July 19, 2015 - Plane, bus, trains and tour boat

We had to be up at 4:00 AM to catch the hotel shuttle to the airport. Checkin went great and surprisingly we did not have to show passports until we had been through checkin and security. We only had to produce ID at the gate. We arrived in Edinburgh at about 8 and caught a bus to the Waverly train station. To get to Oban we got on a train to Glasgow and then changed trains for Oban. The total time on the train was a little more than 5 hours. Our rides were primarily through the countryside. At times the foliage was so thick we had no views of the nearby mountains and lakes but we had plenty of good scenery.

We arrived here at about 4:00 PM and had a short ten minute walk to our hotel. Oban met us with the best weather to date. We will be back on Tuesday night so we asked the hotel to store most of our baggage tomorrow but were told no but we found storage lockers at the train terminal so we only have to take a day pack to Iona tomorrow.

We took a walk around town and purchased our ferry tickets from here to Iona (two ferries with a bus ride in the middle). Oban is not just a tourist attraction but is a working sea port and claims to be the seafood capital of the UK. We found a little mom and pop stand and Peg got some super fresh pan seared sea scallops. We then continued our walk and happened upon a small boat tour of the harbor that was to feature a small island with many baby seals. It was money well spent. The sun was low in the sky and the picture taking was suburb.

We then found a little pub that actually had some local craft beer where I had my dinner and a couple of pints.

    The Glasgow train terminal 

    Dungeness crab Scotland style. Called Brown Crab here 

    Scallop heaven

    Salmon farm in the bay

    From the tour boat

    From the tour boat

    Tour boat