Cameron House on Loch Lomond

Small chance you’ll have any trouble remembering which side of the border you’re on. Your room at Cameron House on Loch Lomond is positively drenched in tartan, in seemingly infinite variations, and with the halls lined with beyond-life-sized portraits of bearded, kilted men, a proud gallery of skulduggery — their word, not ours. You’re immersed in an atmosphere that’s unapologetically, thoroughly Scottish, and it’s the blend of decadence and defiance that makes Cameron House — a bit like Scotland itself — so appealing.

In fact the setting is easily half the appeal. They’re hardly exaggerating when they say the Cameron House is on Loch Lomond — arrival by water can be arranged via the hotel’s cruiser. Just about everything you can see from your window is part of the Trossachs National Park, full of mountains, lakes, forests, paths, and horizons that look like they were painted on by J. M. W. Turner. The hotel sits amidst this beauty, lord of all it surveys.

Golf, naturally, is a part of the proceedings. During the day you can play the nine-hole Wee Demon, deserving of the name by every account, or the 18-hole Carrick. Twice named the country’s best, the Cameron House’s spa offers classes as well as treatments, including those that work the so-called high road (head massages) and the low road (foot massages). By night, you can sip one of the 270 single malts on offer and retire to your plush room, complete with walk-in shower and fluffed-daily duvet.