6 Best Sights in Stirling and the Central Highlands, Scotland

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's 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 is currently undergoing repairs, but the Rob Roy III and the Lady of the Lake offer regular 45-minute cruises. You can also make the round-trip journey around the loch or get off at Stronachlachar at the western end of the loch to break for a coffee and admire the pier's beauty; you can return on foot or by bicycle via the lochside road. 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.

Known for its "bonnie, bonnie banks," Loch Lomond is Scotland's most well-known loch and its largest in terms of surface area. Its waters reflect the crags that surround it.

On the western side of the loch, the A82 follows the shore for 24 miles, continuing a farther 7 miles to Crianlarich, passing picturesque Luss, which has a pier where you can hop aboard boats cruising along the loch, and Tarbert, the starting point for the Maid of the Loch. On the eastern side of the loch, take the A81 to Drymen, and from there the B837 signposted toward Balmaha, where you can hire a boat or take the ferry to the island of Inchcailloch. Once you're there, a short walk takes you to the top of the hill and a spectacular view of the loch. Equally spectacular, but not as wet, is the view from Conic Hill behind Balmaha, a short but exhilarating climb. The hill marks the fault that divides the Lowlands and Highlands. If you continue along the B837 beyond Rowardennan to where it ends at a car park, you can join the walkers at the beginning of the path up Ben Lomond. Don't underestimate this innocent-looking hill; go equipped for sudden changes in the weather. Hikers can also try part of the 96-mile West Highland Way (www.west-highland-way.co.uk) that runs along the shore of Loch Lomond on its way north.

With its shoreline of birch trees framed by dark pines, Loch Rannoch is the quintessential Highland loch, stretching more than 9 miles from west to east. Fans of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94), especially of Kidnapped (1886), will not want to miss the last, lonely section of road. Stevenson describes the setting: "The mist rose and died away, and showed us that country lying as waste as the sea, only the moorfowl and the peewees crying upon it, and far over to the east a herd of deer, moving like dots."

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).