13 Days Luxury British Isles and Iceland Cruise - Edinburgh to Reykjavik

Edinburgh Castle watches over the capital from a skyline of sheer drama, while the modern Scottish Parliament and August festivals confirm the city's place in the 21st century. Nearly everywhere in Edinburgh stand spectacular neoclassical buildings, with Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian pillars against a largely Presbyterian backdrop. Arthur's Seat, a mountain jutting 822 feet above its surroundings, rears up behind the spires of the Old Town.

The Isle of May is a National Nature Reserve off mainland Scotland, managed by Scottish Natural Heritage as a breeding ground for approximately 250,000 seabirds. Over 40,000 puffin burrows have been counted as occupied, alongside kittiwakes, shags, eiders, guillemots, razorbills, Arctic Terns, and Great Black-backed Gulls. The island is also used by biologists for ringing breeding seabirds and surveying migrating passerines.

Fair Isle lies mid-way between Shetland and the Orkney Islands, with a population of around 70 people and a warm welcome for visitors. The island is famous for birds, knitwear, and historic shipwrecks, including the Spanish Armada flagship El Gran Grifon. Sheep Rock, rising over 100 metres, towers above the island's cloudy turquoise waters.

Kirkwall is the capital of the Orkney Islands, home to the sandstone St. Magnus Cathedral, begun in 1137 and completed over 300 years, known as the Light of the North for its stained-glass windows. The archipelago's prehistoric heritage includes Skara Brae, Europe's best-preserved Stone Age village and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History-rich distilleries produce peaty single malts, and the dramatic meeting of the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean defines the islands' seascapes.

The sandstone cliffs of Noss National Nature Reserve hold one of Europe's largest and most diverse seabird colonies. Gannets, puffins, guillemots, kittiwakes, razorbills, fulmars, and great skuas line the ledges that rise from the Shetland sea. Sheep and shaggy Shetland ponies graze the windblown interior, and the island's dramatic coastal scenery is among the finest in the North Atlantic.

Tórshavn is one of the world's smallest capitals — a city of half-timbered houses, grass-roofed buildings, and one of the world's oldest parliaments on a peninsula overlooking the North Atlantic. The Faroe Islands' eighteen islands, shaped by volcanic basalt and Norse settlement, are among the most dramatically beautiful and least-visited landscapes in Europe.

Oyndarfjørður distils the Faroe Islands into one small village, with dramatic mountain scenery and ancient folklore. The famous Rinkusteinar — Rocking Stones — are massive boulders that bob mysteriously in the water, said to be pirate ships frozen by a sorceress. Isolated until 1969 when a road finally connected it, the village has preserved centuries of tradition with remarkable continuity.

Seyðisfjörður is a small Icelandic town at the end of a spectacular fjord in the East Fjords. Waterfalls cascade from the surrounding peaks into a bowl of colourful wooden buildings reflected in the calm harbour. The town has a creative arts community, puffin colonies on the surrounding cliffs, and the ferry connection to Europe that makes it the arrival point for most overland travellers to Iceland.

The remote Borgarfjordur Eystri fjord near the fishing village of Bakkagerdi is home to 10,000 pairs of breeding puffins, among the most accessible in Iceland. The fjord, surrounded by the Dyrfjoll Mountains, takes its name from the formation of Alfaborg, or Elf Rock, which locals hold to be the home of the Icelandic elf-queen. The village church's 1914 altarpiece features the work of Bakkagerdi's most famous former resident, the beloved Icelandic painter Johannes Kjarval.

Husavik, known as the European capital of whale watching, lies below the Husavikurfjall mountain on the shores of Iceland's oldest settlement. Humpback whales, minke whales, and blue whales are sighted in the bay, alongside white-beaked dolphins. The town's whale museum documents Iceland's relationship with the sea giants, and local restaurants serve reindeer burger and plokkfiskur.

Tiny Djupavik sits in Iceland's Westfjords, dominated by an abandoned herring factory dating back to 1934 that was, when built, the largest concrete structure in Iceland. The factory shell has been repurposed as an art gallery and hotel, while a rusting ship that once served as a dormitory for workers rests near the water. The Djupavikurfoss waterfall calls visitors ashore to a small cluster of cherry-red houses beside the fjord.

The Dynjandi waterfall is located in the Westfjords region of Iceland and is regarded as one of the country's most impressive waterfalls. At the top, the cascading water is roughly 100 feet wide and tumbles approximately 330 feet into the fjord. Its name means the thundering one, and it has also been nicknamed The Bridal Veil for the way the water sprays and spreads over the rocks.

Reykjavik is the world's northernmost capital, an unusually walkable city where colourful corrugated-iron houses line streets that lead between geothermal outdoor pools, the Hallgrímskirkja church, and the Harpa Concert Hall on the waterfront. The city is the base for Iceland's extraordinary natural experiences — the Northern Lights, the Golden Circle, and the Blue Lagoon all within easy reach.

Itineraries are subject to change.