Lonach Highland and Friendly Society Gathering
One of Scotland's most distinctive gatherings, the Lonach sees kilted clansmen march twelve miles carrying pikes before the Highland Games begin at Bellabeg in the upper Don valley.
A deeply remote Upper Donside settlement whose draw is landscape and occasion rather than amenity: the Lonach Highland Games, a brace of scheduled castles, and the Cairngorms on the doorstep do the heavy lifting, but visitors expecting a village with multiple open businesses will find the reality sparse.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Strathdon, Aberdeenshire.
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"Heavy events, highland dancing and pipe bands on Aboyne Green in a long-running Deeside gathering."
Aboyne Highland Games
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Turriff Show
"Classic Deeside games of caber, hammer and dancing in a village beside Balmoral."
Ballater Highland Games
"The Royal Deeside market town of Banchory hosts its agricultural show each August at the gateway to the Cairngorms, where Aberdeenshire beef and Highland cattle are judged against a backdrop of the Forest of Birse and the River Dee shining in the valley below."
Banchory Show
"The March of the Lonach Highlanders, kilted men with pikes walking the glen, precedes a day of games at Strathdon."
Lonach Highland Gathering
"The most famous of the Highland games, with tossing the caber, hill races and massed pipe bands, often attended by royalty."
Braemar Gathering
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Lauder Common Riding
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Mull of Kintyre Music Festival
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Villagly Award · Hardest to Reach"Three days in a Black Isle village near Inverness where the sessions run late and the Moray Firth catches the September light outside, a small Highland folk festival doing exactly what it promised."
Ardersier Folk Festival