It has beeen a pleasure to follow the threads of so much knowledgeable and generously contributed advice from the participants on this site. Any insights you all could pass along to us is most appreciated. My wife and I are planning to celebrate "this time we're really retiring" with about two weeks in Scotland. Our only must-dos are the West Highland rail trip from Glasgow to Maillag and Stirling Castle. (Not our first trip to Scotland, we spent a glorious week 40 years ago in Edinburgh - if it has changed, we don't want to hear about it!). From Maillag, we would like to pick one or three base locations in central Scotland - Sterling or Perth for example - and make day trips for pleasure. We're tempted by Culross, Crail, a mix of castles, gardens, stately homes, museums, etc., and then we're thinking of ending with a couple of days in Edinburgh. Our main limitation is that we would like to use public transport as much as possible. Fifty years of driving in the US have made driving on the right ingrained and instinctive. Driving on the left (daylight VFR only) is doable but stressful.
Questions:
Recommendations for a day or overnight trip out of Maillag? Would it be worth going over to Skye without a car?
Recommendation for next base location in Sterling vicinity and route from Maillag?
Suggestions for base locations, day trips for 7-9 days in Perth-Sterling-Fife region?
Follow-up question will be about favorite B&Bs, pubs, . . .
Thanks for your help.

From Mallaig, you can take a ferry to Armadale on Skye (www.calmac.co.uk). There are buses on Skye onwards to Broadford and Portree, but they are not frequent so you need to check schedules carefully - tourist offices should have information.
You can also take a boat to Inverie on Loch Nevis. The village is on the mainland but cannot be reached by road. The village pub is famous as the most isolated on the British mainland. Details are on www.knoydart-ferry.co.uk.

Jim, a regular poster here, Sheila Ritchie, has provided a lot of great information about Scotland. You might want to enter her name as a search criterion.
You will have a wonderful time!

Thanks, GeoffHamer, the Knoydart ferry to Inverie suits perfectly. Also thanks cmcfong, I've been learning from Sheila's postings for some time. Really admire the generous help provided so often here by Sheila, Janis, and many more.

Shucks (blushes)

I think you should either catch a reasonably early ferry to Skye, which will be met by a bus, and take the bus where the bus goes. If you were to do nothing but that, and then come back to the ferry it would be worth it.

A better option would be to spend a night on Skye, and do the bus stuff in two chunks. There are people on Skye who do tours, so although it's not public transport as such, you might want to think about linking up with them. You will get details on the Undiscovered Scotland website or from the tourist office in Portree.

There's a bus phone number on the calmac web site timetable page.

Option 3 is to find some way of doing this without carrying much, and just keep getting off the train- at Morar, at Arisaig and Glenfinnan. All three have lovely things to see within a short distance of the station.

As to your other bases, I think that somewhere on the East Fife coast- Crail or St Monans, for example- with the opportunity to walk the Coastal Way between the vllages would be good; and maybe somewhere more urban like Perth, or less urban like Dunkeld. You'll certainly get different falvours of Scotland with those three.

JimW,

you have some good suggestions here from Geoffhamer and Sheila particularly taking the ferry to Inverie - have lunch at the Forge pub and buy the t-shirt!

Another thought about a day trip to Skye would be just to take the Calmac ferry across to Armadale on Skye(keeping your eyes well peeled from the boat - in ~August 2004 ferry passengers were treated to the sight of a humpback whale breaching the water!)

You could easily spend the day wandering around Armadale. There are a few craft shops. You could then take a walk up to Armadale Castle to the really lovely gardens there and take some time have a look round the museum of the isles museum. From the gardens there are also good views across the Sound of Sleat to Knoydart and Loch Hourn.
www.clandonald.com

There is a garden centre in Armadale called Rhuba Phoil. They have a short woodland walk which if you follow will take you down to an area where you can watch seals basking on off-shore rocks - particularly in the late afternoon.

website with more information on Armadale - www.gardenofskye.co.uk

Thanks to each for your responses. And my apologies - in rereading my first post I see I managed to misspell both Stirling and Mallaig. You are very polite! Now your info is making us want to extend our stay in the Mallaig and Skye area, but where to cut back? Itinerary present version is Glascow to Mallaig, two days base in Mallaig, to Stirling, three days shared between Stirling and Culross, three days shared between Perth and Crail, then to Edinburgh, if there's any time left. We have to have a day at each end to get to/from Gatwick.
Busy now trying to decipher timetables from traveline, nationalrail and citylink sites to see if it all can be done. Does the route seem logical or have I got it backwards? Suggestions?