Ballater is a neat granite village on the River Dee, just east of the Cairngorm mountains, with a population of around 1,400. It began around 1770 as a spa for visitors to the Pannanich mineral well, whose water was once said to cure scrofula. It took off after the railway arrived in 1866. Most of the centre is Victorian, built around a green and a big parish church, and the whole of it is a conservation area.
Its fortunes have long been tied to Balmoral, seven miles up the valley. Royal visitors came through the Old Royal Station for a century. Shopfronts still carry royal warrant crests, and Queen Victoria herself opened the present Royal Bridge over the Dee in 1885. Every August, Victoria Week celebrates the connection, and the Ballater Highland Games are held in the same month.
Ballater is also a very good base for walking. The wooded knob of Craigendarroch gives you a short climb straight from the village. Loch Muick, about 12 km southwest, is the start for Lochnagar, the mountain that dominates this part of Deeside. On the way to Balmoral you pass Royal Lochnagar Distillery. The Deeside Way, a walking and cycling path on the old railway line, runs east towards Aboyne and Aberdeen, and you can hire bikes in the village.
The 201 bus runs hourly from Aberdeen, about 1 hr 40 min, and carries on to Crathie and Braemar. Downstream are the castles around Banchory. To the north, the A939 crosses the hills past Corgarff Castle towards Tomintoul and Speyside.