The Study, Glen Coe

The Study, An Stùidhe in Gaelic, is a pull-in on the A82 as it runs the length of Glen Coe, and it frames the Three Sisters, Beinn Fhada, Gearr Aonach and Aonach Dubh, three steep-sided ridges dropping north from the Bidean nam Bian massif into the glen. Dark, ice-scoured rock, hanging corries and a flat valley floor combine into a view that needs no walking, no waiting for the right light, and very little explanation. The National Trust for Scotland has held the glen since 1935, bought through a national appeal led by the mountaineer Percy Unna, and now maintains more than 37 miles of footpath across it.

It sits on the north side of the road, with room for a limited number of cars; it gets busy in summer, and stopping safely on a fast section of trunk road takes some care. There’s no path involved: the view is available directly from the roadside, which makes this one of the few places in Glen Coe where the full scale of the mountains is visible to anyone, regardless of fitness, without leaving the car park.

Further along the glen towards Kingshouse, other pull-ins and a newer car park near Altnafeadh give equally direct, walk-free views of Buachaille Etive Mòr, the pyramidal peak that closes off the head of the glen. Between them, the road through Glen Coe delivers more high-mountain scenery per mile, without walking, than almost anywhere else in Britain. It suits anyone travelling the A82 who wants the glen at its most dramatic without leaving the car, and anyone whose day cannot include a climb. It does not suit anyone after solitude or a walk, since there is neither: the pull-in is small, busy, and on a fast trunk road. For the same landscape on foot and flat, the Glencoe Lochan trails are a firm 1.6km loop a few minutes down the glen.