Oban seashells
Recently I traveled to Oban with a friend. Oban, which in Gaelic means The Little Bay, is a seaside town on the edge of the Firth of Lorn on the West Coast of Scotland. The town overlooks a horse-shoe shaped bay, and beyond the bay the island Kerrera rises from the water. Beyond Kerrera lies the Isle of Mull, and just past Mull is the Isle of Iona, home to the famous Iona monastery. Above Oban is Bealach-an-Righ, a hill which, in days past, was the route by which deceased Scottish Kings were conveyed to their tombs. This history earned it the nickname the “King's Highway.” Oban is unofficially the capital of the Western Hebrides, and from Oban one can travel easily to the Inner and Outer Hebrides. It is a place of unparalleled beauty, sheltered by mountains on one side and overlooking the sea and islands on the other. Hence, it is a popular tourist attraction. It is also the seafood capital of Scotland - no surprise since it is directly on the sea. Oban is a sweet little town with warm, welcoming cafes, a chocolate shop, and small stores with friendly owners. If you walk down to the street keeping the sea on your left, you will reach forest trails and a small castle ruin overlooking the sea on one side and green fields, dotted with the ever present sheep, on the other. If you walk straight through town, you will reach a steep stone staircase which leads up to McCaig's Tower, where you can get a view of Oban in its entirety, with the mountains and hills, the ocean and islands. If you walk down the street with the ocean on your right, I assume that you can eventually get to the hills and Bealach-an-Righ, but we didn't have a chance to go that far. Oban, breathtaking by day, is equally beautiful at night, when all the lights from stores and restaurants are reflected on the glassy water. The colored patterns dance across the dark canvas like stars across the sky.
panorama of Oban from McCaig's Tower
The road to Oban is as striking as Oban itself. We took the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and then Glasgow to Oban, and on the way passed snow peaked mountains and forests of spindly trees hung with mossy ornaments, with running rivers and trickling streams cutting precarious paths between the trunks. Some of the rivers are spanned by archaic, craggy bridges, stones green and slippery with age. Looking into the mystic gloom of theses forests, it is easy to see guess where tales of witchcraft and enchantment originated. One's imagination can readily conjure images of small, crooked cabins and dens dotting the forest, interrupting the closeness of the trees and housing beguiling, plotting creatures. We passed open fields of grass dotted with sheep and cradled between giants of mountains with hats of snow. Houses huddle together in the valleys formed by these Goliaths, rooted to the earth where they've stood through countless winters, and will stand for countless more to come.
View from the train window: a loch with a small island in the right corner, on which stands a small castle shrouded in mist..
The beach near where the ferry to Iona docks in Mull
Iona Abbey
From Oban, we traveled to Iona to see the Abbey, which was of central importance to the spread of Christianity in the Middle Ages. In 563, Saint Columba traveled to Iona from Ireland and founded the monastery, and the Abbey later became a place of inspiration for monks of the Middle Ages. To get to the Isle of Iona, we had to take a 45 minute ferry from Oban to the Isle of Mull, then a 2 hour bus across Mull (which was beautiful, with scenery similar to that we passed in the train, plus a few Highland cows), and then take a tiny ferry to Iona. The ferry to Iona was so small that there was no ferry building or dock, just a strip of concrete which dipped down into the ocean and onto which the ferry dropped a pathway for people and cars to cross to reach the boat. Inside the ferry was a small room with chairs and little round windows, and out the windows we could see the waves crashing only a few inches below. It felt more like a small tugboat than a ferry boat, and was rather enchanting. As it was the middle of February and not exactly peak tourist season, the only people traveling to Iona on that day were my friend and me, an Englishman, and an elderly woman. We were also the only four on the 20+ seater bus across Mull. Once we got to Iona, we were there for a good three hours until the next (and only other) ferry came. That was fine, we thought, because it would give us plenty of time to explore the Abbey and then find a nice cafe to sit in to escape the ominous, looming clouds and impending rain. Or so we thought. It turned out that, it being middle of February, every cafe (meaning the one and only cafe on our side of the island) was closed for the off-season. There was a visitor center which advertised hot chocolates and coffees for a pound, but that was also conveniently closed for staff lunch break from 1-2pm. As our luck would have it, we had finished exploring the Abbey just after 1, and the ferry was arriving at 2:30; the window of time during which the visitor center was closed was exactly that during which we wanted to sit in it. No matter, we thought, we can walk along the small strip of beach and amble over to see the sheep, although it had by then begun to pour with rain. Iona is tiny. It was well worth the trip, though. The island and the Abbey are beautiful, and in the Abbey one is confronted with a feeling of such peace and tranquility as I have never felt anywhere else.
Oban at night