#1 in My Beautiful Book

by | Jun 12, 2024 | Food Experiences, Photography

We have been to a lot of places. At last count, we have visited 52 countries. Norway next week will be our 53rd. Up until this trip, I was utterly convinced that the most beautiful place in the world is New Zealand. We were blown away by the incredible views of nature when we visited on our trip Down Under in 2009. 

But after this trip, I have changed my mind. Scotland is the MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE on earth. Seriously—have you seen my photos? Of course, I don’t mean the cities as much as the country overall. I was becoming increasingly convinced as we traveled through the countryside, but when we went through Glencoe the other day, I realized this was it. The most beautiful place on earth…at least for me. I know that many of you would prefer a warmer climate, but for me, give me the constantly changing weather of Scotland.

I say this with the knowledge that we live in the Pacific Northwest, where the natural beauty is also amazing, but it’s what man has done that has tarnished Seattle and the Northwest for me. All of the places we have been I can never remember saying to myself, WOW and WOW and WOW, so often.

So, let’s sum up our trip so far and give you some honest recommendations about hotels and restaurants.

First, this has been an awesome trip so far, marred by only my catching a cold. And I am thrilled to say that other than an early-morning cough and a slightly runny nose, I am cured. We have had the best time. Where we stayed and what we ate had a lot to do with that so here’s a recap and recommendations.

Lodging

Nights 1-3: Leeds, England

  • Hotel: Howard Bed and Breakfast—Leeds
    • Bed: Excellent
    • Room size: Great, but no closet space left for us to use ?.
    • Hosts: The best of the trip. They not only took great care of us at the B&B, but they picked us up at the train station and then later toured us all over Yorkshire and took us back to the train station. 
    • Breakfasts: Excellent and plentiful.
    • What they did best: They made us feel like we were part of the family.
    • Things they could improve: Less stinky cheese.
    • Problems you will have in staying there: You can’t book this place. You have to become friends with owners, and then you stay at their house, they stay at yours, you cruise all over the world with them, and then you get to stay there…again.
    • Would we stay there again? Only if the hosts from there come to see us first. It’s their turn.

 

Nights 4-5 and 11-12: Glasgow, Scotland

  • Hotel: Grasshoppers
    • Bed: Subpar on the first part of our stay and better on the second. The first bed we had needed to be replaced. When you sat on the edge of it, it felt like you would slide right off. On their website, they call their beds, “kings.” Not by US standards. They are basic queens to us. We sleep in a king at home. This is NOT a king.
    • Room size: First stay, a typical small European experience. Second, stay in a bigger room that we liked a lot better. Both bathrooms were the same, adequate size.
    • Hosts: The people there were very helpful. We had to have our keys remade about six or eight times, and they never complained. Not sure why I had such problems with my keys but it might be my magnetic personality ?.
    • Breakfasts: Excellent and plentiful. Complete choice of everything you could want for breakfast, from baked beans to granola. They did have the BEST whole grain bread for toast. I could eat that by the loaf. The only fall down here was cold plates. It would be best if you never had to put their excellent scrambled eggs on cold plates. 
    • What they did best: For me, it’s their location. Since they are above Glasgow’s Central Station, we got off the train, walked out of the station, around the corner, went up to the sixth floor, and we were there. When we left to come down to London, we walked out of our room at 10:00 am, and we were on the train at 10:15. Try that in an airport. They also had the absolute BEST water pressure on this trip and great bath towels—big and absorbent. I could still be in the shower if we hadn’t had to catch the train. Did I mention the free, always-available cakes and ice creams?
    • Things they could improve: Use hot plates in the breakfast room. And get a new mattress in 603.
    • Problems you will have in staying there: Book early. But realize they don’t open booking until six months prior. By that time, I had all the other hotels on this trip booked. Also, please note that the entrance at street level is difficult—a few steps to climb to get into the building before you get to the elevator. Tough with heavy luggage. 
    • Would we stay there again? If we were going back to Glasgow by train, we would. Doubt that will happen but you never know. We can recommend Grasshoppers very highly.

