Glamis Castle

Bus #125 from Forfar runs regularly to Dundee via the pink sandstone Glamis Castle (April-Oct daily 10.30am-4.45pm; £6.20, grounds only £3.10), located a mile north of the picturesque village of GLAMIS (pronounced "glahms"). A wondrously over-the-top, L-shaped five-storey pile set in an extensive landscaped park complete with deer and pheasants, this is one of the most famous Scottish castles. Shakespeare chose it as a central location in Macbeth and its royal connections (as the childhood home of the Queen Mother and birthplace of Princess Margaret) make it one of the essential stops on every coach tour of Scotland, though for many visitors the Queen Mum gloss is laid on rather thick.

The guided tour starts upstairs in the Victorian Dining Room, notable for its fine rose-and-thistle ceiling. The atmosphere changes dramatically in the fifteenth-century Crypt, more properly the Lower Hall of the original tower house, which you enter through a door in the wood panelling of the Dining Room. The crypt's 12ft-thick walls enclose a haunted "lost" room, reputed to be have been sealed with the red-bearded Lord of Glamis and Crawford (also known as Beardie Crawford) inside, after he dared to play cards with the Devil one Sabbath. From here, the tour passes up a seventeenth-century staircase, whose hollow central pillar provided a primitive system of central heating.

The highlight of the tour is the family Chapel, completed in 1688. The chapel is said to be haunted by the spectre of a grey lady, the ghost of the sixth Lady Glamis who was burnt as a witch on the order of James V. The Billiard Room, complete with full-sized table and a beautiful polished walnut piano that cost £199 when it was commissioned in 1866, is decorated with various species of stuffed bird and lined with paintings and tapestries, of which the vast and colourful Fruit Market by Flemish artist Frans Snyders draws the most attention.

Glamis' grounds are worth a few hours in their own right, holding lead statues of James VI and Charles I at the top of the main drive, a seventeenth-century Baroque sundial, a formal Italian Garden and verdant walks out to Earl John's Bridge and through the woodland.

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