Scotland The Faroe Islands and Iceland

Aberdeen, Scotland — Embark in the Granite City

Aberdeen faces the North Sea in silver-grey granite, a city shaped by nearly nine centuries of maritime ambition. Its harbour, founded in 1136, is Britain’s oldest existing business. Fishing, shipbuilding, global trade, offshore energy: each one left its mark on this working waterfront.

Step back from the docks and the Granite City shows you its other sides. The cobbled lanes of medieval Old Aberdeen. The colourful cottages of Footdee, the old fishing quarter. Bold civic architecture, contemporary galleries, and a food scene worth arriving a day early for.

Then we board our expedition vessel in the heart of this historic port. As the granite skyline slips behind us, the sea roads open ahead: Orkney, Shetland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland.

From here, the only way is north.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Standing Stones and St. Magnus Cathedral

Orkney keeps its history out in the open. Standing stones, ceremonial monuments, and remarkably preserved settlements make up one of Western Europe’s richest surviving Neolithic landscapes. They were built five thousand years ago by a society of farmers, builders, and seafarers who clearly knew what they were doing. Low green hills, broad skies, lochs, and the sea still surround them, and it’s hard to picture one without the other.

Kirkwall adds another layer. Founded in 1137, St. Magnus Cathedral rises above the town in local red and yellow sandstone. It’s a legacy of Orkney’s Norse heritage and Scotland’s most complete medieval cathedral. In the winding streets around it, Orcadian craft is very much alive: jewellery, textiles, and design drawn straight from the islands. Arctic explorer John Rae, one of Orkney’s own, is buried in the cathedral grounds.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Shetland — Norse Heritage, Seabirds, and Island Culture

Shetland sits where the North Sea meets the North Atlantic, and it has been a crossroads of northern cultures for a very long time. Norse rule lasted for centuries. You can still hear it in the place names, the dialect, and the traditions, and you can feel it in an island identity that stands apart within Scotland.

We visit archaeological sites that trace thousands of years of human presence, and wander through communities shaped by fishing, crofting, and the sea. Keep your binoculars close, because seabirds gather in huge numbers along Shetland’s cliffs. Listen for the fiddle, too. Music and storytelling still run deep here, and they link today’s Shetlanders to the generations who came before.

As you explore, discover a place whose character has been shaped by connections in every direction: north toward Scandinavia, south toward Scotland, and outward across the North Atlantic.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Foula and Papa Stour — Shetland’s Remote Islands

Foula, whose Old Norse name means “bird island,” is home to only a few dozen people, living amid some of Britain’s highest sheer sea cliffs. Discover an island where crofting continues, peat is still cut for fuel, and traditions of music and storytelling remain part of community life. In season, thousands of seabirds gather along the cliffs, adding another dimension to an island already rich
in character.

On Papa Stour, another small island community occupies a landscape of ancient volcanic rock carved into stacks, arches, blowholes, and some of Britain’s finest sea caves. Together, Foula and Papa Stour offer a rare glimpse of life on Shetland’s smaller islands, where longstanding
traditions continue amid extraordinary wildlife and geology.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

The Colour and Rhythm of Suðuroy

Set along a deep fjord and surrounded by steep mountains, Vágur grew into one of Suðuroy’s
important fishing towns. Its boats and salt-fish trade connected this southern island with markets across Europe, while traditional boathouses, warehouses, and the working harbour still reflect its maritime character.

The cultural life of Suðuroy comes into closer view at the Ruth Smith Art Museum, where the celebrated Faroese painter captured the islands’ shifting light, landscapes, and people. Join in the Faroese chain dance, moving together as traditional ballads carry stories across generations.

This much-loved communal tradition reveals the importance of music, memory, and shared participation in Faroese culture.

Above the village, the cliffs of Eggjarnar overlook the open Atlantic, bringing Vágur’s maritime heritage, creative expression, and dramatic setting into one remarkable place.