Nights 6-7: Oban, Scotland

  • Hotel: The Manor House 
    • Bed: Just fine, but a “double bed,” not even a Queen. Keep that in mind. It was cozy.
    • Room size: A typical small European experience in a historic inn. The bathrooms were adequate in size, but because of the dormers on the roof, the shower ceiling was very low.
    • Hosts: The incredible David took such great care of us. When he learned we would be missing breakfast due to a tour, he made us a sack lunch we could take with us. Both nights, we were regaled with stories over a round of whisky.
    • Breakfasts: Due to our early tour on the first morning, we only ate breakfast once. It was just fine, if a little fancy. When I am out on vacation and may miss lunch, I prefer a heartier breakfast. Theirs left much to be desired in terms of quantity. Worst bread of the trip. The toast was like eating warm Wonder Bread.  
    • What they did best: One word: David. He made our visit.
    • Things they could improve: It shocked me at breakfast in the classiest hotel we stayed in to be given the flimsiest paper napkins I have ever seen. Kleenex tissues have more substance. For a place like this not to have linen napkins? No excuse. They could also get better bathroom linens. Of all the places we stayed, these were the worst. 
    • Problems you will have staying there: If you are tall like me, book a ground floor room. The dormers in the upstairs mean that the showers in the bathroom will have no headroom. Not only did I have to bend over in the shower (no jokes here please) but I kept banging my hands into the ceiling when I was trying to apply shampoo.
    • Would we stay there again? Yes, but only if David is still there and we have a downstairs room.

Nights 8-10: Portree, Scotland

  • Hotel: Balintoy Bed and Breakfast
    • Bed: Excellent.
    • Room size: The biggest room we stayed in on this trip. We loved all the extra room. It is well laid out and well furnished. 
    • Hosts: As good as David was at the Manor House, Gillian positively affected our entire trip. She is the best. We corresponded before the trip, and she gave us some great advice that paid off while we were there. She’s the one who told us to book restaurants at least three months early. I can’t stress enough that you need to do this. She was exactly right. She also would check in with us at breakfast every morning about what we were doing that day and the best way to get there. She became less of a host and more of a friend as the three days passed. She always asked about our touring and dining on the previous day so she could pass the knowledge on to future guests. 
    • Breakfasts: Excellent. Done as a light buffet. And the BEST COFFEE on the entire trip. Strong and hot. She brought an entire French Press to our table…just for us. We always emptied it.  
    • What they did best: One word: Gillian. We also loved the location. It was about a mile from downtown, so it was very quiet but still easy to get to. 
    • Things they could improve: Not much. But one little thing that would be an easy fix—some small shelf in the shower, please. Lining up our shampoo, conditioner and soap on the shower floor was a pain. Just a hanging rack from the shower head would work. See how minor that is? This place was great.
    • Problems you will have in staying there: It took a bit of back and forth to make the reservation. I do wish that the Balintoy took credit cards, but they only accept cash or bank transfers. With much help from Gillian, we finally got the bank transfer thing to work. I still prefer having the safety of a creed card. 
    • Would we stay there again? You bet we would—in a minute.

Dining

Because of Gillian’s recommendations, I booked restaurant tables for dinner every night we were in Scotland other than the one night we did our 15-hour tour in Oban. I couldn’t get any restaurant to book after 8:00 p.m. and we couldn’t be sure we would be off the ferry by then. As it turned out we weren’t off until around 8:30 p.m. and there was nowhere that still had a kitchen open (It’s a small town).

