Scotland - Oban

Our home for two nights.  The parking is interesting.  Someone can park behind you and you can't get out.  You enter Glenburnie House where the window is on the lower left.  Only have the building is our B&B with the other half another B&B.



Inside the glassed in porch looking out.  The No Vacancies sign was out.



Immediately as you enter, you look up to see this mounted Hairy Coo.

You open another door to the entrance hall.

They had this lovely desk in the hallway where you were supposed to leave your car keys.  Of course we didn't see that sign in our room until the day we left.  Our car was blocked in the day we were gone on an all-day trip. 

All the rooms were upstairs on the first and second floors.  The entry is on the ground floor.

The first floor landing. 



We entered the door on the left only to see...

Two more doors.  This was nice because it meant that our door was insulated from the activity on the landing and on the floors below and above.

We normally had two twin beds but this B&B offered a couch too.



As seen from the door.

There was even a desk by the door.



The short hall to the bathroom had an alcove on each side.  They offered snacks for purchase and the tea and coffee included in the room rate

The other alcove was a doorless closet.



Most of the counter was taken up with the large sink but the alcove window included some more counter space.

The view out the window wasn't impressive but there was a bike trail in the wooded area.

Out front the view was a different story.  The road to the B&B had the Oban bay on its other side.  There's a walk along the shore with informational signs.  Oban is on the Firth of Lorn.  The bay is a near perfect horseshoe, protected by the island of Kerrara, and beyond Kerrara, the Isle of Mull.  To the north is the long, low island of Lismore, and the mountains of Morvern and Ardgour.

This is looking out the mouth of the bay with Lismore in the distance.  The site where Oban is now built has been used by humans since at least the middle stone age.  Prior to the 19th century, the town supported very few households, sustaining only minor fishing, trading, shipbuilding and quarrying industries, and a few tourists.

The modern town of Oban grew around the distillery, which was founded here in 1794.  Sir Walter Scott visited the area in 1814, the year in which he published his poem, Lord of the Isles.

Looking more toward city center and the port.



We ended up at Subway for dinner.  We went so we could see the changes a different culture would make on this American franchise.  The biggest is that they offered corn as a topping.  While we were there, I saw Mt. Dew in the refrigerator case. I just had to have it since I'm a Dew-aholic.

Yuck... it was sugar-free!!!

We didn't make it to the distillery but we did stop at the Oban Chocolate Company

The windows were covered in chocolate-related sayings.

The side of the building had depictions of famous paintings that were modified with chocolate themes.  This was my favorite since it has an Iowa connection.