Tour Itinerary
Head west for shimmering sea-lochs, ruined castles and the soaring mountains of the WESTERN HIGHLANDS for the sea-port of Oban, the jumping-off point for ferries to the western isles. You’ll have time to explore this bustling and popular town, perhaps even grabbing some delicious local seafood for your lunch. Leaving Edinburgh at 9.30am we’ll pass STIRLING CASTLE and the WALLACE MONUMENT, scene of bloody events from Scotland’s past. We then continue north-west towards the Highlands, making a comfort stop before taking the Pass of Leny into the mountains. Here we enter a magical world of mountains, lochs and legends.
As we drive through BALQUHIDDER, GLEN ORCHY and GLEN DOCHART the ghost of Rob Roy MacGregor follows us. Many of the years he spent in this area he was a hunted outlaw, and his grave is today a place of pilgrimage for both MacGregors and all lovers of liberty and rebellious behaviour. As we continue our drive west mountains such as BEN LAWERS, BEN MORE and BEN CRUACHAN loom over us. We’ll reach the west coast along the shores of LOCH ETIVE, where the ancient fortress of DUNSTAFFNAGE CASTLE will come into view. Built in Viking times, it is the castle where Flora Macdonald, who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape, was held prisoner for a year. After this we’ll arrive in OBAN, which is centred on a lovely bay with views of the islands of KERRERA and MULL in the distance. In the afternoon we’ll head out of Oban to tour the history-rich south-west region of Argyll.
As we drive along the shore of LOCH AWE a fairytale ruined castle suddenly comes into view. This is KILCHURN CASTLE, ancestral home of Duncan Campbell, the notoriously evil chief of the Glen Orchy Campbells. Situated on the edge of Loch Awe, its walls and defensive turrets have guarded the approach to the loch for over 500 years. We’ll then travel through GLEN AORA to INVERARAY (originally Inveraora) the ancient capital of the Campbell clan. This has to be the oldest ‘new town’ in the world - a picturesque, white-washed town built more than 200 years ago to compliment the romantic castle built by the Dukes of Argyll in the 18th century. We’ll make a comfort stop here and have the chance to explore Inverarary itself or make a visit to the Castle (April to October only). Leaving Inveraray, we continue our drive along the coastline and travel past sea-lochs, fjord-like stretches of water that are open to the sea.
LOCH FYNE is famous for its oysters and salmon, but in the past these sea-lochs made this area vulnerable to Viking raids, and the stories of “blood-eagling” are too horrible to but down in print!
Heading eastwards, we’ll take the breathtaking ‘Rest and Be Thankful’ pass where, in days gone by, you could rest and be thankful that you’d made it through the mountains. You can almost see the phantoms of Viking longboats shimmering on the water of LOCH LONG as we pass by. Our next stop is LOCH LOMOND, made famous by the tragic song, and we’ll join the loch midway as we head south along its western side. BEN LOMOND peers over at you from the opposite shore as we make our stop on the banks of the loch at the village of LUSS, the setting for Scotland’s home-grown TV soap series, The High Road. From here we’ll head in to GLASGOW to see the bright lights of Scotland’s second city and pick up the highway back to Edinburgh, arriving back in the Capital at around 7.30pm