Nights 1-3: Leeds, England

  • Night one: Howard Bed and Breakfast—Leeds
    • Delicious chicken dish. Lots of other great stuff to go with it.
  • Night two: Murgatroyds—Leeds
    • Really good Fish and Chips. Kind of a big family restaurant out by the airport. The fish was excellent. I am tired of chips. But I wasn’t when we had these, but could someone make crispy, thinner chips… please?
  • Day three: Lunch at the Wensleydale Heifer in Wensleydale
    •  had eaten dinner at the Heifer when we last visited Paul and Gail, and it was just as good then as it was this time. A HUGE lunch. Absolutely would go again, and you should too if you are ever in the area.
  • Day three: Howard Bed and Breakfast—Leeds
    • Dinner was just cheese, crackers, olives. No one wanted anything more. But then they brought out the stinky cheese. If you eat there, skip that.

Nights 4-5 and 11-12: Glasgow, Scotland

  • Night one: Banca di Roma
    • One of the best meals on the trip. How much did we like it? We went back again on Day 11. It was a nice break from local food to have some high-end Italian. Best appetizer of the trip. A four-item dish with some of the best chicken I have ever had. I have to learn how to make it. For entrées, Kathleen had eggplant parm, I had a bolognese sauce made from octopus. Not as good as it sounded but still delicious. 
  • Night two: The Ivy Cafe-Glasgow
    • Fun and quirky. Delicious shepherd’s pie. We would eat there again. We are eating at another Ivy with the same basic menu in London tomorrow night.
  • Day ten: Ardnamurchan
    • This place identifies itself as a “traditional Scottish restaurant.” That does not mean you have to eat haggis. I had a venison stew which is one of the two best meals I had on this trip. It tasted like candy…it was that good. My lovely wife had a lamb shank and I got to taste it. It was also amazing…but not as good as my stew.
  • Day eleven: Banca di Roma
    • See my note above. Still, the best appetizer we had. This time we had an entrée for two that was a delicious pasta dish but they gave us way too much.

Nights 6-7: Oban, Scotland

  • Night six: Ee-Usk
    • Even though it has a really different name, this place was outstanding. Kathleen had the halibut and I had a seafood salad that had more seafood than salad.
  • Night seven: No place
    • We couldn’t find anywhere to eat after we got off the ferry at 8:30 p.m. so we starved to death. The rest of this trip was finished by our doppelgängers.

Nights 8-10: Portree, Scotland

  • Night eight: The Antlers Inn
    • Just a good place for a quick meal. We had a big lunch in Mallaig so we just wanted to have a quick bite. This place was perfect. The best thing about dinner was the great service and the talk we had about the awesome music with the servers. It was a fun and memorable night. One of those you love to have when you are traveling. 
  • Night nine: The Rosedale Inn
    • As good as the seafood salad at Ee-Usk was, the seafood linguine at the Rosedale was better. And Kathleen had a gnocchi that rocked. It has sweet potatoes in the sauce and it made it taste just perfect.
  • Night ten: The View Restaurant
    • This place was tied for the best restaurant with the Banca di Roma. It has a gorgeous view (of course it did) but the food was amazing. The bread service came with an unexpected surprise—pickled walnuts. They are awesome! I immediately thought I needed to make it myself but when I looked up the recipe it turns out it takes A MONTH TO MAKE IT because the walnuts have to ferment. I think I will just buy it by the jar on Amazon. Our entrées were also amazing. Kathleen had the chicken which she really liked and I had “shins of beef and spring garlic risotto.” WOW! To find this kind of food this far north in such a small town was phenomenal. 

That about covers the food and lodging. Just a few more kudos to award. Except for some photos of the dishes of renown. Enjoy and feel free to look at these on your phone. That’s what I used to take them.

