Oban and ferry to Tobermory

Because we got to Oban a bit late yesterday, we spent a bit more time there today. It was raining early when we parked the car on a side street and started hitting stores, etc. We visited the ferry terminal to get an idea of the ferry schedule, and kept moseying around the beautiful Oban "downtown" area along the shoreline. We spent a good bit of time at the War & Peace museum, too. Once we got hungry, we hit a walk up service seafood place that had a long line but limited seating and crazy cheap prices. A salmon sandwich was 4.95 English pounds. A crab sammich was 5.95. They had fresh boiled lobster, crab, langustines, oysters on the half shell, etc and the "deal of the day" was 5.95 for a big pile of mussels steamed with wine, butter and garlic, and dude..... it was incredible. Dee and I got a salmon sammich, a crab sammich and a pile of mussels and ate to our hearts content. It was so good (and so cheap) that we vowed to get more of the same for our dinner before hitting the ferry to Craignure.

After lunch, we continued moseying around town and eventually passed our car, which had a parking ticket on it, which greatly upset Deanna, who now feels like an Scottish criminal - international crime czar because of this ticket. Fact is, we just didnt realize you had to pay to park there. Such is life. Oban is a beautiful city with great people and better food, so if we need to "tip" them the cost of a parking ticket, I'm glad to do so. We took the ~5:30pm ferry to Craignure on the Isle of Mull and drove the half hour up to Tobermory. On arrival, we busted out our fancy meal and had a prawn sammich and a salmon sammich.

Once settled a bit, we walked into town and took more pictures of the bay, and the purposefully un-coordinated paint jobs of the various stores along the seafront. On our walk we went by the local high school campus, and saw a couple dozen middle/high school kids playing soccer, etc on the soccer pitch and wondered - what must it be like to grow up on a remote island of Scotland. I surely can't relate.

Tomorrow we plan to execute a couple of mild hikes. We have an early ferry boat back to Oban on Wednesday, followed by a 4 hour drive to Glasgow and a series of kilt shop tours. That will be a long day.