Ballater

Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, bought this land and built a grandiloquent pile of a castle, the prototype of the Scottish Baronial style, all mock-turrets and stags heads looming over the stairways. Completed in 1856, it remains the Royal Family's summer holiday home. The standard tour only includes one room within the castle, the ballroom, plus the stables and gardens. A much pricier guided tour goes further. The king is usually resident late Aug and Sept, so there's no access then.

Roofless but substantial ruin of a Z-plan tower house built in 1590 for John Gordon of Cairnborrow, possibly by re-cycling stone from Kildrummy. The castle is unsafe and fenced off but you can look at it from the woodland park.

Mid-16th-century tower house castle with reconstructed 1750 redcoat barracks. Access is by a steep track, wear boots.

This is an extensive 13th-century ruin, perched over a ravine and with gardens. A seat of the Earl of Mar, it was abandoned in 1716.

"2090" means in feet, it's only 645 metres altitude at base, with the hills above rising to 775 m. So it's a beginners' resort with 12 lifts including a "magic carpet" for wobbly novices, half a dozen short runs on the shady side west of the road, and one even shorter run on the sunny east slope. There are mountain bike trails here in summer.