A Scottish Scene Stealer

A Tour With Sara Freeman

By Sarah Freeman | Photography courtesy of Brendan Vacations

“There’s history within footsteps of your hotel, not to mention the hotel itself,” guide Katrina Faccenda says outside the honey stone façade of dockside Malmaison Edinburgh. Built in 1883 as a seaman’s mission, the boutique property now claims a coveted address in the Scottish capital’s trendy harborside district of Leith, which is steeped in maritime history.

Faccenda is the first of a handful of expert local guides leading excursions on Brendan Vacations’ nine-day trip to Scotland’s highlands and islands, bookended by its two most charismatic cities. A road trip with a difference, we are set to travel in style in a top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz coach with running commentary by Travel Director and adopted Edinburgher Michelle Worthington.

Charming cottage in Glencoe, Scottish Highlands

For a literal change of perspective, I trade Leith’s waterfronting cobblestones for the Royal Mile in Old Town. Crowning the UNESCO-World Heritage-listed thoroughfare is one of Scotland’s most celebrated landmarks: Edinburgh Castle, which perches on the plug of a 350-million-year-old extinct volcano. “The biggest cannon ever fired on British soil is hidden behind the (castle’s) Romanesque chapel,” Faccenda says as we climb up to the castle ramparts where views stretch as far as the Firth of Forth, which flows into the North Sea. We crossed this estuary the next day en route to the University town of St. Andrews, whose gift to the world was the modern-day game of golf. Its acclaimed Old Course overlooks dune-backed West Sands, where the slow-motion title sequence from Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire was filmed.

Revived by my barefoot beach stroll, I rejoin the group to resume our road trip, which edges us inland. “When Queen Victoria stayed at Blair Castle in 1844, it really put Pitlochry [the geographical center of Scotland] on the map,” Worthington says as we pull up to the white turreted fairytale fortress. The Queen was also a fan of floppy-fringed ginger Highland Cattle, a native breed that greeted us with the sonorous sound of traditional Scottish bagpipes. After ticking off all thirty of the castle’s treasure-filled rooms—including a whisky study—I sate my appetite with bottomless tea and cake at Blair’s Victorian-era neighbor: Atholl Palace.

We continue northwards to legendary Loch Ness (“loch” is the Scottish word for lake), before making a poignant call in at Culloden, where the last hand-to-hand battle on British soil unfolded in 1746.

National Gallery of Scotland and Edinburgh Castle

Day three begins with a breakfast fit for Scottish nobility at Inverness’ Kingsmill Hotel, setting me up for the long but scenic drive to the mainland’s most northerly town of Thurso. Coconut-perfumed gorse paints the rolling hillsides vivid yellow, whilst mesmerizing blues bring northeast Scotland’s ruggedly beautiful coastline ever closer. We pass Skibo Castle: the former summer retreat of Scottish-American philanthropic industrialist Andrew Carnegie, before stretching our legs in Dornoch, “described as a large golf course with a small village attached!” remarks Worthington. I make a beeline for St Gilbert Street, where the nineteenth-century cottage of America’s best-known golf course architect, Donald Ross, still stands.

Back on the road again, the sight of harbor seals sunning themselves on the sand banks of tidal Loch Fleet signals the sea, which shapes not only Scotland’s shoreline but also the country’s favorite tipple. “We’re a maritime whiskey; salty sea air and outdoor casks,” Jane Grant says as she leads a small group of us around Old Pulteney Distillery, located in the fishing port town of Wick. The tour’s capped with a tasting of their twelve-year-old single malt, which is aged in American oak casks.

Later that evening, I raise another glass—this time mouthing the words slàinte mhath (good health) in a traditional Scots-Gaelic toast—at a blacksmith-turned-pub in the village of Thrumster. “Our cèilidhs [pronounced ‘kay-lee’] were held in our kitchens where your friends and relatives would tell stories and sing songs,” landlord Raymond Bremner says of the Scottish social gathering, which he recreates for us in the Old Smiddy Inn. “Thrumster comes from the old Norse word meaning a farm or homestead,” he adds.

In the late eighth century, Vikings settled in Orkney, where we excitedly boarded a ferry for the following morning. As well as Viking relics, Orkney – an archipelago cast ten miles off Scotland’s northernmost tip – has a remarkable wealth of Neolithic monuments; the most noteworthy being the Ring of Brodgar. Any conversation is soon drowned out by the whipping wind and warbling of skylarks raining down on the ceremonial site’s 36 surviving standing stones that predate the Great Pyramids of Giza.

“There’s nothing between us and the shores of North America!” Orcadian guide John Taylor exclaims as we drink in views of the Atlantic and North Sea on a stretch of Orkney’s 500-mile-long coastline.

Day six ushers in a new island adventure, reached on yet another thrilling drive across the country via Scotland’s UNESCO Geopark. “We have some of the world’s oldest rocks here in the northwest!” Worthington says, who’s a fount of knowledge on her adopted homeland.

Billion-year-old geology also sculpted Skye, where peerless blue skies defy its ‘Misty Isle’ nickname, on our visit at least. “Skye gave rise to a lot of the early theories on how the earth was formed,” guide and third-generation piper Alistair Mackay tells me as I crane my neck to marvel at The Old Man of Storr. This spiky pinnacle of rock “guards over the hills like a sentry,” much like the island’s medieval watchtowers have over its seaways for centuries.

Bidding soraidh (the Scottish-Gaelic for farewell) to Skye’s dramatic peninsulas and jagged sea cliffs, we return to the mainland, this time to one of the western Scottish Highlands’ most magical valleys. Three hours later, I’m learning how rare high-altitude alpine flora—from lichens to mosses—are being conserved in Glencoe National Nature Reserve, which is also a refuge for golden eagles and mountain hares. “It boils down to keeping the land wild,” National Trust for Scotland ranger Lindsay Warner tells me during the Make Travel Matter® experience. Selected by Brendan Vacations on the merits of their positive social or environmental impact on local communities, at least one MTM is offered on each of their itineraries.

Atlantic puffin on Orkney Island

On the move once more, we journey eastwards through the Valley of Glencoe, navigating a stretch of road which made a star turn in the 007 movie Skyfall. More baronial than Bond, Glencoe’s loch-fronting Ballachulish Hotel welcomes us like a warm Scottish hug with its crackling log fires, sleigh beds, and cosseting clawfoot bathtubs.

The lakeside vistas continue the next day at one of Scotland’s most beloved natural treasures: Loch Lomond, best appreciated from the water. Captain Bev Schofield narrates a ninety-minute round-trip cruise of the pear-shaped beauty where English poet William Wordsworth penned “To a Highland Girl.”

Only 35 miles south and yet worlds apart is Glasgow: our thirteenth and final stop. It’s hard to imagine that this cultural powerhouse “started as a fishing village on the edge of the Clyde River,” Worthington says as we traverse the city’s newly opened Renfrew Bridge, which can open for passing ships.

History runs deep here too. My last evening is spent in The Willow Tea Rooms; a landmark building designed inside and out by one of Glasgow’s most famous sons: Art Nouveau artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Akin to dining in a living museum, we devour dishes like Scottish smoked haddock and cod fishcakes, surrounded by Mackintosh’s original friezes in the front saloon. A thoroughly Scottish farewell to a soul-soaring Scottish sojourn.

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Brendan Vacation’s nine-day ‘Country Roads of Scotland—Premium’ trip starting in Edinburgh and finishing in Glasgow starts from $3,975, including guided excursions (*with optional excursions chargeable), transport, airport transfers, and eight nights’ accommodation with half board. Visit BrendanVacations.com to learn more or book now.