Best Scotland surprises:

  • How well I adjusted to driving on the “other” side of the road. The first couple of days Kathleen was freaking out because I was driving to close to the left curb. But after some much-needed direction from her I wised up and things improved. Until the last day when I actually bumped a curb with my rear left tire. I think it jumped out at me ?. 
  • How awesome the food was. Be honest, when you think of British and Scottish food, you don’t think of great cuisine, right? Well, that changed for me on this trip. All our food was amazing…except the chips.
  • How incredibly beautiful Scotland is. I knew it was beautiful, but WOW! There, I said it again.
  • How small Scotland is. Getting from one place to another took us no time at all. We were able to drive almost two-thirds of the country in six hours or so.. Try that in California and you will still be in California and have a ways to go.
  • How many fewer tourists we saw compared to what we expected. Pretty much every day (except returning from Portree to Glasgow) the traffic was just fine. Sometimes the car parks could be a little full but the downtowns of Oban and Portree were not that crowded. 
  • There were no midges. The pest of Scotland did not show up. We brought midge spray, we planned to wear dark clothes so as not to attract them, we did our research but no midges. Kathleen thinks that’s because the wind was always blowing and the temps stayed low.
  • The Scottish weather and how fast it changed. You could literally be in bright sun one minute and two minutes later be in pouring rain. And it kept going back and forth for the entire trip. On most days (as you can see in my photos) I had plenty of great weather to shoot in. In fact, I preferred the big fluffy clouds to a flat blue sky. We are so happy we are doing this trip and not the Med where the temps have soared into the 100s this week.

Biggest bad surprises:

  • How many people in Scotland (especially Glasgow) still smoke. It was everywhere. Every doorway, every street corner, and every place we went (thankfully not indoors) there were people smoking. We know that people smoke more in Europe than in our Pacific Northwest but this was much worse than we had seen in Greece, Italy and Spain two years ago. 

The one Scottish experience I never want to have again:

  • Trying to use the facilities on a 30-foot boat moving 25 knots an hour on a water surface with six-foot swells. I still don’t believe I survived that with my body intact. A close second would be waiting for a city bus for two hours in downtown Tobermory.

The one Scottish experience I really would love to have again:

  • This is a toss-up between my experience shooting the puffins on Lunga and just driving through Glencoe. After struggling through Fort William traffic I almost told Kathleen that we should just bag Glencoe and drive back to Glasgow by the shortest route. Thank heavens I didn’t.

For me, this sums up Scotland: beauty everywhere, great weather and wonderful people. I am happy to be married to a woman of Scottish ancestry so we have an excuse to come back someday…I hope. I would truly hate to think I won’t see the beautiful place again.

I am attached to the west coast of Scotland – it’s gorgeous to look at and challenging. You have to contend with the possibility of being blown away or rained on. And in the summer months, you can be eaten alive by midges.  —Clive Anderson 

One Last Day in Glasgow

by | Jun 11, 2024 | Photography

Before I start, I have to tell you about the photo above. This is the view out our hotel room window here at Grasshoppers in Glasgow. The hotel sits on the sixth floor above the Glasgow Central Rain Station. Those panels in the foreground that look like solar panels are actually skylights in the station below. Across from our room, we think those are apartments, but we aren’t sure anyone lives there as we have never seen any movement and only one light, and that’s a work light. But no matter what they are, we found the whole thing very interesting, and I had to include a shot of the view, now on with the actual post.

When doing our planning almost a year ago, Kathleen and I had discussed how much time we wanted to spend in Glasgow. We have been to Edinburgh three times in the past and have spent about seven days total there. We could easily spend three or four more and still not have seen or done everything we would like to. It is one of my favorite cities in the world.

So when discussing Glasgow, we decided we wanted at least two full days here along with the transition days when we came up from England, before we drove north, when we got back from up north, and today…when we take the train to London. We thought that two full days would make us want to come back again. In retrospect, one day would have been enough. We found Glasgow kind of boring. Yes, it has a very nice hotel, some great restaurants and beautiful murals, but to be honest, that’s about it.

