Dunkeld and the Hermitage (20 km north, easily reached by train or the A9) make an excellent half-day. Dunkeld Cathedral is a beautiful ruin of a medieval church in a graveyard above the Tay, with a partly intact chapter house. The village of Birnam across the Telford Bridge has a Beatrix Potter Garden celebrating her childhood holidays in the area — she wrote her first picture letter (which became The Tale of Peter Rabbit) here. Birnam Oak, one of the survivors of the ancient Birnam Wood mentioned in Macbeth, still stands nearby.
A few miles further north, the Hermitage is a woodland walk through tall Douglas firs beside the River Braan, ending at Ossian's Hall — a folly built by the Duke of Atholl in the 18th century that once had mirrored walls reflecting the Black Linn waterfall below. The mirrors are long gone but the waterfall is still spectacular.
The Meikleour Beech Hedge (15 km north on the A93) is one of those Scottish curiosities worth a brief detour. Planted in 1745, it now stands around 30 metres tall and runs for 530 metres — the longest and tallest beech hedge in the world. It takes ten men several weeks to trim it every decade.
Loch Leven (18 km southwest, near Kinross) is where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in 1567 and made her escape the following year. The castle on the island in the loch is accessible by ferry. The loch is also an excellent birdwatching site, particularly for wildfowl in autumn and winter.
Crieff and Drummond Castle Gardens (25 km west). Drummond Castle has one of the finest formal gardens in Scotland — a vast parterre in the shape of a St Andrew's Cross, viewed from a terrace above. Open summer afternoons.