A short visitor's guide to Braemar, Aberdeenshire: things to do, places to eat and drink, and what's on through the year.
Braemar is a Highland village in Aberdeenshire, set on the upper course of the River Dee around fifty-eight miles west of Aberdeen and tucked deep into the Cairngorms. At 339 metres above sea level it is one of the highest year-round settlements in Britain, with a small granite-fronted centre, a working castle and miles of Caledonian pine forest on every side.
Most visitors come for two things: the Cairngorms National Park on the doorstep (Braemar is the usual jumping-off point for the Lairig Ghru, the Cairngorm plateau and Glen Quoich) and the village's long royal connection. The annual Braemar Gathering is the most famous Highland Games meeting in Scotland and is regularly attended by the monarch from neighbouring Balmoral, while the rest of the year the village trades in walking, whisky and easy-going small-village life.
Braemar's attractions cluster either side of the Clunie Water, with the working castle on one side and the Highland Games complex on the other.
The headline draw is Braemar Castle, the elegant seventeenth-century tower on the Ballater road, owned by the chief of Clan Farquharson and now run by a community trust; rooms are filled with original Farquharson antiques, family portraits and Jacobite-era pieces. Across the village, the Braemar Highland Games Centre at the Duke of Rothesay Highland Games Pavilion on Broombank Terrace is the year-round visitor centre that tells the story of the Gathering and the Games tradition, with displays, archive footage and a shop that earns its keep in the off-season. Just up the lane, The Inver Stone at Broombank Terrace is the historic lifting stone associated with the Braemar Highland Games, the kind of small detail Highland-Games regulars cross the village to see. For a quieter half-hour, Braemar Pond on Chapel Brae is the small ornamental pond and parkland walk on the village's western edge, and the ruined Kindrochit Castle on Balnellan Road is the older medieval fortress that predated Braemar Castle by several centuries.
The best outdoor hours in Braemar are spent on the Cairngorms paths that radiate from the village, with two or three village-edge spots making sense for a shorter loop.
If you play, Braemar Golf Club on Cluniebank Road is the UK's highest eighteen-hole course, set in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, with stunning views across the bowl of hills and a 4,768-yard layout that can be walked as nine or eighteen; the clubhouse bar serves soup, toasties, light snacks and tea and coffee. A few minutes further along Cluniebank Road, the Braemar War Memorial sits in its own small memorial park, a quiet stop on a circular village walk. For families, Braemar Playpark is the village's main playground, useful for an hour with younger children before heading back to the cottage. From the village, the through-roads west lead deeper into the Mar Lodge Estate and the small hamlet of Inverey, the traditional starting point for walks into Glen Lui and the southern Cairngorms.
Braemar's wet-weather options are limited but well-pitched, with the village trading on its galleries, its castle and the heated comfort of the bigger pubs and hotels for a rainy afternoon.
The pick of the indoor stops is The Braemar Gallery on Mar Road, the small contemporary gallery selling Scottish art from the heart of the Cairngorm Mountains, with a regularly changing roster of paintings, prints and crafts. Beyond the gallery, the village's other indoor draws (Braemar Castle, the Highland Games Centre and the Bothy Braemar coffee shop) are covered elsewhere in this guide.
Braemar's pubs are concentrated on Mar Road and Invercauld Road, all within a short walk of the village square and several with serious whisky cabinets behind the bar.
The pick for food is Farquharsons Bar and Kitchen on Invercauld Road, a traditional gastropub serving pub food seven days a week, with a beer garden overlooking the Clunie Water for sunny days and a roaring log burner in the winter; if you're travelling with a dog, see our dog-friendly holiday cottages in Braemar. On Mar Road, The Flying Stag is the more pub-led option, with local beers, Scottish whiskies and a menu of bar snacks and hearty Scottish dishes, and Bertie's Bar a few doors along is the village's headline whisky bar: 365 whiskies (one for each day of the year), arranged by flavour profile (Fragrant, Fruity, Rich and Smoky) on backlit shelves like a library, with the bartenders acting as librarians. It is named in honour of Queen Victoria's eldest son, King Edward VII, who was known as Bertie.
Braemar's sit-down restaurant scene is small (most of the village's evening eating happens in the gastropubs and the hotel dining rooms), with one long-standing all-day option holding down the daytime crowd.
The restaurant pick is Gordon's Tearoom and Restaurant on Mar Road, the village's all-day stop for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea, with a steady local following and the kind of homemade soup-and-sandwich menu that suits a walking day. Outside Gordon's, the village's main evening kitchens are the gastropubs covered in the Pubs section.
Braemar's daytime cafe scene is small but the headline option does enough trade to count for the village on its own.
The village stalwart is The Bothy Braemar on Invercauld Road, the long-running coffee shop that pulls walkers, cyclists and weekenders in from the moment the doors open, with a wide cake counter, hearty soups and the kind of sit-down room that absorbs a wet afternoon's worth of walkers without breaking stride. Outside The Bothy, daytime coffee in Braemar is mostly handled by the hotel lounges and Gordon's tearoom on Mar Road.
Braemar is a drive-to village deep in the Cairngorms: there is no train station and most visitors arrive by car, with a long-distance bus link filling in for the rail.
By bus, a public service connects Dundee, Braemar and Aberdeen, running the length of the Dee valley to the village square. From Aberdeen the journey takes a little over two hours, longer at peak season; from Dundee, expect around two and a half hours via Glenshee.
By car, the A93 is the spine of the route in: from Aberdeen it follows the Dee valley west through Banchory and Ballater, climbing steadily into the Cairngorms before reaching Braemar at 339 metres. From Perth and the south, the same A93 climbs over the Glenshee Pass, which is one of the highest A-road passes in Britain and can carry snow well into spring; check conditions in winter. There is no train station in Braemar; the nearest open stations are at Aberdeen, around fifty-eight miles east on the ScotRail Aberdeen to Inverness line. The nearest airport is Aberdeen International, around an hour and three-quarters by car.