Heading for the Hebrides on the ‘floating country house’ Lord of the Highlands
The bagpipes skirled the haggis into the restaurant as hulking Highland mountains brooded overhead, and an otter splashed by the bow, then it was on to single malts and Taittinger in the lounge, and a toast to starry Hebridean skies.
Welcome to the Lord of the Highlands, Scotland’s newest small luxury cruise ship, and a voyage fit for royalty, never mind a lord, which sweeps just 38 guests through the Caledonian Canal and on to the Hebrides.
Its sister vessel, the Hebridean Princess, was chartered twice by the late Queen Elizabeth II as a more-than-capable stand-in for her beloved Britannia, and the Lord of the Highlands is cut from the same sumptuous tartan cloth. Voyages are like an ultra-exclusive Scottish country-house party that rollicks on gloriously for an entire week.
The difference with this house party – and, indeed, this Scottish cruise – is that the Lord of the Highlands has its dram-soaked cake and eats it. The first part of our week was spent working our way along Thomas Telford’s remarkable 200-year-old, 60-mile Caledonian Canal, through the Great Glen from Inverness to Fort William, past 29 locks and a quartet of lochs, and then – not content to keep to the waterways – pushing on into the North Atlantic and on to the isles.