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The lively market town of ELGIN , just inland about fifteen miles west of Cullen, grew up in the thirteenth century around the River Lossie. It's an appealing place, still largely sticking to its medieval street plan, with a busy main street opening out onto an old cobbled marketplace and a tangle of wynds and pends.

On North College Street, just round the corner from the tourist office and clearly signposted, is the lovely ruin of Elgin Cathedral (April-Sept daily 9.30am-6.30pm; Oct-March Mon-Sat 9.30am-4.30pm, Thurs closes noon, Sun 2-4.30pm; HS; £2.80, joint ticket with Spynie Palace £3.30). Once considered Scotland's most beautiful cathedral, rivalling St Andrews in importance, today it is little more than a shell, though it does retain its original facade. Founded in 1224, the three-towered building was extensively rebuilt after a fire in 1270, and stood as the region's highest religious house until 1390 when the inimical Wolf of Badenoch (Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan and illegitimate son of Robert II) burned the place down, along with the rest of the town, in retaliation for having been excommunicated by the Bishop of Moray when he left his wife. Unusual features include the Pictish cross slab in the middle of the ruins and the cracked gravestones with their memento mori of skulls and crossbones.

At the very top of High Street is one of Britain's oldest museums, the Elgin Museum (April-Oct Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 2-5pm; £2), housed in this building since 1843. Along with the usual local exhibits, there's a weird anthropological collection including reptilian skulls, a shrunken head from Ecuador and a grinning mummy from Peru. In addition, you can see an excellent collection of fossils and well-explained Pictish relics.