Stirling Castle and Falkirk Wheel

This full day shore excursion from Greenock, about 50 miles (80km) away, pairs a visit to Stirling Castle with a boat ride on the Falkirk Wheel.

After meeting your driver-guide at the pier, you drive to Stirling Castle, built on a volcanic crag that made it one of the most fought-over strongholds during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 1300s. The castle later served as a royal residence, and King James V built its Renaissance style Royal Palace in the 1530s and 1540s. You then have free time for lunch in Stirling's old town, often ranked among Scotland's finest small heritage towns.

In the afternoon, you drive to Falkirk to visit the Falkirk Wheel, opened in 2002 as the centerpiece of the 84.5 million pound Millennium Link project that reconnected the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal after both had fallen out of use. The wheel lifts boats about 79 feet (24m) in a single rotation that takes around 15 minutes. Your boat trip departs from the Falkirk Wheel Visitor Centre, sails up through the lift onto the Union Canal, then passes beneath the Antonine Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site marking the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, before returning to the basin.

Following the boat trip, you return to the pier in Greenock.