Scottish Highlands Attractions

Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most important castles, both historically and architecturally, in Scotland. The castle sits atop Castle Hill, an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location, guarding what was, until the 1930s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification from the earliest times. Most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A few structures of the fourteenth century remain, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1543. There have been at least eight s...

Loch Ness is Scotland's most famous lake (or 'loch' in Scotland). It runs for 23 miles (37 km) along the natural geological cleft that stretches from Fort William in the W of the Scottish Highlands, to Inverness in the N. About a mile wide at most places it is the purported home of the Loch Ness monster, a possibly mythical creature, which dwells in the Loch and is occasionally spotted by locals and passers-by. The sightings claimed lend credence to the remote possibility of a group of survivors of the long-extinct plesiosaurs (which lived up to around 65 million years ago).