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| Harbour at Iona ferry landing |
A drizzly cool morning on Iona turned into a cold rainy afternoon, and we still loved our Iona tour.
From our hotel we could see ferries leaving for places like Oban. We'd be taking one of those tomorrow, but today we just had a short ferry to Iona, once we were close to there.
At Fionnphort we left the bus parked for the day and walked on to the Iona ferry for the short ride across to Iona. On the way to Iona:
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| Disembarking at Iona |
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| A friendly rock welcome to Iona |
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| We didn't tip the doorman |
The tour included a local guide here (Jana), who did a fine job shepherding us through the Nunnery and the old Abbey. We were very pleased with all the local guides provided through the tour company.
Once we left the Nunnery we had a nice walk along the shore to the old Abbey. The Nunnery is mostly ruins, but the Abbey is still largely intact.
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| Maclean's Cross |
Community gardens along the walk:
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| An attractive newer stone building, gift shop. |
The Abbey still has stone work going on. It's common to see scaffolding for ongoing maintenance to keep these ancient buildings intact:
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| See the face in the stone? |
An example of a one-person Coracle, used for near-shore fishing etc:
A courtyard, still in good shape:
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| Leaving via the entrance building. The building is very appropriate for this site. |
A last look at the Abbey without the fog:
Once we left the Abbey and were walking back to the village, we decided to stop for tea and cookies at a hotel along the way.
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| Nice spot for a spot of tea |
Good thing we had a break. We had some time to kill in town before the ferry departure, and the rain started coming down harder. We found a couple of stores to browse (Cathie found 2 skeins of Iona wool she really needed), and doorways to shelter in.
The ferry took us back to our bus, and we headed back towards our hotel. Our driver had a side trip in mind though, a tour of Duart Castle. A very different tour, we got to meet the current Maclean clan chief, whom our driver considers a personal friend. <Duart Castle history>
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| Not very friendly-looking, but they welcome visitors |
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| The artillery may need a bit of work... |
It was warm and dry inside the castle:
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| The clan chief himself took questions on the tour |
One of the odd exhibits was made from the hooves of a horse that was one of the last survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade, once the horse eventually died:
Duart Castle
A very interesting and different castle tour.
2 maps for today's trip. For some reason Google Maps would not let us cross the ferry from Fionnphort to Iona, even though the ferry was capable of carrying a few vehicles. The second map is just the ferry route, and more detail of Iona.
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