10 Night Cruise sailing from London to Southampton aboard Silver Cloud.

As the inaugural ship for Silversea Cruises, Silver Cloud epitomises everything that is Silversea. Since its launch, Silver Cloud has travelled to all corners of the world while introducing her guests to a superlative level of luxury.

Designed to provide the most intimate of sailing experiences, a Silver Cloud cruise provides 296 privileged guests with the luxury of space and the ability to slip into exotic ports off the beaten path. Each ocean-view suite provides a sumptuous retreat. Each public space is intimate yet inviting. Silver Cloud is often described by returning guests as their own private yacht, their home away from home.

Highlights of this cruise:

London
London is an ancient city whose history greets you at every turn. If the city contained only its famous landmarks-the Tower of London or Big Ben-it would still rank as one of the world's top cities. But London is so much more. The foundations of London's character and tradition endure. The British bobby is alive and well. The tall, red, double-decker buses (in an updated model) still lumber from stop to stop. Then there's that greatest living link with the past-the Royal Family with all its attendant pageantry. To ice the cake, swinging-again London is today one of the coolest cities on the planet. The city's art, style, and fashion make headlines around the world, and London's chefs have become superstars. Plus, London's hosting of the 2012 Olympics means the city will be a hot spot for years to come.

Invergordon
The port of Invergordon is your gateway to the Great Glen, an area of Scotland that includes Loch Ness and the city of Inverness-the capital of the Highlands, with the flavor of a Lowland town, its winds blowing in a sea-salt air from the Moray Firth. The Great Glen is also home to one of the world's most famous monster myths: in 1933, during a quiet news week, the editor of a local paper decided to run a story about a strange sighting of something splashing about in Loch Ness. But there's more to look for here besides Nessie, including inland lochs, craggy and steep-sided mountains, rugged promontories, deep inlets, brilliant purple and emerald moorland, and forests filled with astonishingly varied wildlife, including mountain hares, red deer, golden eagles, and ospreys.

Dublin
In his inimitable, irresistible way, James Joyce immortalized the city of Dublin in works like Ulysses and Dubliners. He claimed to have chosen Dublin as the setting for his work because it was a "center of paralysis" where nothing much ever changed. What would he make of Temple Bar-the city's erstwhile down-at-the-heels neighborhood, now crammed with restaurants and hotels? Or of the city's newfound status as a bustling hub of the European economy? Yet despite all these advances, traditional Dublin is far from buried. The fundamentals-the Georgian elegance of Merrion Square, the Norman drama of Christ Church Cathedral, the foamy pint at an atmospheric pub-are still on hand to gratify. Most of all, there are the locals themselves: the nod and grin when you catch their eye on the street, the eagerness to share a tale or two, and their paradoxically dark but warm sense of humor.

Southampton
Southampton may not be in every tourist brochure, but this inland city and its environs hold all kinds of attractions-and not a few quiet pleasures. Two important cathedrals, Winchester and Salisbury (pronounced sawls-bree), are found in Hampshire, the county that contains Southampton, as are intriguing market towns, and hundreds of haunting prehistoric remains; Stonehenge, the most famous in nearby Wiltshire, should not be missed. However, these are just the tourist brochure superlatives. Like those who migrate here from every corner of the country in search of upward mobility, anyone spending time in the South of England should rent a car and set out to discover the back-road villages not found in brochures. After a drink in the village pub and a look at the cricket game on the village green, stretch out in a field for a nap.