Today was a day of ferries (not to be confused with fairies or faeries — I mean boats). The reason I chose to stay three nights in Oban is because it’s a great port town with easy access to the inner Hebrides isles. So today I did a three isle tour. Very exciting!!

It started on the Isle of Mull. Actually, it started on a ferry where I met a lovely couple from San Diego (hello Jo and Mike if you’re reading this!). They have had their own share of adventures and gave me some great ideas about Portugal and other travel tips in general.

But I digress. Back to Mull. We basically take a coach bus through Mull so excuse these photos that were taken through a bus window!As usual what I’m really amazed with is the variety in the land and flora. I mean it’s mountains and fir trees and hills and lochs. I really must find a geologist to understand this all better. (Oh but wait — it gets even better — the land is crazy on Staffa.) BTW the last photo represents something I mentioned (and am puzzled by) before — the little islands within the lochs?! What is up with these??? How does this happen??

Frankly Mull was just a pass-through for my tour. It’s a big island (with a cool castle that I may visit before I leave here) so they ferry us to one side, drive us to another, and put us on another ferry at the opposite end. If you’re into it, we go into Craignure and then out of Fionnphort (over an hour’s drive). I had a pretty humorous driver (English — a western Yorkshireman according to my likewise western Yorkshire seatmate. That’s southern England so I have no idea how he ended up in Mull — the driver that is, not my seatmate who was on holiday with his wife and daughter through Scotland). But back to the trip!

Next was Staffa. My seatmate said he’d tried three times to get to Staffa. If the water is too choppy, they will cancel the boat rides … just as I was worried that he was a curse for the trip, they announced that we had pretty calm waters and all would be well. So we boarded a much smaller boat (not a ferry at all in my mind) and headed the 6 miles out to Staffa. Staffa is an uninhabited island (that at one time was owned by a rich NYer who bought it for his wife –rumor has it she wanted a different kind of huge rock and they ended up donating — or selling? — it to the National Trust for Scotland). Anyway it’s very unique as you’ll see … It’s all formed by lava, so they say. There are three distinct different land types but the most stunning is the basalt columns — hexagonal for the most part. It was named by the Vikings (who did a lot of conquering and random killing around here according to many guide sources. Scandinavians, feel free to tell your side of the story but there’s no love lost here by the Scots for the Vikings). Staffa being the Viking word for wooden staves. Anyway, the most famous spot on the island is called Fingal’s Cave. And yes, it’s all natural. According to some famous person that I don’t remember who — but was quoted in a brochure I read– this is the kind of thing that makes man-made palaces and other edifices pale in comparison. There are actually several caves. But this is the biggest and supposedly has great acoustics. In the past, you could go inside it but no longer. Too bad. It inspired Mendelssohn to write his Hebrides overture (called Fingal’s Cave so yeah, he really was inspired by this!). I also took a lot of other photos from other points of both this and other neighboring isles. So in the third photo the island in the distance has some unpronounceable gaellic name but is more conventionally known as the Dutch Hat — for obvious reasons and of course this cracked me up. Then the last photo is just to share my amazement. I took several photos of this area. It just blows my mind that this just all popped up naturally from the earth. Too cool.

Next we went to Iona. It’s the site of Christian pilgrimages. Apparently many abbeys have existed on this site since around 500 AD (but those damn Vikings managed to pillage the abbey and kill its monks so they messed it up until they converted to Christianity themselves). But it’s still considered a holy area and the abbey is still in use. Of course the nunnery next door is in shambles but they’re actually trying to restore it. That’s the nunnery below (is it just me or do we all hear “get thee to a nunnery!!”?? Shakespeare really did come up with catchy lines 😂) And below is the abbey and environs. It is pretty. They had an audio tour that gave the whole history and a museum connected to it. There’s also a cemetery where many headstones have been removed — as legend has it, many Scottish kings were buried here including the real MacBeth (I’m on a Shakespeare roll!).

Um meantime I have no idea why the above section is on a blue background but I’m too tired to try to figure it out! I really am new to WordPress.

In any case, here are some last photos of Iona. The first is actually next to the abbey. Funny that there’s a little sheep pasture right there?! The second photo is just to show that Scotland has white sand beaches! (Not large but it is white sand and the water is blue- green and beautiful. Though it was cold today — about 45 when I was out wandering around). But not terribly windy and NO RAIN! So it was good.). The last photo shows more of what the isle looked like.

And that’s the three isle tour! A long day but well worth it. Depending on weather tomorrow, I may go on another ferry trip somewhere. Or just hang here and do laundry!!