I mentioned on our first full day that we had taken the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour. Usually, when we do that, we take the entire tour and then return to the places we want to see again. We didn’t go back to anyplace. Just nothing intrigued us enough. There were a few things I wanted to walk to and take photos of, but I got those (show them to you in a minute) but; looking back on it, if I were planning this trip again, we would have stayed an extra day in Portree or gone up to Inverness (even though we have been there before) and then driven back, dropped the car and taken the train to London the next morning.

I am not dissing Glasgow—it’s just not our cup of tea. It is a grimier, more industrial city than Edinburgh and seems to be centered on shopping and museums. Edinburgh is a museum. I could walk the Royal Mile for hours. I am looking forward to stopping there next Monday during the cruise.

Now, on to the walk I took with my camera and the photos. After breakfast at the hotel, we went out to do a bit of shopping. Kathleen had forgotten to bring a hat, and since we are headed to the part of Norway that is beyond the Arctic Circle by the end of next week, she thought she might need one. So we were off to find her a nice, warm knit hat. Found it. Back at the hotel, I dropped Kathleen off, and I was out for a five-mile walk. Have camera, will travel. But first, here are a few pics while she and I were out walking that I liked.

The one place I had seen on our bus tour I wanted to explore more of was the Cathedral and the Necropolis. In case you don’t know exactly what a necropolis is, the dictionary that’s built into my Mac says that it’s “a cemetery, especially a large one, belonging to an ancient city.” Why did I want to see this necropolis, you ask? Well, a few years ago (quite a few years), we were huge fans of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, a native Glaswegian. As a special program, Craig brought a few guests (Kristen Bell, Michael Clark Duncan) to his hometown and filmed a great deal of the special in the necropolis. I don’t know why I recalled that, but I do remember that it looked quite interesting, so I decided I had to see it, and since it was right behind the cathedral, I figured I might as well see that too.

Along the way to and from, I saw more of the incredible murals that Glasgow is famous for, and I wanted better shots of them than I had been able to get off the top of the bus. So here are the pics with captions. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That’s about it for our last day here in Glasgow. As I write this, I am sitting in the “sitting room” at Grasshoppers Hotel, looking out the windows at the view I started this post with. It’s 5:45 a.m., and Kathleen (like most normal humans) is asleep. We have tickets on the 10:18 a.m. train to London right downstairs. In fact, if I listen very carefully, I can hear them announcing the next train. It’s really kind of cool. I think I will leave you with one final photo. This is a panoramic shot from inside the station itself. Our room is above those windows on the left. I LOVE European train stations. For some reason, they just do it for me.  And since we will have more than four hours on a train from that station, watch later today for a summary of our time in England and Scotland.

The great thing about Glasgow is that if there’s a nuclear attack it’ll look exactly the same afterwards.  —Billy Connolly

 

Driving Back to Glasgow

by | Jun 11, 2024 | Photography

This post will be short. Mainly, because I didn’t expect to write it. I thought that yesterday (Monday) was just going to be a long car trip from Portree to Glasgow. And that’s how it was for our first three hours. Until we got through Fort William and turned to take a different route than we had come north on. We wanted to go through what is supposed to be one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland—Glencoe. BTW: When we stopped for lunch before we entered the actual Glencoe area, we saw some red deer. Here’s their three pics I got.

There are a lot of historical facts about Glencoe. It was the sight of a battle and a massacre and other stuff but for me, it will just have to be about the beauty. I am going to shut up now and show you Glencoe. We could only pull over for photos three times but suffice it to say that the rest of what you aren’t seeing was maybe even more beautiful. We just kept turning corners and saying, “Oh, my god!”

Here’s the pics. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That’s it for tonight. I am just trying to catch up. Fell a day behind when we saw the puffins. We got into Glasgow and checked into our hotel last night. Had a nice dinner and then off to bed. Up today where I did a photo walk around Glasgow. We are back from dinner and about to sleep before we get up tomorrow and take the train to London to meet our usual traveling companions, my brother Steve and his wife Jamie. We will also be meeting new/old friends, Julie and Jamie, who are doing the cruise with us. I say new/old because Julie and I went to high school together back in Palm Springs (Class of 1971—go Indians!) but we haven’t seen each other in 50+ years. We have not met her husband Jamie but it should be fun having two Jamies on a cruise together.

