After leaving Inverness and the Highlands, we traveled south and west to the coastal town of Oban. Oban sits on the Firth of Lorn which is an inlet in the sea between the Isle of Mull. Oban’s major industry is tourism, as it is a scenic bayfront town of around 8,000 that swells to 24,000 during tourism season. Oban is also a major ferry hub for the Caledonian MacBrayne, CalMac, ferries which take travelers to the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Finally, Oban grew up around the Oban Distillery which started in 1794.
The reality is that I was quite tickled with Oban. I liked Inverness but I loved Oban.
Our short-term rental was located just one block off George Street, the major thoroughfare through this seaside town with a population of 8,000 that swells to 24,000 during tourism season.
Why did I love Oban?
For starters, I loved the short-term rental unit that we stayed at for two nights. The outside of the building for on the plain side but our 4th floor apartment had everything that we needed. I also really liked how the apartment building was right in the heart of things, and it was easy to walk to shops and the ferry terminal.
We walked past a small toy store, and Nugget became entranced by a Bruder truck that he saw in the window. The store was closed at the time. He kept talking about that truck until we made special trip back to the store once it was open* so he could touch it with his own hands. Mr. Man noticed bagpiper bear stuffie in the store windows that also caught his eye that we also eventually he was able to set hands on them as well.
*One note about Scotland: It seems like many shops (outside of grocery stores) seem to close by 5pm, sometimes 4 pm. We joked about this fact that we kept missing out on things. It also felt like most restaurants stopped serving food by 9 pm at the latest. I know that doesn’t sound terribly unreasonable, but understand that in Oban, Scotland (56.41 degrees N) the sun doesn’t set until at least 9:30 pm in early August. It might not even look dark outside until after 10 pm. So, when stores or café close at 4 or 5pm, to we Americans, it feels like they are only open half of the day. It took us probably a day and half to see the items that the boys eyed up in store windows on the evening that we arrived.
I digress though. Oban is awesome!
Oban is very scenic. The Oban Esplanade is a flat waterfront walking path that curves around Oban’s horseshoe shaped bay. Along the way, visitors can enjoy gorgeous views of the beach and the bay and look across to the other side of the street to see cafes, restaurants, and cute little shops.
I saw this restaurant as we walked along the esplanade. It is called the Saltburn Restaurant. I took a picture of it because I remembered that movie called Saltburn and I wondered if it had any connection to the movie. It does not, I found once I got home. The Saltburn in the movie is a real estate in North Yorkshire, England.
A ferry trip from Oban to Craignure on the Isle of Mull, then bus around Mull to another ferry port in Fionnphort, then another much shorter ferry from Fionnphort to Iona.
The morning after we arrived in Oban we took a chartered trip from Oban to the island of Mull and Iona with West Coast Tours. The tour included two ferry trips with CalMac ferries and a guided bus ride around the Isle of Mull. Rick Steves recommended this tour and let me tell you, in August, this tour seemed like the place to be. Apparently, everyone else knows about Rick Steves too!
Here are the boys on the CalMac Ferry on our trip to Mull and Iona. The ferry has both an inside and a outside area. The ferry also has a coffee shop, a small souvenir, and restaurant with a proper Scottish breakfast. You can bring your car on the boat, which we did on a seperate trip to another island later that week.
Mull is the second largest island in the Inner-Hebrides, after Skye and the 4th largest island in Scotland overall.
Mull
The parts that we saw from the bus were not very developed but there were lots of beautiful views. Mull looks like the highlands, which we had seen a lot of on our driving trip to Oban. Msny of the roads that we were on around Mull was single track, so drivers had to take turns passing each other, which was interesting in tour bus. We liked our first driver and tour guide who was a local and pointed out interesting things along our 1.25-hour drive to the second ferry which took us to the island of Iona. One cool thing that we saw, besides lots of mountains and trees, was Duart Castle. It dates to the 13th century and is the ancestral home of Clan MacLean. It is also where the 1999 movie Entrapment was filmed.
