfer wants an easier second-day course after the Rosemount. The town's main attraction is that it is quiet, the bakery is good, and nobody is trying very hard.
Meikleour Beech Hedge
5 miles south on A93 · Free · Year-round
The Meikleour Beech Hedge is the tallest hedge in the world — planted in 1745, now 530 metres long and 30 metres tall, on the A93 south of Blairgowrie. It is trimmed every ten years. The hedge is the kind of thing that sounds like a weak tourist attraction until you are standing beneath it and reconsidering your assumptions about what a hedge is. Listed in the Guinness World Records. Five minutes from the road, free to look at, and genuinely worth the small detour.
Blairgowrie Soft Fruit Farms
Various locations east and south of town · Seasonal: June to September
Blairgowrie is the centre of Scotland's raspberry and strawberry production — the Carse of Gowrie to the south has been growing soft fruit commercially since the 19th century. Several farms run pick-your-own operations in summer: Cairnhill Soft Fruit Farm and others are signposted on the A93 south. If you are here in July and the sun is out, this is the correct use of a morning while the golfer plays the Lansdowne. If you are here in October, it is not.
J.M. Barrie's Birthplace, Kirriemuir
Rain-proof10 miles east via A926 · NTS; adult £9 · Open April to October
The small weaver's cottage in Kirriemuir where J.M. Barrie was born in 1860. Barrie wrote Peter Pan — partly set in the hills around Kirriemuir — and the wash-house behind the cottage is believed to be the original Wendy House, which is a detail that either means a great deal to you or very little. The town's Camera Obscura on Kirrie Hill is run by the same NTS ticket and gives views across Strathmore.
Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve
6 miles east via A923 near Dunkeld · SWT; adult £5 · Open April to October
A Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve with a visitor centre overlooking the loch, best known for its osprey breeding pair — active from April, with live camera feeds and a warden-staffed viewing hide. Ospreys have nested here since 1969. Red squirrels are present year-round at the feeders near the hide. The visitor centre is small and worth the detour; the hide itself is the point.
Scone Palace
Rain-proof17 miles south via A93 near Perth · Adult £18 · Open daily April to October
The estate where Scottish kings were crowned on the Stone of Destiny from Kenneth MacAlpin onwards — until Edward I removed the Stone in 1296. The current neo-Gothic palace was built in 1803 and the State Rooms contain French furniture, Meissen porcelain, and ivories collected by the Murray family over several centuries. The grounds have a pinetum planted with trees from David Douglas's North American expeditions — Douglas being a Scone man, which the estate points out with justifiable pride.