I hope to do two posts tomorrow. An early morning one to round up my shots in Glasgow today and then one while we are on the train as a kind of a summary of Scotland—the highs and lows (not too many of those) so to speak. I will try and get that out before we are off the train. Depends on how good the rolling WiFi is. It’s a four-hour and 40-minute train ride so I will have plenty of time if the internet cooperates.

There are few places in my life that I’ve found more ruggedly beautiful than the Highlands of Scotland. The place is magical – it’s so far north, so remote, that sometimes it feels like you’ve left this world and gone to another.  —Julia London

 

From Oban to Portree–a transition day

by | Jun 8, 2024 | Food Experiences, Photography

I tried to come up with a wittier headline than that but it really says it all. The Isle of Skye is drop-dead gorgeous. Of course, there are some who would find a tropical island with lots of sun much more to their liking but for me, give me Scotland.

Move to Skye Friday

I almost forgot that the last post only got you to the end of a very long Thursday. On Friday we were up, fed and on the road…leaving Oban by 9:30 to drive north and a little west to the ferry at Mallaig. On the way, we drove through some lovely countryside and stopped for a few photographs. We stopped for lunch in Mallaig just before we boarded the ferry. Here’s a map of our drive on Friday.

We had done our research on a number of Scotland travel groups on Facebook and one thing we had learned was you better have ferry reservations before you go or you aren’t getting on. We had ours and there were a few cars behind us who didn’t make our trip. They got to wait and hope they could get on the next boat two hours later. Below are our final shots from the mainland and the village of Mallaig. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

The ferry ride took about 45 minutes and then we arrived in Armadale…finally on the Isle of Skye. We stopped briefly to visit Armadale Castle and Gardens where we had our best example of Scottish weather yet. We entered the castle grounds and walked a very short distance to the castle itself. I shot about 15 photos. At this point I had been looking out to sea and at the castle in beautiful, warm sunlight.  I told Kathleen to wait for a couple of minutes while I went out to shoot the castle from in front of the lawn. In the time it took me to reach the front of the lawn and turn around to shoot the photos (about two minutes) a huge rain squall moved in and I yelled at Kathleen to get back to the entrance or get soaked and I took the shots and ran. In less than those 120 seconds it went from beautiful sunshine to POURING rain. By the time we got back to the entrance gift shop, we were soaked.

From Armadale we drove north to our home for our three days on Skye, the Balintoy Bed and Breakfast. The three nights are the longest consecutive stay on the trip (until the cruise next week) and we are glad they are here at this very small bed and breakfast. The owner Gillian has been wonderful pre-trip with lots of very valuable info. Things like telling me that if we didn’t book tables for our three nights here we would not get into any restaurant and would be forced to eat dinners from food stands…if we were lucky. She was so right. I had made reservations for all three nights and at every place we have been (we are on our third morning as I write this) there have been signs saying, “Sorry, we are booked full!”

The Balintoy also has the largest room we have had on this trip so we get to spread out a little. The breakfasts are excellent and light. We needed a couple of days of granola, fruit and yogurt instead of the protein-heavy Scottish breakfasts in Glasgow and Oban. We were also able to get some laundry done. We have been out for more than a week now and there were a few things that needed washing to get us through until we board Viking Venus on the 14th. Kathleen had found the Skye Laundry Service online before we left. They pick up a good-sized, full bag of laundry and return it to you clean and folded the next day for only £20. Quite the deal for a busy traveler. Ours was picked up yesterday and we will get it back today. Until then we are touring naked ?. Not really. I wanted to see if you are still paying attention.

