Stirling, the Trossachs and Loch Lomond
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-> Stirling, the Trossachs and Loch Lomond
The central lowlands of Scotland were, for several centuries, one of the most strategically important areas in Scotland. In 1250, a map of Britain was compiled by Matthew Paris, a monk of St Albans, which depicted Scotland as two separate land masses connected only by the thin band of Stirling Bridge. Although this figurative interpretation was not strictly accurate, nevertheless lying at the heart of Scotland and surrounded by inhospitable marshy terrain, Stirling, from where you can see both snow-capped Highland peaks and Edinburgh, was once the only gateway from the north to the south of the country.
Today the town is a tourist attraction in itself, its fine castle the perfect vantage point to look far out across the region. The castle rock plunges down to the Carse of Stirling, the flat plain extending west, out of which rise the little-visited Campsie Fells to the south and the much busier Trossachs hills to the north. East, the gentler Ochil Hills run towards Loch Leven on the edge of the kingdom of Fife. From the castle's heights in Stirling you can trace the winding course of the once-navigable Forth River, which links the industrial towns of Grangemouth and Falkirk with the rural west, and identify the great blunt tower of Cambuskenneth Abbey and the unmistakable Wallace Monument, the nation's most prominent tribute to "Braveheart" William Wallace.
Alongside the beauty of the hills and villages of the region, there's a range of other diversions within an hour's drive of Stirling, from the wonderful island refuges of Inchmahome in the Lake of Menteith and Loch Leven Castle by Kinross, to the atmospheric Castle Campbell in the Ochil Hills. Visits can be combined with a range of outdoor activities; the area is traversed by the Glasgow-Loch Lomond-Killin cycleway, well-managed forest tracks are ideal for mountain biking, the hills of the Trossachs provide great walking country, while the West Highland Way, Scotland's premier long-distance footpath, winds along the length of Loch Lomond up to Fort William in the Highlands.
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