Dunbar harbour still lands crabs and lobsters, and has done for well over a century. The Fishery Board's annual report for 1913 put it plainly: "The principal earnings are from crabs and lobsters." The fishing fleet has gone, but the shellfish boats remain, working out of twin harbours below the town. Above them run two clifftop promenades, with volcanic rock, deposits and dykes exposed along the shore.
The harbour has a castle over it, or what is left of one. Dunbar Castle was rebuilt around 1490, deliberately slighted by Act of Parliament in 1567, and had its north end blown up in 1842–44 to build Victoria Harbour. In 1338 it was held through a siege by Black Agnes, Countess of Dunbar; Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots, took refuge here and died in it in 1445. The ruins now mark the southern edge of the John Muir Country Park.
That park is the reason a lot of people come. It covers 713.5 hectares along 13 km of coast northwest of town, taking in Belhaven Bay, the Tyne estuary, dunes and woodland, with around 400 plant species and birds that include whooper swans, little terns and green woodpeckers. The John Muir Way, a coast-to-coast route across central Scotland, starts at the harbour and runs west. You can walk out of town along its marked route.
The town's defining drink is brewed in the Belhaven district. Belhaven Brewery has been going since 1719 and by 2005 was described as the largest and oldest surviving independent brewery in Scotland. It makes around twenty beers, among them Belhaven Best, Belhaven 80 Shilling and a Black Scottish Stout. Princess Anne opened a new brewhouse on 18 January 2013.
Dunbar Parish Church stands on a rise above the sea, twin-towered and built of local red sandstone quarried at Bourhouse between 1818 and 1821. Fire badly damaged it on 3 January 1987, destroying historic elements of the interior; it was restored afterwards. Along the High Street, John Muir was born on 21 April 1838, third of eight children, and emigrated to Wisconsin aged eleven. His birthplace is now a museum, and a statue of him stands beside the town clock.
There is plenty for a week. Dunbar Golf Club is a links course laid out in 1857 and redesigned by Old Tom Morris around 1894. Foxlake, near the town, was Scotland's first cable wakeboarding centre, and there is coastal rowing, surfing and paddleboarding off the beaches. Two of those beaches sit close by: the small East Beach, good for rock pools, and the broad sweep of Belhaven to the west.
The A1 runs just south of town, the railway station has been on the East Coast Main Line since 1845 with services to Edinburgh and London, and buses connect to North Berwick and the other East Lothian towns. Edinburgh is about thirty miles west, roughly forty minutes by A1 or rail.
Dunbar gets around 1,450 hours of sunshine a year, a notably high figure for this stretch of the North Sea coast.