Moray

Wildlife Watching

Based in a historic icehouse that used to store ice for preserving local salmon catches, this wildlife centre is one of the best land-based dolphin-spotting places in the country. The indoor attractions include feeds from nearby wildlife cameras, a 'dry dive' audiovisual experience that takes you beneath the waves of the Moray Firth, and a pleasant cafe. Outdoors, you can watch for dolphins, seals and other marine creatures at the mouth of the River Spey, or join a guided wildlife walk.

Gallery

One of Scotland's underappreciated treasures, Duff House is home to an art gallery with a superb collection of Scottish and European art, including important works by Raeburn and Gainsborough. The house is an impressive baroque mansion on the southern edge of Banff, built between 1735 and 1740 as the seat of the Earls of Fife. It was designed by William Adam and bears similarities to that other Adam masterpiece, Hopetoun House near Edinburgh.

Museum

Scotland's oldest independent museum is an old-fashioned cabinet of curiosities, a captivating collection artfully displayed in a beautiful, purpose-built Victorian building. Exhibits range from Ecuadorian shrunken heads to Peruvian mummies, and include mysterious Pictish carved stones and internationally important fish and reptile fossils discovered in local rocks.

Cultural Centre

The Findhorn Foundation is an international spiritual community founded in 1962. There’s a small permanent population of around 200, but the community receives thousands of visitors each year. With no formal creed, the community is dedicated to cooperation with nature, dealing with work, relationships and the environment in more fulfilling ways, in order to foster a deeper sense of the sacred in everyday life.

Forest

On the western side of Findhorn Bay is Culbin Forest, a vast swath of Scots and Corsican pine that was planted in the 1940s to stabilise the shifting sand dunes that buried the Culbin Estate in the 17th century. The forest is a unique wildlife habitat, supporting plants, birds and animals (such as the pine marten) that are normally found only in ancient natural pine woods.

Village

This impossibly picturesque village lies about 3 miles southwest of Portsoy. The main attractions are the 13th-century St Tarquin's Church, with its extraordinary canopied Gothic tombs, and the impressive 16th-century tower house of Fordyce Castle (not open to the public). The nearby Joiner's Workshop has a collection of traditional woodworking tools and machinery, and stages woodwork demonstrations by a master joiner.

Museum

As well as housing a selection of distillery memorabilia (try saying that after a few drams), the Whisky Museum holds ‘nosing and tasting evenings’ in the Commercial Hotel, where you can learn what to look for in a fine single malt (£15 per person, 8pm Wednesday July and August).

Cathedral

Many people think that the ruins of Elgin Cathedral, known as the 'lantern of the north', are the most beautiful and evocative in Scotland; its octagonal chapter house is the finest in the country. Consecrated in 1224, the cathedral was burned down in 1390 by the infamous Wolf of Badenoch, the illegitimate son of Robert II, following his excommunication by the Bishop of Moray. Guided tours are available on weekdays.

Aquarium

The centrepiece of Macduff's aquarium is a 400,000L open-air tank, complete with kelp-coated reef and wave machine. Marine oddities on view include the brightly coloured cuckoo wrasse, the warty-skinned lumpsucker and the vicious-looking wolf fish. There's also a live CCTV feed from the seabird nesting colonies at the RSPB's Troup Head nature reserve.