The Sunday Times - UK (2022-06-05)

12 June 5, 2022The Sunday Times

Travel Focus on Scotland

I

t’s a bit Marmite,

Balmoral. Diana hated

it, Thatcher dubbed it

“purgatory”, Blair

found it “utterly

freaky”. But the Queen?

“Granny is the most happy

there,” Princess Eugenie

enthused on ITV’s Our

Queen at Ninety

documentary in

2016. “It’s the
      most beautiful
      place on
      earth.” I dig
      out my best
      flat cap, pack
      my plus-fours
      and head to the
      area to judge for
      myself.
      First impressions: I’m much
      more with the Queen than
      Maggie. Thirty miles
      northwest of Dundee, the Old
      Military Road enters a
      Landseer painting of brooding
      crags and steep-sided glens.
      Climbing through the Spittal
      of Glenshee, the road crosses
      the 2,198ft Cairnwell Pass,

A scenic valley in the eastern Cairngorms has

links with the monarchy going back generations.

Jeremy Lazell ventures to Royal Deeside

then sweeps down alongside

a long, lonely burn, banks

ablaze in rusting bracken and

purple heather.

This is Royal Deeside, the

40-mile stretch of the River

Dee between Braemar and

Banchory, so named after

Queen Victoria fell for

this bit of the eastern

Cairngorms on her

first visit in 1848.

It feels utterly

wild, dizzyingly

remote — for

the present

Queen a world

away from

meetings with

Boris Johnson and

uncomfortable

headlines about Prince

Andrew.

First stop is Braemar, a

blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village

in a fold of the northeast

Cairngorms. It has more royal

connections than you can

shake a Sovereign’s Sceptre at,

including the Braemer

Gathering (September 3;

gg

al Deeside

ide

s

and

he

er

d

or

stern

n her

848.

rly

ingly

or

t

orld

h

nd

llage

oyal

reat,

MONARCHS’

THE

Granny is the

happiest there.

It’s the most

beautiful place

GIUSEPPE MASCI, STEPHEN DOREY/ALAMY; TIM ROOKE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; ZMEEL,CHRIS JACKSON, DENNIS BARNES/GETTY IMAGES; SIMPHOTOGRAPHY