October 19 — November 1, 2026 · A Founders' Expedition

Samhuinn 2026

from the wooden O to the fires on the hill

History · Mystery · Whisky · Witchery

Fourteen days, three countries, one ancient fire. Four women travel from Saint-Malo's ramparts through London's wooden O and the weathered glens of the Highlands, to stand inside the oldest night on the calendar — Samhain, kept in Edinburgh as it has been for nearly three thousand years.

The Journey Step Into the Portal

Beneath the Postcard

The scouts go first

Every Pas Perdu journey begins the same way: someone goes first, with intention. This is that trip — a working expedition through Brittany, London, the Highlands, Perthshire, and Edinburgh, walking the ground of journeys to come. The standing stones and the whisky, the buried closes and the theatre, the castle at three lochs and the valley that keeps its own weather.

We travel it the way we build everything: history first, then the immersion. Understand a place before you stand in it, and the standing becomes something else entirely.

Days, sea to fire

Countries

~2,800

Years the fire has burned

The Journey

Five acts, north by northeast

London opens it — the wooden O, the ribboned gate of the outcast dead, a cabaret in a mirrored room — then the night train north into the glens. The journey’s French prologue, Saint-Malo to the Bayeux thread, keeps its own page: the Sea Gates expedition.

Act II · London

The Wooden O

A two o’clock matinee at the Globe — standing in the borough where theatre survived by being banished — then high tea at the Swan at five, watching the sun set over the Thames. Bankside, Borough Market, and a graveyard of ribbons most of London walks past.

Cabaret's Kit Kat Club cast on the bar at Balthazar London

Act II · London, After Dark

The Kit Kat Club at Balthazar

Our Friday table at McNally’s brasserie turned out to sit inside the Kit Kat Club takeover — Cabaret’s cast singing through the mirrored room on one of the last two nights it exists. The Globe gives us ‘all the world’s a stage’ at two; the Kit Kat Club answers ‘life is a cabaret’ at eight. Not planned. Put in the path.

Act III · The Highlands

The Valley That Keeps Its Weather

Three nights on Loch Linnhe between Glencoe and Ben Nevis. Low cloud, amber grasses, weather moving through every fifteen minutes — a place where doing very little still feels like witnessing something.

Clava Cairns — Bronze Age passage cairns

Act IV · Ancient Scotland

Stones Older Than the Pyramids' Grandchildren

Clava Cairns, aligned on the midwinter sun four thousand years ago, five minutes from the moor at Culloden where a whole world ended. Gray skies make it what it was. We pray for gloom.

The Western Option

The Castle at Three Lochs

Eilean Donan — bombarded to rubble in 1719, rebuilt by hand over thirty years, and quietly the most photographed argument in Scotland for going the long way around.

Act V · Edinburgh, for Samhuinn

In the City When the Year Turns

Edinburgh, stacked on its own past — a sealed street beneath the Royal Mile, Viking-age silver on Chambers Street, dinner in a 1595 merchant’s house by the castle — and then the reason for the dates: on October 31st, the Samhuinn Fire Festival, torchlight and drums through the dark as the Summer King falls to the Winter King. The oldest night on the calendar, and we stand inside it.

The Party

Four travelers

Desta

The Scout

Founder of Pas Perdu, traveling the way the company thinks: history first, notebook always open, tarot deck packed for the fires, every find feeding the journeys to come.

Marianne

Half-Muse, Half-Maker

The travel-buddy of France, Portugal, and now Britain — the one who makes the days easier and the conversations more interesting, sea to fire and every mile between.

Pınar

The Witchy Otherworldly

Journalist, actress, student of culture — Pas Perdu's own guide from the Bosphorus, who reads your fortune in the coffee grounds, the Turkish way, traveling to meet 3 magical sisters from half across the globe, all to stand at the fires of the oldest new year.

A Fourth Chair

The Beautiful Unknown

One seat at the fires stands open — a woman with the right spirit for the north, the stones, the whisky, and the oldest new year. By invitation.

October 31

The night the year turns

Samhain is nearly three thousand years old — the Celtic new year, the night the veil thins, the fire festival that Christianity renamed but never extinguished. Edinburgh keeps it with torchlight and drums at the Samhuinn Fire Festival, and this year we keep it too: the Galloway Hoard by daylight, the fires by dark, and dinner the night before at a 1595 merchant's house on Castlehill — steps from a small fountain raised to the hundreds who died there in less forgiving centuries.

History

Standing stones to sacked abbeys — thirty sites, each with its story told before we arrive.

Mystery

The buried street beneath the Royal Mile, the Witches' Well, the graves the resurrection men feared to touch.

Whisky

A 3 PM tasting at Blair Athol in Pitlochry — uisge beatha, the water of life, the Celts' language alive in the glass.

Witchery

Dinner at the Witchery by the Castle on the night before Samhain — candlelight, a legendary cellar, and the oldest room in Edinburgh's imagination.