Places to explore in Argyll and ButeScotland · Highlands and Islands

Tobermory's coloured harbour front, Duart Castle, Ben More, and white-tailed and golden eagles along the sea lochs

883 km²

Scotland's first national park, where the Highlands begin — bonnie banks, wooded glens and Ben Lomond within reach of Glasgow.

1,863 km²

Where St Columba landed in 563, with the restored abbey, medieval nunnery ruins, an ancient burial ground and white-sand bays

8.5 km²

Basalt-column island with Fingal's Cave, a ledge path into it, and puffins on the clifftop in early summer

0.3 km² · Argyll and Bute

Britain's largest freshwater expanse by area, island-strewn where the Highland line crosses it, sung in the ballad of the low road.

Ruined castle on Loch Awe's shore.

Scotland's most dramatic glen.

926 km²

Third-largest whirlpool in the world, roaring in the tidal gulf between Jura and Scarba.

Argyll and Bute

Picture-postcard conservation village of estate cottages on Loch Lomond's west shore.

Argyll and Bute

Mull's main town, famous for its curved row of brightly painted harbour-front houses.

Argyll and Bute

Whisky distilleries round the coast, winter geese at RSPB Loch Gruinart, Finlaggan's Lords of the Isles site and the Kildalton Cross

615 km²

Thinly peopled island of the three Paps and thousands of red deer, with Craighouse's distillery and Orwell's Barnhill in the far north

363 km² · Argyll and Bute