Dee, il salmone dei re in Royal Deeside

The Dee flows through a region inhabited since the Iron Age, land of clans such as the Farquharsons and Gordons who for centuries controlled the passages between the Highlands and the coast. The turning point came in the nineteenth century: in 1852 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought the Balmoral estate, launching an aristocratic fashion for the valley that endures to this day. From then on Deeside became 'Royal', frequented by the crown and by a Victorian gentry keen on hunting and fishing, which brought with it the custom of fly fishing as an elegant, almost ritual pursuit.

The Dee rises on the Cairngorms plateau, among the highest peaks in Scotland, and flows for about 140 kilometres down to the North Sea at Aberdeen. Its granite basin gives clear, cold waters, ideal for the run of Atlantic salmon. The valley is narrow in its upper reaches, framed by remnants of Caledonian Scots pine forest, and widens toward the coast into more fertile land where barley is grown, the basis of whisky production. The damp, windy climate, with late snowfalls on the summits, strongly shapes the timing of fishing and travel in the area.

Balmoral Castle, built in the Scottish Baronial style, has influenced the architecture of many houses in the valley, with turrets, battlements and local grey stone. The musical tradition of north-east Scotland, tied to the fiddle and to strathspeys, is still alive in the villages of the area. There are also craft workshops devoted to weaving tweed and tying fishing flies, a trade with a long history here, closely bound up with fishing on the Dee.

The cooking of Deeside reflects what the land provides: salmon and river trout, venison and pheasant from the woods, beef from Aberdeen Angus cattle raised on local pasture. The dishes are simple and hearty, suited to those who work or fish outdoors in a harsh climate: oat porridge, thick soups, smoked fish preserved by age-old methods. Whisky, distilled in the nearby Speyside region, often rounds off the day, while local wild berries go into traditional jams and desserts.

At Braemar, not far from the river, the Braemar Gathering is held every year, one of Scotland's most celebrated Highland Games, traditionally attended by the royal family. The figure of the gillie, the fishing guide who knows every bend of the river and passes on its history by word of mouth, remains a living and respected trade along the Dee. In the area, words of the Doric dialect, distinct from standard Scots, still survive, and the craft of tweed weaving endures.

Nan Shepherd, 'The Living Mountain': a small classic written in the 1940s and published only decades later, it describes the Cairngorms, the mountains from which the Dee rises, in prose that is intense and closely observed, helping to convey the relationship between this land and those who move through it slowly. In Scottish folklore, the River Dee is among those traditionally associated with the kelpie, the horse-shaped water spirit of Highland legend, still recalled in local tales.