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Tórshavn—Where Eighteen Islands Come Together

Few capitals feel as closely tied to their harbour as Tórshavn. At Tinganes, red timber buildings
with turf roofs occupy one of the world’s oldest parliamentary meeting places, where assemblies have been held since the Viking Age. Nearby, the narrow lanes of the old town wind between black-tarred houses and sheltered gardens.

The city is also the creative centre of the islands. Faroese language, visual art, music, design, and an ambitious food culture flourish in its galleries, venues, workshops, cafés, and restaurants.

Fishing boats and ferries keep the harbour in motion, while the surrounding hills and sea remain
close at hand. Tórshavn brings the culture and character of eighteen islands together in one
lively harbour.

Founded as a Viking trading settlement, it remains the cultural heart of the Faroe Islands, where
old timber buildings with turf roofs stand alongside contemporary galleries, cafés, and restaurants. Wander quiet lanes and discover a confident island society where language, craftsmanship, music, and design continue to evolve while remaining firmly anchored in place.

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Western Faroe Islands

Across the western Faroe Islands, the land rises from the North Atlantic with an almost improbable beauty. Dark walls of layered basalt are draped in vivid green, waterfalls descend
from high plateaus, and narrow fjords disappear between mountains. Sea stacks, arches, and isolated islets stand offshore, while Atlantic puffins, northern fulmars, guillemots, and kittiwakes return in their thousands to the cliffs for the breeding season. Mist, sunlight, and passing weather continually transform the view, heightening the elemental beauty of these remarkable islands.

Two days allow this extraordinary island world to unfold from different perspectives. Hikes cross
sweeping headlands and reveal views deep into the archipelago, while Zodiac cruises bring the immense proportions of the coast fully into view from the water. Beneath cliffs alive with seabirds and beside formations carved by the Atlantic, the western Faroes offer some of the voyage’s most stirring natural encounters with the forces that have shaped this island world.

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

The Sea Road to Iceland

The North Atlantic unfolds during the crossing to Iceland, its changing light, weather, and wildlife holding attention far beyond the decks. Fulmars and gannets follow the winds above the waves, while the possibility of whales keeps watch focused on the horizon.
Aboard, presentations and conversations explore the natural and human histories carried through these waters, from seabird migrations and ocean currents to the generations of voyagers who travelled between islands.

Time at sea brings the expedition’s central story into focus: across the North Atlantic, the ocean has long been a route of movement, exchange, and connection.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Heimaey, Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland—Where Fire Meets the Sea

Heimaey rises from the North Atlantic in a dramatic meeting of volcanic earth and ocean. In 1973, Eldfell erupted without warning, forcing nearly the entire population to evacuate as lava and ash buried parts of the town. When molten rock threatened to close the harbour, islanders pumped seawater onto the advancing flows, helping preserve the sheltered waters at the heart of community life.

Today, brightly painted homes and a busy fishing harbour stand beneath the still-young volcanic cone. Lava fields reach toward the town, while Atlantic puffins return in vast numbers to breed along the surrounding cliffs. Heimaey reveals an island continually shaped by powerful natural forces and by the ingenuity of those who call it home.

Included Meals

All on-board meals 

Accommodations

Your cabin on the Ocean Victory

Reykjavík, Iceland—Where the Sea Roads Meet

The expedition reaches Reykjavík, Iceland’s lively capital and a fitting culmination to a journey across the North Atlantic. Set between mountains and sea, the city pairs colourful streets and corrugated houses with bold architecture, an inventive culinary scene, and a creative culture expressed through literature, music, and design. Geothermal energy warms its homes and outdoor pools, bringing Iceland’s volcanic landscape into the rhythms of daily life.

After disembarkation, those staying on can discover a capital whose museums, galleries, restaurants, and waterfront offer many reasons to linger. Here, at the journey’s final shore, the sea roads followed from Scotland through the Faroes arrive in a country profoundly shaped by
the forces and connections of the North Atlantic.

Included Meals

Breakfast