The 8 Best Castles to Visit in Scotland

Scotland's turbulent history of battles in the glens has bequeathed the country a magnificent selection of castles, with the added bonus of its rugged landscape.

Whether you roam the fortresses overlooking Edinburgh and Stirling or seek out a romantic ruin amid the vast lochs and brooding mountains of the Scottish Highlands, inspiring historical adventures await.

Edinburgh Castle

Best for royal history

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Perched atop the volcanic plug of Castle Rock, the Scottish capital’s crowning glory is a strong start to a tour of the best castles in Scotland. The history of Britain’s most besieged place goes back a thousand years, and the castle's Georgian barracks proudly overlook the Princes Street Gardens that separate Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns.

Highlights include the firing of the One o’Clock Gun, a tradition dating to 1861, as well as James IV’s wooden-beamed Great Hall and the 16th-century Royal Palace. In the latter, don’t miss the chamber where Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to James VI, the first monarch of both Scotland and England.

Getting there: In central Edinburgh, you can see this imposing castle from almost every street. Walk up the Royal Mile to get there.
Planning tip: During peak periods, summer (especially August during festival season) and winter (Christmas and Hogmanay), book tickets ahead.

Stirling Castle

Best for a family adventure

The Jacobite uprisings sought to restore the House of Stuart to the British throne, and you can follow those monarchs to their imposing fortress atop riverside Castle Hill. “He who holds Stirling, holds Scotland, ” goes the old saying – and the castle has witnessed some 20 sieges and battles.

The 18th-century pockmarks left by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s cannons are a small part of the building’s rich history, which you can discover on guided tours of James V’s Renaissance-style Royal Palace, the walled Queen Anne Gardens, the stone-floored Great Kitchens and more. Galleries display artifacts including the Stirling Heads, 16th-century oak medallions carved with royal portraits, and children love hearing historical yarns from staff in frilly period costumes.

Getting there: Stirling Castle is a 15-minute walk from the train station.
Planning tip: Allow at least two hours to explore. There's a cafe inside the castle to grab a bite to eat while you're there.

Eilean Donan

Best for a lyrical setting

Eilean Donan often serves as a pin-up for the storybook romance of the Highlands, with its splendid location on a rocky islet at the meeting of three mountain-rimmed lochs. You’ll see its reconstructed medieval towers and turrets from the main road west to Skye, but it’s worth crossing the stone bridge to one of the finest castles in Scotland.

Featured in films such as the James Bond flick The World Is Not Enough, it stood strong from the 13th century until 1719, when English men-of-war bombarded its 5m-thick (16ft) walls while besieging Spanish troops during the Jacobite uprisings. Inside, you can imagine yourself a Jacobite plotter on the battlements, peek through spy holes, hold a cannonball and wield a claymore – the hefty sword brandished by William Wallace in Braveheart.

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Getting there: Eilean Donan is on the main route to the Isle of Skye, where three sea lochs meet – Loch Duich, Loch Long and Loch Alsh.
Planning tip: You can only buy tickets in person on the day of your visit.

Dunnottar Castle

Best for drama queens (and kings)

This windblown relic atop the 49m-high (160ft) cliffs of a headland on the North Sea coast is unbeatable for sheer drama. A visitor center is planned, but for now, the medieval fortification is a place to absorb the romance of its scenic setting and long history, perhaps while approaching along the Aberdeenshire Coastal Path from nearby Stonehaven.

William Wallace, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Charles II all passed through, but Dunnotar’s proudest moment was helping a small garrison safeguard the Scottish crown jewels (now on display at Edinburgh Castle) from Oliver Cromwell’s forces.

Getting there: About 20 miles from Aberdeen International Airport; from Stonehaven, it's a 1.6-mile walk along clifftops.
Planning tip: You can buy tickets on the day, or online, but be aware: it can sometimes be closed at short notice if the weather turns particularly inclement.