We had dinner at The Antlers Inn which is located inside the Portree Hotel in downtown Portree (the largest town on Skye) and made our plans for our drive around the island on Saturday.

I want to stop for a moment to say that not only have we had great food here in Scotland but the people in the restaurants have been awesome. The servers have taken VERY good care of us, the other patrons have been fun to either watch or talk to and all our dining experiences have been outstanding. For instance, The Antlers Inn had superb background music. We asked our server what it was and she said she loved it too but wasn’t sure. She rushed off to ask her manager who came out and we had five minutes of discussion about the music. That kind of thing. People just being people. That’s what travel is all about. But we do have to admit that many times we have needed subtitles on this trip. Scots have one of my favorite accents but the farther out from the cities you go, the deeper it gets and sometimes we will just look at each other and smile. I know that this means that one day I will end up eating haggis or blood pudding but I would rather do that than insult someone by asking them to repeat it four times, or to slow down. We usually get it by the third ?.

See you tomorrow (or maybe later today) with the story of our first FULL day on Skye. It was beautiful.

I come more to Scotland than I ever used to, so I feel more connected to it, more part of the zeitgeist. You know when you realize you have a choice and I’m choosing my homeland. It’s funny: when you get older these things creep up to you.  —Allen Cumming

Thirteen hours, three islands and WOW!

by | Jun 7, 2024 | Photography

There was no post yesterday because we had the longest day of the trip so far (and probably for the rest of the month). We had booked a tour with West Coast Tours out of Oban that took us to the islands of Mull, Staffa and Lunga in the Treshnish Islands. And the longest day of the trip, means the longest post I have written in ages.

Daybreak in Oban

Our day started at 5:45 when Kathleen jumped in the shower so we could be ready for me to drive her down to the ferry landing to catch the ferry to the Isle of Mull at 6:55 a.m. I need to mention that although we booked with West Coast Tours, they don’t do all the transportation. The part of the tour they do is the boats that take you from Mull to the other islands. So you start with a ferry ride that anyone else could take. They do get you tickets for this ferry but they e-mail them to you. You never see anyone from the tour company until you get to the small boats. It was us and about 350 other people aboard the ferry, many heading to work or other activities on Mull. Only about 40 of the people on the ferry were doing the tour we were doing. The ferry took us from Oban to the town of Craignure on the Isle of Mull.

Here are photos I took on the ferry ride headed to Mull. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

From there we caught the island bus (basically it was the city bus for the entire island—anyone could take it–it was not a “luxury motor coach”) to drive down the island to the village of Torbermory where we boarded the tour companies’ boats to head to the islands we really wanted to explore. Luckily for us, we all fit on the city bus and got down to meet their boats on time. And the tour company had purchased seats on the bus for us in advance—round trip.

From Torbermory (more on this quaint village later) we departed for our tour of the Isles of Staffa and Lunga. Depending on the weather and the sea conditions they visit one or the other first and last. We got Lunga first, then Staffa. That was fine with me because I was there for Lunga and her famous…PUFFINS!!!

Every moment on board these boats (when they were in motion) was like riding a mechanical bull. We were bounced and trounced and banged around. Moving on the boat, once you were seated, was a total adventure. Using the facilities on the boat was more than an adventure, it was kind of a nightmare. But as you can and will see from the photo above and my pictures below, it was worth it. Here are a few photos I took off the bouncing boat on the way to Lunga.

Lunga Bunga!

When you disembark a boat on Lunga, they attach a floating dock to the boat and the boat rams the floating dock onto rocks along the shore then you walk out to end of the floating pier and get off on to dry rocks. Then the boat pulls off and waits for two hours or so until it is time to pick you up again.

