Britain’s most scenic drives: The Road to the Isles, Scotland
On a quest to discover the country's most glorious roads, Annunciata Elwes drives along Scotland's Road to the Isles.


Not only does the Road to the Isles sound like something from a fairy tale, it looks like it, too.
If a dragon appeared in a bruised Highland sky, clouds aflame in the setting sun, and swooped low to glide over a smooth mountain loch, perhaps admiring its reflection, it would seem both fitting and proper.
This 46-mile historic route between Fort William and the fishing port of Mallaig in Lochaber (the A830 on modern maps) seems to have it all: rocky mountains, inaccessible lochs, the sandy beaches of Morar, atmospheric ruins, vistas of the Isles of Rum, Muck, Eigg and Canna and a mythological beast’s-eye view of the Glenfinnan Viaduct and Loch Shiel.
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Annunciata is director of contemporary art gallery TIN MAN ART and an award-winning journalist specialising in art, culture and property. Previously, she was Country Life’s News & Property Editor. Before that, she worked at The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, researched for a historical biographer and co-founded a literary, art and music festival in Oxfordshire. Lancashire-born, she lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and a mischievous pug.
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