Inverness

A long loch laid along the Great Glen fault, holding more water than all the lakes of England and Wales together. Peat stains it dark as tea so you cannot see in, which fed the monster stories. The road on the south shore has little traffic and stays quiet.

A ruin on a headland jutting into Loch Ness, blown up by its own garrison in 1692 to keep it from the Jacobites. Climb the half-ruined Grant Tower for a long view up and down the loch. Coaches pile in around midday, so go right at opening or late afternoon.

On this moor the Jacobite army broke before government troops within an hour on 16 April 1746, counted as the last pitched battle on British soil. Red and blue flags mark each side's lines. Many visitors leave flowers at stones carved with clan names.

Three Bronze Age burial cairns, about 4,000 years old, sit ringed by standing stones in a woodland clearing. The tomb passages line up with the midwinter sunset. With no fence and no ticket, you can walk in any time; Culloden is minutes away by car.

A few small wooded islands in the River Ness, linked by Victorian iron suspension footbridges. A 20-minute riverside walk from the centre gets you there, and the loop costs nothing. You may see anglers casting for salmon in the river.

A second-hand bookshop filling an entire late 18th-century church, among the biggest in Scotland. A wood-burning stove glows among the shelves, so on rainy days people come in to warm up. Old maps and prints are piled in the upstairs gallery.

A covered arcade market rebuilt after a fire in 1889, entered by passages off several main streets. The inner hall has been refitted as a food hall of small kitchens. An old clock and iron columns survive, and it makes a dry walk out of the rain.

A shingle spit by a lighthouse on the Black Isle's tip, where the Moray Firth's bottlenose dolphins ride the current right up close. The best time is about an hour after low tide, as the water starts to rise. Parking is tight and fills early in summer.

A huge artillery fort built in the 18th century to hold down the Highlands after Culloden, and the army still uses it today. The ramparts run over 1km, so a full lap takes a good while. On some days dolphins show from the seaward walls.

Thomas Telford's canal, opened in 1822, strings together Loch Ness and other lochs to cut across the country from Inverness to Fort William. At Muirtown in town a flight of four locks lifts and lowers boats in steps. The towpath doubles as a walking route.

A red sandstone Episcopal cathedral beside the Ness on its western side, completed in 1869. The spires meant to crown its two towers were never built for lack of money, so they end blunt. From the castle bank opposite, the facade reflects in the river.

A small free council garden in the Bught area, southwest of the centre. The tropical house holds bananas and broad-leaved plants and the cactus house is crammed with succulents, a break from Highland chill. Walkers can carry on here from the Ness Islands path.

Named for the Thane of Cawdor in Macbeth, though built long after the real Macbeth. The base of the tower still holds the trunk of a holly that died around 1372, which the castle was supposedly built around. Walled gardens and woodland walks spread wide.

Water plunges into a gorge behind Foyers village on the southeast shore of Loch Ness. Robert Burns wrote a poem about it in 1787. The way down is a stepped woodland path beside the village shop, and the flow peaks the day after heavy rain.

A glen west of Inverness that keeps one of the few surviving stands of old Caledonian pine forest. Trails branch from the Dog Falls and Loch Affric car parks. With almost no public transport, it means over an hour by car, and phone signal fades in the glen.

A shingle shore at Dores village where Loch Ness begins at its north end, the water seeming to run south without end. Locals eat at the Dores Inn next door and then walk the waterline. Driving out from Inverness takes 20 minutes; come for the sunset glow.