Edinburgh Airport to the Highlands

Tim will meet you at the Hampton by Hilton Edinburgh Airport hotel at 10.30 am and, after loading the minibus, we’ll drive north across the Forth of Firth for lunch and a visit to Blair Castle and its gardens.

The ancestral seat of the Clan Murray and their chief, the Duke of Atholl, Blair Castle has been their home for over seven centuries. In its 750 years, it has been home to politicians, soldiers, agriculturalists and entrepreneurs, and the family history is brought to life against a backdrop of 18th-century interiors and Scots Baronial architecture. Its nine-acre walled garden, the Hercules Garden, is named for its life-sized statue of Hercules and has been beautifully restored to its original Georgian design and is famous, amongst other things, for its herbaceous borders, which run the length of its 275m south-facing wall.

Blair Castle is roughly halfway to our hotel, The Lovat Hotel, in Fort Augustus on Loch Ness, where we will arrive in good time to relax before drinks and dinner at the hotel.

Today’s driving is approx. 160 miles/260 km

D2 Sunday, 31 August

Fort Augustus to Tarbert

We set off on a scenic drive through some of Scotland’s most stunning landscapes, stopping for morning coffee at Eilean Donan Castle, before crossing the Skye Bridge onto the Isle of Skye and on, across Skye, to Uig, to catch the early afternoon Calmac Ferry to Tarbert on the Isle of Harris.

The crossing is a little less than two hours and our hotel is slightly less than 700m from Tarbert’s ferry terminal — all of which means we should be at our hotel, the Harris Hotel, in time for tea and cake and in good time to check in and relax before drinks and dinner at the hotel.

Today’s driving is approx. 110 miles/180 km

D3 Monday, 1 September

Arnol Blackhouse & the Butt of Lewis

Our day starts on the west coast of Lewis with a visit to The Blackhouse, Arnol, a thatched Blackhouse preserved much as the family left it when they moved out in 1965. Home to the family and their animals, it was the norm in rural Scotland for people and their animals to live under the same roof and a good number of blackhouses were still inhabited until the 1970s. Today, Arnol is all that remains of a vanished way of life.

We’ll have coffee at the Arnol visitor centre, before driving to the Butt of Lewis, the northernmost tip of Lewis, for lunch* at Comunn Eachdraidh Nis, a community museum setting out the heritage of this remote community. We’ll also visit the nearby church of St. Moluag, a 12th-century chapel built by the son of a Scandinavian King, on the site of an earlier, 6th-century church, and Port Ness, the local harbour.

Later in the afternoon, we’ll drive to Scalpay for dinner at the North Harbour Bistro.

*lunch is included.

Today’s driving is approx. 160 miles/260 km

D4 Tuesday, 2 September

Calanais & Stornoway

We return north to visit the Calanais Standing Stones, a cross-shaped group of stones erected some 5,000 years ago and an important place of ritual activity for at least 2,000 years. The whole site became covered with peat and, somewhat extraordinarily, the stones weren’t fully revealed until 1857 – once the peat was cut for fuel!

Late morning we’ll drive to Stornoway, the Outer Hebrides’s largest settlement and its administrative centre, to visit Museum nan Eilean, the principal heritage museum of the Outer Hebrides, for lunch and an introduction to the history and heritage of this varied archipelago.

We’ll walk into town to visit the Harris Tweed Authority, for a presentation in the Story Room all about Harris Tweed, its history and its place in Hebridean life, and then enjoy some free time exploring Stornoway before returning to Tarbert for dinner at our hotel.

Today’s driving is approx. 90 miles/145 km

D5 Wednesday, 3 September

St Clements, Scarista & Rebecca Hutton

Before we leave Tarbert, we’ll visit The Harris Distillery, a social enterprise making fine malt whisky and highly acclaimed gin, and Harris Tweed, purveyors of Tweed cloth, clothes and all manner of accessories.

Then, armed with our picnics, we’ll take the winding coastal road to St Clement’s Church, a beautiful church built as the burial place of the MacLeod Clan by Alasdair MacLeod of Dunvegan and Harris, the 8th Chief of MacLeod. The church contains an unparalleled collection of later-medieval and post-reformation sculptures, the finest of which is the MacLeod tomb.

We’ll head to the beaches at Scarista for our picnic* before meeting Rebecca Hutton, the woman behind Toabh Tuath Tweeds, for a weaving demonstration and to hear, first hand, the meaning of being a weaver of Harris Tweed! Visiting Rebecca was one of the highlights of the 2023 inaugural tour.

It’s just ten minutes to Leverburgh, for the one-hour late-afternoon crossing from Harris to North Uist and then a 30-minute drive to Langass Lodge, our home for the next three nights where, when we arrive, we’ll check in and go straight to dinner.

*picnic included.

Today’s driving is approx. 60 miles/100 km

D6 Thursday, 4 September

Neolithic Stones, Uist Wool & Lady Anne

We start today with a circular walk on Beinn Langais, the hill behind our hotel, taking in Sornach Coir'Fhinn, a Neolithic Stone Circle that may once have had as many as 50 standing stones. Over the hill, on the other side, is Barpa Langais, the best preserved chambered cairn in the Outer Hebrides, typical of tombs built across the islands by Neolithic communities.

Armed with yet another picnic*, we’ll drive south to the neighbouring island of Grimsay, to visit Uist Wool for an introduction to yarn and wool production here, in the Outer Hebrides.

Just around the corner from Uist Wool is Kallin Harbour, where we’ll embark on the Lady Anne for a sightseeing and wildlife-watching cruise before supper at the Westford Inn, en route back to Langass Lodge.

*picnic included.

Today’s driving is approx. 30 miles/50 km

D7 Friday, 5 September

Along South Uist, the Machair & more…

We’ll visit several attractions along the length of South Uist, starting with a brief visit to Our Lady of the Isles, built as an expression of the devotion of the people of South Uist to the Blessed Virgin Mary but also as a protest to the then proposals for a missile range on Benbecula.

We’ll bear this in mind as we visit the Kildonan Museum, which houses some 10,000 items related to the social, domestic and cultural history of South Uist, including the collection of the late Father John Morrison. We’ll stop to photograph Flora Macdonald's Birthplace and press on to Eriskay, for lunch at Am Politician, named for S.S Politician, which ran aground off Eriskay in 1941.

We return along the coast road, stopping at Ardmichael Cemetery, to explore the beach, its surrounding Machair and the ancient, 9th-century chapels at Howmore.

We’ll wind our way back to Langass Lodge for dinner.

Today’s driving is approx. 80 miles/130 km