Stonehaven Fireball Ceremony
At Hogmanay locals swing flaming wire cages of fire over their heads down the High Street to burn away the old year.
A compact, well-served coastal town with a proper train link, multiple cafes and bakeries, a monthly farmers market, a nationally awarded chippy, a CAMRA-decorated real-ale pub, and Dunnottar Castle on the doorstep - there is more than enough here to justify a deliberate trip from almost anywhere in Scotland.
Cottages, B&Bs and hotels near Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire.
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"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
"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."
Lonach Highland and Friendly Society Gathering
"The most famous of the Highland games, with tossing the caber, hill races and massed pipe bands, often attended by royalty."
Braemar Gathering
"Four days of Aberdeenshire artisan food producers, local folk musicians and community spirit in a Royal Deeside village, where the September apple harvest season and the warmth of a rural Scottish gathering make for an unusually nourishing weekend."
Tarland Food and Music Festival
"The Royal Deeside village that sits at the foot of the hills above Balmoral holds its Christmas market each December in a setting in the Cairngorms National Park that very few other Christmas markets anywhere in Britain can match for sheer backdrop."
Ballater Christmas Market
"One of Scotland's oldest music festivals brings Gaelic nights, ceilidhs, pipe bands and distillery tours to a remote Kintyre town at the road's very end."
Mull of Kintyre Music Festival
"Four days of traditional music on an Hebridean island reachable only by ferry, workshops, open sessions, ceilidhs in the island hall, and the Atlantic on all four sides."
Ceol Cholasa: Colonsay Folk Festival
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
"On a remote Hebridean island of more deer than people, a village hall and marquee fill with trad sessions, ceilidhs, step dancing and a samba procession."
Jura Music Festival
"Competitors from across the world converge on the Cairngorm village of Carrbridge to contest the Golden Spurtle trophy each October, cooking traditional porridge and open specialty oat dishes to a panel of judges in the village hall while the birch woods outside are turning the first rust of autumn."
World Porridge Making Championship
✦ Weird and Wonderful"Said to be the most prestigious traditional accordion and fiddle event in Scotland, it builds to a world famous Grand Dance with six hours of live music from eleven dance bands."
Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival