Pitlochry Perthshire
Pitlochry is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Scotland, a Victorian spa town on the River Tummel in the heart of Perthshire whose combination of attractive townscape, spectacular Highland scenery, excellent walking, the Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the remarkable Pass of Killiecrankie nearby make it one of the most versatile and most rewarding bases for exploring the central Highlands. The town was developed as a resort following Queen Victoria's enthusiastic endorsement of the Perthshire Highlands in the 1840s and the arrival of the railway in 1863, and retains the confident Victorian architecture and the quality visitor infrastructure that characterise the best Scottish resort towns. The scenery around Pitlochry is exceptional. The Tummel Valley, sometimes called Tummel's Queen of Scottish Lochs, combines the drama of the river gorge below the town with the wider loch landscape of Loch Tummel above, the viewpoint at Queen's View providing one of the most celebrated prospects in Scotland. The Pass of Killiecrankie immediately to the north provides dramatic gorge walking and a famous battlefield, and the wider network of paths on the hills above the town gives access to moorland and mountain of increasing grandeur at every altitude. The Pitlochry Festival Theatre, one of Scotland's most important producing theatres, runs a programme of six plays in repertoire throughout the summer season, making Pitlochry an unusually cultural destination for a small resort town. The hydroelectric power station on the Tummel below the town includes a fish ladder through which salmon and sea trout can be observed ascending the falls during the run, a remarkable combination of engineering infrastructure and natural spectacle. The Edradour Distillery, claiming to be the smallest traditional distillery in Scotland, is accessible by a pleasant walk from the town.