Dunnottar Castle and Arbuthnott

Two miles south of Stonehaven (the tourist office sells a walking guide for the scenic amble), Dunnottar Castle (Easter-Oct Mon-Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 2-5pm; rest of year Mon-Fri 9am-4pm, Dec & Jan closes 3pm; £3.50) is one of the finest of Scotland's ruined castles, a huge ninth-century fortress set on a three-sided sheer cliff jutting into the sea - a setting striking enough to be chosen as the backdrop for Zeffirelli's movie version of Hamlet. Once the principal fortress of the northeast, the ruins are worth a good root around, and there are any number of dramatic views out to the crashing sea. Siege and bloodstained drama splatter the castle's past: in 1297 William Wallace burnt alive the whole English Plantagenet garrison here, while one of the more gruesome tales from the castle's history tells of the imprisonment and torture of 122 men and 45 women Covenanters in 1685 - an event, as it says on the Covenanters' Stone in the churchyard, "whose dark shadow is for evermore flung athwart the Castled Rock".

Inland is the Mearns, an agricultural district of scattered population and gathering hills. Here, the straggling village of ARBUTHNOTT was the home of prolific local author Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1901-35), whose romanticized realism perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the agricultural Mearns area. Sunset Song, his most famous work, is an essential read for those travelling in this area. The community-run Grassic Gibbon Centre (April-Oct daily 10am-4.30pm; £2), on the B967 through the village, is a great introduction to this fascinating and self-assured man who died so young. He is buried (under his real name of James Leslie Mitchell) in the corner of the little village graveyard, overlooking the forested banks of the Bervie Water off the main road.

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