Follow the fabled Road to the Isles and pass the head of Loch Shiel to reach Ina and Kieron Kelly’s 17th-century coaching inn, today a friendly family-run hotel with ‘comfortable bedrooms’ and ‘outstanding meals’. ‘The owners’ son, who was home for the summer, looked after us, and was delightful,’ says a Guide reader this year. Bedrooms vary in size and style; the best, and most spacious, has a Jacobean four-poster bed and lots of extras: Scottish toiletries, fresh flowers, chocolates, a decanter of Whisky Mac. The beamed restaurant occupies the original part of the old inn. Here, Kieron Kelly’s ‘delicious’ four-course dinners use locally sourced ingredients: venison from the surrounding hills, fish and shellfish from the boats at Mallaig, vegetables and fruit from a small-scale grower, lamb from a coastal farm nearby. Typical dishes: wild mushroom ravioli, asparagus; roast best end of lamb, Madeira and thyme jus. Simpler dishes (perhaps breaded Mallaig haddock) may be taken in the bistro. Next day, after a ‘good’ breakfast, take a short walk to the station and board the Jacobite steam train. (Richard Bright)