Dunrobin Castle

Best fairy-tale chateau in Scotland

Like a wing of the Palace of Versailles transported to the Northern Highlands, the conical spires of this 189-room chateau overlook its formal gardens and the Moray Firth. The traditional seat of the Earls and Dukes of Sutherland, its stately rooms and corridors bring Downton Abbey to mind, with their stag heads, gilt-framed portraits and family-crest-emblazoned fireplaces.

There’s a tearoom, a museum, falconry displays and gardens laid out by Sir Charles Barry, architect of London’s Houses of Parliament. Open between April and October, the former naval hospital and boys’ boarding school has seven centuries of history, making it one of the UK’s longest continuously inhabited houses.

Getting there: Dunrobin Castle is 50 miles north of Inverness. If you arrive by train, it's a 5-minute walk from Dunrobin Castle station.
Planning tip: Open spring to autumn only (April until October). Allow plenty of time to wander the lavish 405 hectares of gardens, and catch a falconry demonstration.

Cawdor Castle

Best for channeling Shakespeare

One for actors who superstitiously refer to Macbeth as “the Scottish play,” this looming pile features in Shakespeare’s tragedy, when the protagonist fulfills the witches’ prophecy that he will become Thane of Cawdor. The play’s 11th-century events predate the castle by a few centuries, but the fairy-tale rooms and gardens nonetheless offer many Scottish legends. Explore the walled garden and visit the medieval tower built around a lucky holly tree, which protected Cawdor through the Jacobite uprisings. Waymarked nature trails lead from the gardens into the dappled shade of the Big Wood with its ancient oaks – or head south from the castle along the gorge of the Riereach Burn to the High Bridge, poised 40m above the foaming peat-stained waters.

Shakespearean completists should check out another glorious Highlands edifice, Glamis Castle, the setting for much of Macbeth (and the late Queen Mother’s childhood home).

Getting there: It's located 13 miles northeast of Inverness; directions are well signposted on the main roads here.
Planning tip: Open from late April until early October only.

Blair Castle

Best for Scots Baronial architecture

You can tour 30 rooms of this whitewashed Scots Baronial masterpiece in the southern foothills of the Cairngorms, where the Atholl family left medieval, Georgian and Victorian imprints. Step into the wood-paneled entrance hall, adorned with muskets used at the Battle of Culloden, and wander the hushed rooms of furniture, china and lace, collected by 19 generations of adventurers, Jacobites and royalists.

Stay in a cottage or shepherd’s hut to appreciate the landscaped grounds, where peacocks and red squirrels inhabit the 3.6 hectare (9 acre) walled garden, woodland grove, deer park and sculpture trail. The estate is home to both sustainability schemes and Europe’s last remaining private army, the Atholl Highlanders, which guarded Queen Victoria during her stay at the castle.

For a Cairngorms castle crawl, gallop northeast to 17th-century Braemar Castle and the royal-owned Balmoral Castle, where the ballroom and gardens open to the public between April and August.

Getting there: You can access the castle on foot from Blair Atholl train station in Perthshire (about 15 minutes).
Planning tip: The castle and gardens are open every day between April and October only.

Inveraray Castle

Best for towers and turrets

Loch Fyne in the Western Highlands is famous for both oysters and this pearl of a Scottish ancestral seat, its tubular towers crowned with witch-hat spires.

Behind the arched windows in its granite-gray facade, the ornate interiors include the 18th-century drawing room’s painted ceiling and French Beauvais tapestries, the opulent State Dining Room and the Armoury Hall with some 1300 weapons. Head "below stairs" to the tearoom and old kitchen, explore the grounds on a 1.5-mile woodland walk and overnight in one of the estate’s cottages.

Getting there: Inveraray can be reached by Citylink bus or by car; it's about an hour from Loch Lomond.
Planning tip: This castle remains a family home and is only open to the public at specific times of the year, so check ahead to plan your visit.