I almost forgot to mention one of THE most important things that happened yesterday…the weather was PERFECT! No rain, lots of big fluffy clouds and a blue sky for them to float in. For photography, it was a dream day. Haven’t had another like it since the Galapagos. Before I show you my photos from Lunga, I have to tell you that there are a lot of them. I took almost 1200 photos yesterday. Many were the result of me holding down the shutter to take multiple action photos of puffins flying. I probably shot 500 of just those, so it really isn’t that many. Especially when you hear that out of those 500 action shots, I got one I liked. Yup, ONE! But I really like that one. I am breaking these Lunga photos into batches. here is the first one—my puffin gallery. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Next up are photos I took of the island itself. Landscapes, fauna and such. We were there for two hours and I shot just about everything I could think of shooting.

One thing I didn’t mention was how difficult it was to climb off the rocks. On our way up the gentleman in front of me tripped and started falling backward. His head was headed to some big boulders. I grabbed his backpack and his daughter who was walking in front of him grabbed his hands and we were able to get him back on his feet without fully falling down. Whew! I have always had a much harder time going downhill than uphill. so I made sure to come down much earlier than the rest of the crowd. Still, it got a little iffy at the end of my trip down.

Stimulating Staffa

After two hours on Lunga, it was off to Staffa which was all about geology as opposed to birds. Staffa has two very large caves and some amazing columns that reminded me very much of Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, just across the sea to the west. When we were in Northern Ireland and visited the Causeway we were told a myth about the Causeway being built by an ogre who wanted to attack Ireland from Scotland. When you see Staffa, you might agree he started there. Here are the photos. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

It’s been a long day in Tobermory

That headline is sung to the tune of  “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” for you folks who want to sing along ?. But it really sums up our time in Tobermory. It was the only hiccup of the day. When you get off the boat, the tour company is kind of finished with you. All you do is board the local bus (you already have your return ticket) and head back to Craignure to catch the ferry (you already have your ticket) back to Oban. The only problem is they don’t tell you that the bus doesn’t leave for two hours. At this point, you are exhausted from the hiking and the bouncing boat ride and all you want is dinner and bed. But you have to hang out in this very beautiful and quaint village for two hours. It wasn’t late enough to eat dinner yet (did I mention that when you take this tour, they tell you to bring your own lunch–we were lucky because when we told David at the Manor House the tour we were doing, he told us that he would make us up sack lunches to take with us since we wouldn’t be eating breakfast–WOW, that’s service.)

Back to our Tobermory time. We wandered a little, took photos (of course), got some postcards (yes, we still send those although if the price of stamps keeps going up, we won’t be mailing them until we get home) and just sat and waited. To be honest, we really weren’t sure who would take us back, (there were four buses parked with no drivers at different times), when we would go back or how we would get there. I say how because by then there were a lot of locals not part of our group who wanted to take the bus as well. Some with very large dogs so now they had more than 55 people and dogs than they could fit on one bus. They ended up having to take a second bus. So finally around 6:15, we were off to Craignure to catch the 7:35 p.m. ferry. While we were in Tobermory, I did take some pretty pics and here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Finally, off to Oban

We finally got back to Craignure, boarded the ferry and headed back to Oban to a nice dinner in a restaurant of our choice. David had told us we should be fine just walking into someplace around 8:15 when the ferry got in. Sadly, on this one thing, David was wrong. Every restaurant we walked into had people eating but we were told, “Sorry, our kitchen closes at 8:00 p.m.” So no supper for us. That’s OK, we have been eating well on this trip and I was still trying to work off the lunch in Wensleydale we had with Paul and Gail, not to mention the amazing dinner at Banco de Roma in Glasgow. So we grabbed a taxi for the short ride to The Manor House and were off to bed. We got back there about 9:00 p.m. so this day had been a 15+ hour excursion. We were wiped. But not enough to miss having a whisky with David at The Manor House before bed.

I almost forgot, here are a few late photos I took on the ferry ride back to Oban.

Whew, I bet it almost took longer for me to write this, and you to read it, than it did for us to live it. Thanks, so much for sticking with it. And if you didn’t read all the way to here, shame on you ?.

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains. —Walt Whitman