Breakfast at the hotel is interesting. Mary has something labelled ‘birchermuesli’ and toast which is a traditional Swiss dish that consists of oats soaked overnight, then combined with condensed milk and lemon juice with nuts and grated apple. A little different from what she expected! Dick has sweet Scottish pancakes. Finding service help is quite a challenge here as in most of the places we’ve visited on this trip. Our waitress is the older sister of David the manager, who is just there helping because someone is on holiday.
Laundry day! The simple pleasures of life. David points us towards a service in town that will do a ‘same day’ service. Dick drops off the laundry bag on his morning walk and it shows back up at the hotel midafternoon.
Oban is situated in an almost perfect horseshoe-shaped natural harbor on the Firth of Lorn and is a major hub for ferries connecting the Hebrides islands with the mainland. It’s incredible how busy the harbor is and how quickly the vessels are turned around for departure. We stopped in at the local tourism center for information about the town and surrounding areas. Mary’s knees giving her some trouble so we take a leisurely walk along the promenade, watch the boat traffic and visit the ‘War and Peace Museum’ (it’s free!). The museum was small, but interesting, manned by volunteers, and full of donated items from the two wars. One of the guides pointed out a kilt belt sporting a badger’s head. He also explained why Scottish men use their kilt belts as a wallet – it you get pickpocketed, at least it feels good!
It’s hard to pass by the Oban Inn Pub without a visit so we ducked in for a quick pint and are shocked at how empty it was. Quite a contrast from the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd yesterday. Mystery solved – the credit card machine is broken and they are only taking cash. The Oban Distillery is right in town, but unfortunately tours are totally booked for the next several days. They have a bar area upstairs and we split a whisky flight, quite nice. On the walk back to the hotel we sample some freshly caught and cooked scallops at an outdoor stand to tide us over until dinner.
Dinner is at ‘Ee-Usk’, a fantastic seafood joint on the Oban Bay pier with views of the islands of Mull and Kerrera. ‘Ee-Usk’ means ‘Fish’ in Gaelic. We start with scallops w/chorizo and a ½ dozen oysters. Yummy. Dinner for Mary was a seafood penne pasta and Dick had the langoustines. Ice cream for Dick and lemon cheesecake for Mary to finish off. On the way home we stopped at one of the local pubs. Turned out to be an all sports bar and the locals are locked in on the Ukraine/Scotland match.
