Glen Fruin A817 named most scenic road in Scotland

Looking at a map of Argyll’s Helensburgh and Lomond area throws up an immediate conundrum. There are virtually parallel roads, quite close together, snaking their way through Glen Fruin from Loch Lomond in the east to the Clyde waterway in the west – before splitting with the northerly road veering off to the Gareloch. Why two roads?

The southerly road was the original single tracker through the glen. The other one was a two lane heavy duty road built by the military to allow easy access for heavy vehicles (and nuclear warheads) to and from the naval base at Faslane on the Gareloch.

Eventually -  as the A817, this road was made available as part of the public road network and is now largely the route of choice for coast to coast traffic through Glen Fruin.

It swoops, rises and bends, offering beautiful views into hills going westwards and onto Loch Lomond travelling east.

The Civil Service Motoring Association (CSMA) has polled its 3,000 members to discover their favourite scenic drives in the UK and the A817 is the top ranked Scottish route.

It has actually displaced the knockout A87 (our own enduring favourite) road to Skye, down Glen Garry, past the Five Sisters of Kintail and Eilean Donan Castle to Kyle of Lochalsh.

And  lovely as it is, the A817 has plenty of competition in Argyll and the Isles. The trouble is that civil servants would be less likely to drive them because they’re more out of the way.

We can think immediately of several luscious candidates – in fact we might just nip out now and bench test a couple. Anybody got any nominations of their own? Let’s swop notes.