Tain is Scotland’s oldest royal burgh — a handsome town of red sandstone buildings on the south shore of the Dornoch Firth, with Tarbat Ness lighthouse at the tip of a long peninsula to the east and the vast sands of the Dornoch Firth stretching away to the north. The Glenmorangie distillery is right on the edge of town.

A dignified, historic small town with Scotland’s oldest collegiate church, Tain makes a useful and underused base for the Easter Ross peninsula and the remarkable Dornoch Firth landscape — one of the finest estuary environments in Scotland.