Edinburgh to Rosslyn Chapel and Blair Castle: Day trip

Main attractions • A 15th-century collegiate church of extraordinary sculptural ambition in Roslin, Midlothian — every surface of the interior is carved with an obsessive density of Green Men, biblical narratives, masonic symbols, botanical forms and the celebrated Apprentice Pillar, whose spiral stone bands of such technical virtuosity that legend holds the master mason killed his apprentice in jealousy upon seeing the finished work • The chapel's role as the climactic location in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code brought global attention to a building that rewards visitors who look beyond the novel's mythology to the genuine medieval mystery encoded in its stonework

Take note • Entry is ticketed — book in advance; photography inside the chapel is permitted but flash is prohibited; the small visitor centre provides essential historical context before entering the chapel itself

Main attractions • A white-turreted castle in the Perthshire Highlands above Blair Atholl — seat of the Dukes of Atholl and home to Europe's last remaining private army, the Atholl Highlanders; the castle interior preserves 30 furnished rooms spanning three centuries of ducal accumulation — Jacobite relics, tartan collections, weapons, porcelain and a ballroom that has hosted Highland gatherings since the 18th century • The Hercules Gardens — a restored 18th-century walled garden of nine acres enclosing a Chinese bridge, a pond, a restored Hercules statue and productive kitchen garden plots — is among the most rewarding hidden garden spaces in Scotland

What to eat • The castle tearoom serves traditional Scottish baking — tablet, shortbread and soup with fresh bread in a setting overlooking the Atholl estate parkland and the River Tilt beyond