SCOTLAND'S WESTERN ISLANDS

                                   An Interesting Day
         From our hotel in Ballachulish it was an hour drive to Oban where we caught a ferry for a 45-minute ride across the Firth of Lorn to the Isle of Mull in the  Hebrides. The Mull ferry ran on a schedule. The waters were calm on a beautiful sunny clear day. We passed by an island where the MacLean clan Castle Duart was situated. We could see visitors on the island and the castle looked to be in pretty good repair as it under-went restoration after W W II. 

Once on Mull we traveled what was called a one track road. There was virtually no traffic we only had to pull over a couple of times to let a car heading in the opposite direction pass. The Isle of Skye is the largest in the Inner Hebrides, but Mull at 40 X 5-6 miles is the second largest.

Isle of Mull, wettest island in the chain, is wild and mountainous, with sea lochs and sandbars. Until recently only geologists, bird watchers and an occasional fisherman or mountain climber visited the Hebridean islands. Today the islands that make up the Inner Hebrides are becoming more accessible to the general visitor.         The area is rich in legend, folklore, land of ghosts, monsters, wee folk, and wild life. The wild countryside was the scene for Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. The highest peak is Ben More at 3169 feet, but there are many flat areas.

Mull’s population is 1200 and the isle has the largest concentration of golden eagles in the world. The scenery we rode over was pretty desolate with wilderness, peat bogs, heather, evergreen bracken covered glens and grass covered hills.            

After an hour and a half on the narrow road we reached the end of Mull and took a passenger ferry for a five-minute ride across the Sound of Mull to the Isle of Iona. This small ferry makes turn- around trips all day, so it is never a very long wait for a ferry. We were told there are no cars on the small island, but we did see a couple running supplies and occasionally people. The 1 X 3.5 mile island of Iona is a remote low lying green, treeless island with high cliffs and rolling meadows

         In 563 AD St. Columba arrived in Iona to convert the Celts to Christianity. He built a church, and the Isle is known as the Cradle of Christianity. Columba’s monastery survived repeated Norse sackings, but finally fell into disrepair about the time of the reformation. The oldest building on the island is St. Oran, built in 1080.

It has been said that when Edinburgh was a barren rock and Oxford but a swamp, Iona was famous.  Known as a place of spiritual power and pilgrimage for centuries, it is the site of the first Christian settlement in Scotland.

The dukes of Argyll owned the island from 695 until the 12^th century when the duke was forced to sell it to pay a million in real estate taxes. Sir Hugh Fraser, former owner of Harrods, purchased the island. Located on the island’s most sheltered spot is Baille Mor, the only village on Iona.

In 1930 Rev. George Mcleod, a Glasgow minister, arrived in Iona to save the residents from their decadent ways and started restoration of the decaying 13^th century gothic abbey, built over the ancient one.

We noted street signs were in both English and Gaelic.

In the cemetery we tried to find MacBeth’s tombstone. But all we found was very very old stones that little lettering remained. Supposedly 43 kings and queens are buried here but we unable to identify any of the them.

I hate to admit this, but I didn’t know MacBeth was a real person, never mind a king. I always thought he was the figment of Shakespeare’s imagination.

Walking through the cloisters was so peaceful. Hanging baskets of flowers hung in each archway all around the court. What a great place to run away to if all one wanted was peace and quiet.

SCOTLAND'S POET

                                     Plus Scottish Food

The Robert Burns site is at the end of a lovely picturesque village. Burns, Scotland’s poet, died at age 37 in 1759. I read from the signs that the home is thatched with rhy because it is more durable than either oat or barley. Burns was an unsuccessful farmer. With only a couple years of tutoring. And formal limited schooling  he read everything he could get his hands on and by the age of thirteen spoke English, French and Latin. He liked the ladies as well as a drink and was known to have had seven illegitimate children. The grounds to the site contained lovely gardens. A stack yard was demonstrated at the end of the house yard.

Leaving the site we stopped at Brigadoon for a photo op. Remember brig means bridge, so this was a picturesque medieval stone bridge over the River Doon.

Watery overcooked vegetables and boiled meats are thankfully past history. In the last 3-4 decades there has been a significant improvement in Scottish cookery. The country’s culinary strength comes from its fresh raw ingredients ranging from seafood, beef, game, vegetables and native fruits. Game and fish play an important role in the Scottish diet.  Well known are the Aberdeen Angus beef, Highland venison, Loch Fyne seafood, and Ayrshire cheese.

          Both salmon and lamb were frequently on the menu. A typical Scottish breakfast includes large fresh buns called baps instead of toast. Porridge (oatmeal) is always included and is never lumpy, served piping hot and never with sugar, but a bit of milk is permissible. Scotland is well known for its good oats. Eggs, usually poached, sausage, but never haggis, bannocks, (oat griddle pancakes), broiled tomato, and baked beans are also part of the breakfast meal. Most often the hotels offered a variety of cheese, cold cuts, and pastries for those desiring continental breakfast fare.

Scots eat their main meal at noon and supper in the evening.  Cowdie is cottage cheese and double cream, cock-a-leekie is a soup made with chicken and leeks. Black pudding contains pigs’ blood and pork fat, and I just couldn’t quite get up the courage to try it. Neeps are mashed turnips, while tatties are potatoes, and they are often mashed together and served as a single dish. Partan bree is a rich crab soup. Scottish shortbread is world famous. Although coffee was always offered to us, tea is favored over coffee and is served after a meal. It is nearly impossible to get coffee served with a meal.

        

        Scots will tell you the only way to brew tea is to pour boiling water into a warm teapot where teabags or loose tea is waiting. After it steeps it is poured into cups. If one adds milk to the tea, the milk is added to the cup before the tea is poured. We noted there was always warm milk in a pitcher on the table.