Hear, the pipes are calling

There's music and games aplenty to keep you happy in the Highlands.

If you look in travel guides for this time of the year, you'll find two icons of Scottish tourism listed: the Edinburgh Festival and the Military Tattoo. So, you might think, the late northern summer is a great time to go to Scotland.

And you would be right. But if you didn't venture beyond the capital, you would miss another couple of icons: mountain slopes with heather in bloom and the Highland Games, which are frequently conducted among these heather-clad hillsides.

August is peak season for the games, sometimes called gatherings because their roots lie with the centuries-old annual gathering of scattered clansmen by their chieftain.

One of the main gatherings, which claims links back 900 years to King Malcolm Canmore, is at Braemar, held on the first Saturday of September, and usually attended by the British Royal Family whose holiday residence of Balmoral Castle is only a few kilometres away. Bagpipe competitions, with a parade of the massed highland bands often culminating the games, are big, as is Scottish highland dancing. (The Cowal Games, where dancing competitions are particularly strong, attracts 3500 competitors.)

Most games feature traditional events, such as caber tossing (the object is to turn it end over end, not to throw it), putting the weight and the shot - both for height and distance - and throwing the Scottish hammer, which has a spherical head and fixed shaft. Tug-of-war and hill races are common, together with other events, such as seeing who can carry large boulders the furthest.

Wrestling is another popular sport, and since competitors wear traditional dress, maybe, if the action is fierce enough, this will provide your opportunity to find out what Scotsmen do wear under the kilt.