Tour Inveraray Castle, the Gothic Revival seat of the Dukes of Argyll, chiefs of Clan Campbell, beside Loch Fyne

Visit Inveraray Jail, the 19th-century courtroom and prison museum

Climb Dun na Cuaiche above the town to the folly watchtower of 1747–48 and the view over Loch Fyne

Inveraray is the town of the Dukes of Argyll, chiefs of Clan Campbell, on Loch Fyne, and their Gothic Revival castle stands beside it. Inveraray Jail keeps the 19th-century courtroom and cells as a museum, and above the town a path climbs Dun na Cuaiche to an 18th-century folly built as a ruined watchtower, with a view over the loch.

Inveraray: The Castle, the Jail and Dun na Cuaiche

Inveraray and Loch Fyne

Cairnryan

Nine nights in a loop from Cairnryan: Conic Hill and the islands of Loch Lomond, Inveraray on Loch Fyne, Oban and the Slate Islands, Glen Coe and the Devil's Staircase, then Stirling Castle and Alloway.

Loch Lomond, Oban and Glen Coe from Cairnryan

Walk the Ardkinglas Woodland Garden near Cairndow, open year-round, beside Ardkinglas House, designed by Sir Robert Lorimer for Sir Andrew Noble and built in 1906–1908

Eat oysters at Loch Fyne Oysters at Cairndow, the business started in the loch in 1979

Find the Grand Fir, one of the tallest trees in Britain, in the garden

At the head of Loch Fyne, the Ardkinglas woodland garden, laid out from the 18th century with an arboretum planted in the 1860s and 1870s, holds some of the tallest conifers in Britain, and in 1979 the estate's owner, Johnny Noble, and the fish farmer Andy Lane started farming oysters in the loch — the business that became Loch Fyne Oysters. The loch itself is the longest sea loch in Scotland and the road runs down it to Inveraray.

Loch Fyne: Ardkinglas and the Oyster Bar

Stop at the Rest and Be Thankful and find the inscribed stone that gave the pass its name

Look down Glen Croe at the line of the old military road

Walk a stretch of the old military road below the pass

At the head of Glen Croe the A83 reaches the pass the soldiers who built the military road in the 1740s named the Rest and Be Thankful — a stone inscribed with the words was set up around 1749. The old road still runs below the new one; it was a motor-racing hillclimb until 1970 and is now the diversion route when landslides shut the A83, and the slope above is so prone to them that the road is regularly closed.

The Rest and Be Thankful: Glen Croe and the Old Military Road

Walk in the Argyll Forest Park, Britain's first forest park, created in 1935

Visit Benmore Botanic Garden, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's Argyll garden, and walk its Redwood Avenue

Walk the circular forest route from the Puck's Glen car park, linking Benmore with the wider forest

Benmore is the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's garden in Argyll, entered along an avenue of giant redwoods, in the Argyll Forest Park, which in 1935 became Britain's first forest park. From the Puck's Glen car park beside it a circular forest route links Benmore with the wider forest.

Benmore Botanic Garden and the Argyll Forest Park

Climb Ben Lomond (974m), the southernmost Munro, by the tourist path from Rowardennan

Look south from the summit down Loch Lomond towards its islands

Ben Lomond, 974m, is the most southerly of the Munros and one of the most climbed, by about 30,000 people a year. It stands on the east shore of Loch Lomond within the Ben Lomond National Memorial Park, owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The usual way up is the wide tourist path from Rowardennan; the Ptarmigan ridge to the west makes the better descent.

Ben Lomond: The Southernmost Munro

Visit Kilmartin Museum, which interprets the glen's archaeological landscape — more than 800 ancient monuments within six miles, 150 of them prehistoric

Walk the linear cemetery, five burial cairns in a three-mile line, and look inside Nether Largie South, the Neolithic chambered cairn with a chamber over 6m long

Visit the standing stones at Temple Wood and Ballymeanoch

See the cup-and-ring carvings at Achnabreck

Climb Dunadd hillfort, the Dál Riata stronghold with its carved footprint

Kilmartin Glen holds more than 800 ancient monuments within six miles, 150 of them prehistoric. Five burial cairns run in a line three miles long down the glen, including Nether Largie South, a Neolithic chambered cairn probably built in the fourth millennium BC, with a chamber over 6m long; there are standing stones at Temple Wood and Ballymeanoch, cup-and-ring carvings at Achnabreck, and at the south end Dunadd, the hillfort of the kings of Dál Riata, with a footprint carved into the rock just below the summit enclosure.

Kilmartin Glen Prehistoric Trail

Climb to McCaig's Tower, the unfinished Colosseum-style folly begun in 1897 above Oban, for the view over the harbour to Kerrera and Mull

Take the small ferry to Kerrera and walk to Gylen Castle, the MacDougall tower house of 1582

Tour Oban Distillery, founded in 1794 in the centre of the town

Above Oban stands McCaig's Tower, an unfinished folly in the shape of the Colosseum begun in 1897, with a view over the harbour to Kerrera and Mull. A small ferry crosses to Kerrera, where Gylen Castle is the MacDougall tower house of 1582, and back in the middle of town is Oban Distillery, founded in 1794.

Oban and Kerrera: McCaig's Tower and Gylen Castle

Walk down towards the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse at the peninsula's south-western tip, first lit in 1788, on the headland Wings sang about in 1977

Look across the North Channel to Northern Ireland, about 12 miles away, on a clear day

See the footprints carved in the rock at Keil near Southend, said to be those of St Columba

See Dunaverty Rock at Southend, site of a massacre in 1647

The Mull of Kintyre lighthouse, first lit in 1788 and rebuilt in 1821–30, stands at the south-western tip of the peninsula, with Northern Ireland about 12 miles across the North Channel on a clear day — the headland made famous by Wings' 1977 song 'Mull of Kintyre'. At Keil near Southend a pair of footprints carved in the rock are said to be St Columba's, and Dunaverty Rock was the site of a massacre in 1647.