Tour 1: Deeside

Royal Lochnagar Distillery & Braemar Highland Games Centre                      

The tour includes part of the Cairngorms National Park and is designed to explore Royal Deeside as well as the very different countryside of the watershed between the Dee valleys.

Royal Lochnagar Distillery was granted the Royal title by Queen Victoria. The distillery is a close neighbour to Balmoral Castle, which is closed to visitors in August as Queen Elizabeth takes her Balmoral holiday at this time.

Braemar Highland Games Centre will allow you to explore the background to Highland Games ahead of attending the Aboyne Highland Games on Saturday. Braemar is the location of what is believed to be the world’s earliest games, in the 1000s, organised by King Malcolm Canmore.

You will then enjoy free time in Braemar and Ballater to choose your own lunch venue independently, for shopping and to visit the Old Royal Station in Ballater.

Tour 2: Southern Tour

Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven & Glamis Castle

The tour travels across the Grampian mountains and includes both the coast and inland countryside of the Mearns and Angus areas.

Dunnottar Castle is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland near Stonehaven The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Owned for centuries by the Keith Earls Marischal, Dunnottar and was held briefly by the Burnetts. The visit is an unforgettable experience in a truly stunning setting.  Visiting Dunnottar Castle requires a degree of fitness however, it can be viewed easily from the clifftop viewpoint. 

Stonehaven is an attractive town on the coast of the North Sea. We will pass through the town on the way to Dunnottar Castle and, after the castle visit, you will have free time to find your own lunch here and perhaps visit one of the town’s attractions. Your guide will point out where these and various lunch options. These will be in the town centre, where there are cafes and pubs as well as mini markets and local shops for takeaway sandwiches or traditional fish and chips. A short, attractive walk along the seafront takes you to Stonehaven’s picturesque harbour, with pubs and other food outlets as well as the Tolbooth Museum, housed in the town’s oldest building, dating from 1600.

Glamis Castle is the home of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and has been the home of the Lyon family since the 14th century, though the present building dates largely from the 17th century. Glamis was the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, wife of George VI.   

Tour 3: Historical Aberdeen

The tour will include the lovely granite buildings of Aberdeen’s West End, Old Aberdeen with the medieval St Machar’s Cathedral and university King’s College Chapel, the beach and harbour areas and the city centre, where the coach tour will terminate in the city centre at the newly refurbished and extended Aberdeen Art Gallery. A guided tour will be planned of the Gallery, which reopened in November 2019 following extensive remodelling to allow up-to-date displays of paintings, sculpture, silverware, glass, craft and artworks both historical and modern. Following the Gallery visit, you will have free time to enjoy some shopping or lunch in a wide range of pubs, cafés and restaurants. During your coach tour, your guide will have highlighted a number of optional visits which you may choose to return to during your free time. Most are within easy walking distance of the Gallery and include:

The Kirk of St Nicholas, Aberdeen’s ‘mither kirk’ or mother church, parts of which date back to at least the 1100s and it has a strong Burnett association.

The Seabury Memorial Plaque in Marischal College and, possibly, the Seabury Memorial in St Andrews Cathedral - both of special interest to American Episcopalians.

Aberdeen Maritime Museum, Tolbooth Museum. Provost Skene’s House

The tour will include the lovely granite buildings of Aberdeen’s West End, Old Aberdeen with the medieval St Machar’s Cathedral and university King’s College Chapel, the beach and harbour areas and the city centre, where the coach tour will terminate in the city centre at the newly refurbished and extended Aberdeen Art Gallery. A guided tour will be planned of the Gallery, which reopened in November 2019 following extensive remodelling to allow up-to-date displays of paintings, sculpture, silverware, glass, craft and artworks both historical and modern. Following the Gallery visit, you will have free time to enjoy some shopping or lunch in a wide range of pubs, cafés and restaurants. During your coach tour, your guide will have highlighted a number of optional visits which you may choose to return to during your free time.  Most are within easy walking distance of the Gallery.

0900 - 1700