We saw Mull twice on the day of our Iona trip. On our ferry trip back from Iona, when we boarded the bus a second time, we had our choice of buses to ride on for that leg of the trip. The boys chose a double-decker bus, which was super interesting and kind of scary because remember many roads were single track. Our bus drivers liked to mention the idiot tourist drivers who shouldn’t have been on the roads. Also, the boys really wanted to sit on the second level of the bus which looked really cool from the outside but was warm and not that cool in practice. There was a heat wave on the day of our Mull/Iona visit, it was probably 80 degrees that day. I know that on the surface a double-decker bus ride around a scenic island would have looked cool in photos but I kind of didn’t like it.
Iona
Iona is the cradle of Scottish Christianity. Saint Columba arrived on the island of Iona in 563 AD with 12 companions and built a monastery. In the 9th century The Book of Kells was created in the monastery on Iona. There were a number of Viking raids on Iona and now the Book of Kells resides at the Library of Trinity College in Dublin.
Some say that the Iona is a “thin place” where the veil between heaven and earth is thin. It is a very small island with a population of just 125 people. You cannot bring your own car onto the island without a permit. Ferry schedules and bus schedules and the tour only allowed for about two hours of exploration of the island.
The day there was sunny and beautiful. Iona is lovely with its white sand beaches and rocky outcrops. I do not know if I felt a “thinness” between worlds, which is something that I had been hoping for. There were a lot of tourists there while we were there which maybe took away from the sacred feeling. We walked through a graveyard called St. Oran’s Chapel Cemetery, where Macbeth, King of Scotland, was buried in 1057 AD. it. Most of the graves are very old and there is no identifiable grave for him today. We also walked through the ruins of a medieval nunnery as well as checking out the famous Iona Abbey which was restored in the 20th century.
I didn’t take many pictures during our brief visit to Iona. Here is a sculpture located in the cloister of Iona Abbey. I took this picture while Mr. Man finished perusing the gift shop in the abbey. I don’t know how much the boys took away from our visit to Iona. Listening to the headsets that we were given to wear about church history wasn’t really their speed. They did enjoy rolling down a grassy hill with other children whose parents dragged them there was something that they seemed to enjoy doing while we were there. They also seemed to like all the transportation trips we took that day.
Back in Oban
Our trip to Mull and Iona was kind of a lot. I am glad that we went and not sure how we would do it differently but it was kind of a long day.
Afterwards, we relaxed in our rental apartment. After eating dinner at home, we left the apartment to walk around Oban. Since the sun does not set till quite late in the evening, we had plenty of light to enjoy the town. Not far from our apartment, we saw steps in the hillside, which we walked up and eventually ended up at Mccaig’s Tower on top of Battery Hill. You can read about Mccaig’s Tower here. It has an interesting history. It was built in the early 20th century to provide work for masons and inspired by the Colosseum in Rome.
Fun fact, this picture was taken around 9 pm in the evening, the sun had not set yet.
While walking down Battery Hill where the tower sits, we saw this view of Oban.
The day after our Iona and Mull trip and our walk up the hill to see the tower, we departed from Oban. But not before we strolled through the esplanade for one last time and looked in the shops to check on the toys the boys liked.
Also, as a family, we took the Oban Distillery Tour. This tour was recommended by Rick Steves as one of best distillery tours in Scotland.
The Oban Distillery was founded in 1794, the town of Oban grew up around it.
Our tour guide was great. He was very young but very knowledgeable. The tour was not pretentious in the least and I do feel like I understand Scottish whiskey better after taking the tour. You can take children ages 8 and older on the tour so we did!
After the tour, we departed for the central belt of Scotland. This is the area where we spend the longest amount of time during our trip. Next time, I will show you what we saw on our 3 hour drive to our final short-term rental in Gourock.
I would like to return to Oban and explore other islands in the Hebrides.
