Dunrobin Castle

What makes it special

Dunrobin is the most northerly of Scotland's great houses and the largest in the Northern Highlands, with 189 rooms in all, of which the ticket opens 18. Its towers end in tall conical spires, so from the drive it looks like a French château. The early keep still survives inside the later wings, and Sir Charles Barry remodelled the old fort as a Victorian house in the Scottish Baronial style.

Each room carries a board explaining what the family used it for. Look out for the room built and furnished for Queen Victoria's visit.

Below the terrace, the gardens follow Barry's layout: two parterres, each set round a circular pool with a fountain. The terrace looks over them to the North Sea.

The museum keeps its Victorian and early 20th-century arrangement. It holds animal heads shot by the family on safari, ethnographic pieces gathered mostly in Africa, and a collection of archaeological relics.

Visiting

Park in the free car park below the castle and climb the flight of stairs to the entrance. Leave any bag or back carrier larger than A4 in the cloakroom there, which takes luggage of any size or weight. Your ticket is an all-day pass to the rooms, the gardens and the museum.

The castle tour is self-guided, with information boards in several languages, and you may take photographs anywhere inside without flash.

Plan the rest of the day round the falconry on the castle lawn, at 11.30am and 2.30pm. The falconer flies peregrines, gyrfalcons and Harris hawks and explains how owls, hawks and falcons hunt, for up to three quarters of an hour. Stay afterwards to get close to the birds for photographs.

Take the rooms first if you arrive at opening, then walk down to the parterres before the late-morning display. The museum keeps shorter hours than the castle, so see it before mid-afternoon. The tearoom on the castle's bottom floor serves ticket holders only.

Tips

Eat early in the tearoom, because seats run short at the peak of lunch. Bring a front carrier for a baby, since pushchairs are not allowed on the upstairs tour.

Dogs are not allowed in the castle or the formal gardens, assistance dogs apart, and drones are banned across the grounds because of the birds of prey. Skip the museum if mounted animal heads trouble you.

Come in early spring for tulips in the parterres, or in summer for lilies, dahlias and geraniums.