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Some Perthshire History Heritage and Castle Trails highlights - peek back into history and recapture, if only momentarily, the events of the past in a part of Scotland which captivated the historic figures who made Scotland great.
- Visit the home of a Clan Chief at Castle Menzies, by Aberfeldy, where Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed on his way to the Battle of Culloden;
- Queen Victoria made four visits to the area. Her first visit was low key, as she was enjoying her marriage to Albert and seeing more of the world through his eyes.
The countryside delighted the royal couple and attracted their patronage for the concept of the Scottish Highlands as a spiritually uplifting landscape and of Perthshire as the "perfect county". In 1842 the Queen came to Scotland for the first time and after ceremonial duties in Edinburgh, came north to Perthshire. Following a lavish lunch in Dunkeld, as guests of the ducal family of Atholl, the royal party travelled up Strathtay to Taymouth Castle at Kenmore, where more lavish entertainment, including dinners, balls and a lavish firework display, were provide by the Marquis of Breadalbane. Prince Albert also had his first experience of deer stalking on Scottish moors. In 1866 the Queen paid a second visit to The Duchess of Atholl in Dunkeld, During her stay, the Queen and Duchess made a day excursion of 70 miles round north Perthshire. They stopped high above Taymouth Castle and looked down on it, unobserved, no doubt with the private thoughts and memories of the splendours of 1842, on that first visit to Scotland. Thus ended a memorable series of visits, which spanned over twenty years of Queen Victoria's life. Though she never afterwards came back to the area - "... These dream days in Atholl were a perfume that sweetened her life to the very end".
- Two and a half centuries of honourable military history and human sacrifice at the Black Watch Museum;
- The childhood home of the Queen Mother at Glamis Castle
- The island castle on Loch Leven where Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned for almost a year before her dramatic escape;
- The Church where John Knox fuelled the fire of the Reformation at St. John's Kirk in Perth;
- Walk to the stunning waterfalls that inspired Robert Burns' poem; "The Birks O' Aberfeldy".
- Vist the oldest existing library in Scotland (Innerpeffray, near Crieff), founded by Lord Madderty in 1680.
- Queen's View, one of the most famous views in Scotland across Loch Tummel to Schiehallion. Queen Victoria took tea here in 1866, but the viewpoint actually commemorates Queen Isabel, first wife of Robert the Bruce.
- Explore the fascinating, fairy-tale white Blair Castle, protected by the last and only private army in Europe;
- Visit the magnificent Scone Palace, where Kings of Scots including Robert the Bruce, were crowned - many atop the fabled Stone of Destiny.
- Listen for the footsteps of "My Lady Greensleeves" who is reputed to haunt Huntingtower Castle where Mary, Queen of Scots visited in 1565 while on her honeymoon with Darnley.
- Absorbe the beauty of this part of Perthshire, with its fascinating wildlife, stimulated Beatrix's vivid and creative imagination when she spent many long; happy summers at Dalguise, near Dunkeld during her childhood years between 1871 and 1881. In 1893 she wrote her picture story letter from Dunkeld to a friend's child about four rabbits, which was published later as the famous tale of "Peter Rabbit". One of her most loved and valued friend was Charles Macintosh, the local postman who lived at Inver.
- The Scottish Crannog Centre is situated at Croft-na-Caber just west of Kenmore. Crannogs are artificially created or modified islands, the earliest of which dates back some 5,000 years. Crannogs provided safe havens from wild animals and human enemies, whilst also acting as refuges for friendly travellers as well as providing for the ability to control waterways and trade routes. The Scottish Crannog Centre features an authentic replica of an early Iron Age crannog based on the underwater excavations of the 2,500 year old "Oakbank Crannog" located off the village of Fearnan.
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