dunoon & cowal
day trips & tours from Glasgow

Dunoon - a place for wealthy Glaswegians to build seaside villas. Once a place for slightly less wealthy Glaswegians to spend their holidays! Now a sensational destination for fabulous short breaks in Scotland, city weekend escapes and breaks form Glasgow, and an essential component of any Scottish touring holiday.

The advent of the Mediterranean and other package holidays has meant a diminution of the ‘Costa Clyde' holidays but has also heralded a somewhat accidental but very significant rebirth of Dunoon - not only as a new modern gateway to the Western Highlands, and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park - but as a superb high amenity holiday, short break and leisure destination in its own right, with a mecca of local surrounding activity and tourism pursuits for the modern leisure and eco-tourist. This wealth and diversity for the modern discerning traveller now comes right into its own, unblinkered by the mass seaside resort appeal it once had.

The enduring assets of a wonderful seaside location and attractive mountainous hinterland just don't die. The famous pier still stands in glorious testament to the busy days of the past – now the gateway to a new breed of tourist and to a much more tranquil destination, still remarkably unspoilt but without the hurly burly of the bygone era.

The Cowal Peninsula reaches out into the Firth of Clyde, framed by Loch Fyne and Loch Long. This is the most visited part of Argyll due to its proximity to Glasgow, but, despite the summer hordes, much of it is undisturbed. Most people head straight for Dunoon, the main ferry port and one of the major Clyde seaside resorts, leaving more adventurous souls to enjoy the forests and mountains of Argyll Forest Park in the north or the peace and tranquillity of the southwest coastline.

The northern part of the peninsula is largely covered by the sprawling Argyll Forest Park which extends from Loch Lomond south to Holy Loch. This area contains the most stunning scenery in Cowal, and includes the Arrochar Alps, a range of rugged peaks north of Glen Croe which offer some of the best climbing in Argyll. The most famous of these is Ben Arthur (2,891 ft), better known as "The Cobbler, but this, and the other " Alps " are only for the more serious hill walker.