Thursday 26th June

Today we woke, up to a bright looking day with high cloud.  With any luck we would have some sunshine today!  We had breakfast in the conservatory with the other guests and discussed which islands we'd all been on and were yet to go to.  We also decided that we were in the haunted room because Mathew said he could hear bagpipes in the bathroom, and so did I when he first told me but the second time, just regular pipe sounds.  He'd been in Scotland for too long.....!

Off we went to get our ferry which was only 10 minutes from the jetty to Iona, especially as we were staying right next to the jetty itself.  On the island,  we walked straight to the highest peak which was called Dún Í and didn't take is long to go up as it wasn't that high.  From the top we could see Staffa and Fingal's Cave, it was so clear.  We walked back down towards a beach at the northern end of Iona which was called The White Strand of the Monks where there had been a massacre of monks by Vikings.

The sand was incredibly bright and there were lots of coloured pebbles on the beach, alongside some really fun craggy rocks which we pottered along.  It was soon approaching lunchtime, so we made our way back towards the Abbey, where we had lunch in a cafe behind the Heritage Centre.  We had simple rolls, I had ham, cheese and pickle and Mathew had ham, cheese and tomato.  He had a gluten free chocolate brownie and I had a chocolate tiffin which was very nice indeed.  Continuing on, we went to the Abbey where the guy commented on Mathews T-Shirt (Caution: This is Sparta!) as we were given tickets and an audio guide.  Outside it had become very warm and sunny, a perfect summers day with a pleasant sea breeze.  We explored the Abbey, and didn't listen to absolutely everything on the guide, but just the bits we were interested in.  We started using the guide outside, but everything was rather long winded and to be honest, you could get the main information from the panels around the Abbey itself.  Inside it was quite plain but rather nice with all the exposed stonework.  The cloister had some modern carvings which fit in quite nicely with the rest of the building.  There was also a museum on site which was small but very informative, containing lots of fragments of crosses, grave slabs and tomb effigies - the lighting was rather atmospheric.



Coming back out into the sunlight, we briefly popped back inside to visit the shop before heading over to the small chapel nearby and continuing exploring craft shops.  We stopped off at a place called "The Low Door" with the obvious very low door - I fancied an ice cream so we went inside to get some.  We were told that it had been freshly made yesterday afternoon, so I a had a scoop of chocolate and hazelnut and another scoop of vanilla in a pot whilst Mathew went for strawberry in a cone.  They all tasted very good, not too chocolatey and tasted like it had real chocolate inside it, and Mathews strawberry ice cream was nice as well, not having that fake strawberry flavour you usually get!

We popped in a few more craft shops before heading back to the jetty to wait for the next boat which came at 4pm.  We explored some rock pools on the beach nearby before getting onto the ferry, and we looked for dolphins or porpoises again but we didn't have any luck there.  Back in Fionnphort, we got back to the car and made our way to a Craignure using the same, and only road we had come along before.  This time we had a view of the mountains though, which were quite spectacular.  Before we knew it we were back at Craignure Inn, so we checked in and got the ferry tickets for tomorrow as we would be leaving early to go to Oban.

We then went to a place called Salen where we had dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant where I didn't really enjoy my meal or eat much of it as the rocket and basil pesto was not only more bitter than I was expecting, but it looked like all my linguine had been slathered in a whole jar of it, never mind the vegetables being sparse and very small as opposed to normal slices of peppers, courgette, tomato and aubergine so I couldn't mask the taste with much except for the Parmesan shavings on top.  We left, went back to Craignure and prepared to leave early the next morning.