Ring the bell and take the boat to Threave Castle

Go inside the tower as far as the Great Hall, reopened in August 2026 while conservation work continues

Walk the Threave garden and the walled garden

Look for ospreys and wildfowl on the Dee marshes

Archibald the Grim built Threave on an island in the Dee in the 1370s, and the Black Douglases held it, for a time under Princess Margaret, daughter of Robert III, until James II overthrew them and took the castle in 1455. You reach it by ringing a bell for the boatman. The Threave estate nearby has a garden run as the National Trust for Scotland's school of gardening and an osprey nest watched from a viewing platform between March and September.

Threave: The Black Douglas Tower on Its Island

Kirkcudbright and Threave

Cairnryan

Six nights in a loop from Cairnryan: the Mull of Galloway, Kirkcudbright's painters and Threave's island castle, Wigtown's books and the Galloway Forest's dark skies, then Culzean and Burns's Alloway.

Galloway and the Ayrshire Coast from Cairnryan

Ride the granite Slab, the optional black-graded section of the Hardrock Trail (expert riders only)

Find the 7stanes stone sculpture in the forest

Dalbeattie is one of the seven 7stanes mountain-bike centres across southern Scotland, and the one built on granite: the Hardrock trail runs over bare rock slabs, and the Slab itself is a steep sheet of bare granite that riders roll down. Each of the seven centres has a stone sculpture by Gordon Young, and Dalbeattie's stands in the forest.

Dalbeattie 7stanes: The Slab and the Hardrock Trail

Visit the Kirkcudbright Galleries, in the former town hall, opened on 12 July 2018 in 'the Artists' Town' where the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists settled from the 1880s

Tour Broughton House, where the painter E. A. Hornel lived from 1901 until his death in 1933

See MacLellan's Castle, the roofless tower house of 1582 in the middle of the town

Walk the harbour and the colour-washed streets the painters came for

Kirkcudbright drew painters from the 1880s — E. A. Hornel of the Glasgow Boys lived at Broughton House on the High Street from 1901 until his death in 1933, and Jessie M. King and others followed. Kirkcudbright Galleries opened in the old town hall in July 2018 to show the town's art collection, and MacLellan's Castle of 1582 stands roofless in the middle of the town.

Kirkcudbright: The Artists' Town

Watch the barnacle geese at RSPB Mersehead in winter

Walk the shore from Mersehead towards Southerness

See Southerness lighthouse, finished in 1749 and the second oldest in Scotland

Every autumn the barnacle geese that breed on Svalbard fly to the Solway Firth, where almost the whole population winters, and huge flocks of them spend the winter on the RSPB's Mersehead reserve. Along the shore at Southerness stands the second-oldest lighthouse in Scotland, commissioned by Dumfries Town Council in 1748 and finished in 1749 to guide ships into the Nith.

Mersehead and Southerness: Geese on the Solway

Tour Sweetheart Abbey, the Cistercian abbey founded in 1273 by Dervorguilla of Galloway in memory of her husband John de Balliol, whose embalmed heart she kept in an ivory and silver casket

Visit the New Abbey Corn Mill in the village

Climb Criffel (570m) for the view across the Solway

Dervorguilla of Galloway founded the Cistercian abbey at New Abbey in 1273 in memory of her husband John de Balliol, whose embalmed heart she kept with her in an ivory and silver casket; it was buried with her, and she named the abbey Dulce Cor — Sweet Heart. The village also keeps a working corn mill, and Criffel, 570m, rises behind it with a view across the Solway.

Sweetheart Abbey: Dervorguilla's Heart and Criffel

Follow the Galloway Kite Trail through New Galloway and Crossmichael, watching for red kites over Loch Ken

Pick out a red kite by its wingspan of 175–195cm and the forked tail that twists as the bird turns

Walk or cycle the Loch Ken shore and watch for kites over the water

Red kites have been brought back to Galloway, and the Galloway Kite Trail runs through the villages round Loch Ken, among them New Galloway and Crossmichael, past the farms and forestry where they now breed; they can be seen at all times of the year. Loch Ken is 9 miles long, and its marshes with the River Dee's are a Ramsar wetland.

The Galloway Kite Trail: Red Kites Over Loch Ken

Visit Caerlaverock Castle, the only triangular castle in the UK, built in the 1270s by the Maxwells, besieged by Edward I in 1300 and taken by Covenanters in 1640 after a 13-week siege

See the Nithsdale Lodging of 1634 inside the castle walls

Walk round the moat and the earthwork ramparts

Watch barnacle geese on the Caerlaverock merse in winter

See the Ruthwell Cross, the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon cross in Ruthwell church, with runic lines close to The Dream of the Rood

Caerlaverock was built in the 1270s by the Maxwells on a triangular plan with a twin-towered gatehouse at the apex and a moat around it — the only castle of that shape in Britain. Edward I besieged it in 1300, and inside the walls the Nithsdale Lodging of 1634 is a Renaissance house set in a medieval shell. The merse below holds barnacle geese all winter. Eight kilometres east, Ruthwell church keeps the Ruthwell Cross, probably carved in the 8th century when this was Northumbria: smashed by Presbyterians in 1642 and put back together in 1823, it carries runic lines, possibly added later, close to the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood.

Caerlaverock: The Only Triangular Castle in Britain

Go underground in the lead mine at the museum

See the miners' subscription library of 1756

Walk up to the beam engine and the Southern Upland Way

Wanlockhead sits at about 400m, the highest village in Scotland, in a valley that was mined for lead, silver and gold for centuries; the gold in the Lowther hills went into the Scottish crown. The Museum of Lead Mining takes visitors underground into the Lochnell Mine and through the miners' cottages, and the second oldest subscription library in Britain is here, founded by miners in 1756.

Wanlockhead: Scotland's Highest Village and Its Gold

Walk the nave of Jedburgh Abbey and look up at the rose window in the west gable

Visit Mary Queen of Scots' Visitor Centre and the story of her 1566 illness

See Jedburgh Castle Jail on the old castle site

David I raised Jedburgh for Augustinian canons in the 12th century and its great church stands almost complete, the rose window in the west gable still there after centuries of border war. In the town, the 16th-century tower house where Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have lain ill for weeks in 1566, after riding to Hermitage and back, is now a museum of her life.