3 Best Sights in The Trossachs, Stirling and the Central Highlands

This loch, the setting for Sir Walter Scott´s famous poem "The Lady of the Lake," once drew crowds of Victorian visitors in search of the magical mysterious places that Scott described. The thickly wooded and wild banks of the loch have remained an attraction for generations since. Since 1859, it has also been the source of Glasgow's freshwater. Cruises depart from the Trossachs Pier at the eastern end of the loch, where you can find shops, a restaurant, and bike hires. The iconic steamship Sir Walter Scott, the Rob Roy III, and the Lady of the Lake offer regular 45-minute, one-, and two-hour cruises. You can pause at Stronlochlachar at the other end of the lake for a coffee or lunch and walk or cycle back along the loch shore. Reservations are required if you're taking a bike on the boat, so book ahead. Sailings are year-round, but are reduced in number between October and May.

Stretching west of the small community of Brig o' Turk, Loch Achray dutifully fulfills expectations of what a verdant Trossachs loch should be: small, green, reedy meadows backed by dark plantations, rhododendron thickets, and lumpy hills, thickly covered with heather.

The A821 runs west together with the first and gentlest of the Trossachs lochs, Loch Venachar. A sturdy gray-stone building, with a small dam at the Callander end, controls the water that feeds into the River Teith (and, hence, into the Forth).