Oban + Iona

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Before Craig's school and work officially began, we took a quick trip to Iona. Columba is the dude (saint) most associated with Iona--coming from Ireland, he established a monastery on Iona, and is basically credited with bringing Christianity to Scotland. Iona is known as a spiritual place, even a "thin place" where, essentially, heaven meets earth. What I like most about the Abbey at Iona is that it is not merely a shrine to the past, but an active congregation very much engaged in living faithfully in the present.



We visited on a very wet and windy day. After a very British-seeming lunch of cheese and onion pasties, the rain sort of let up for our stroll around the island, which was picturesquely gray and dreamy.



To get to Iona, we took two trains, two ferries, and a bus! Our trains took us from Edinburgh --> Glasgow --> Oban, a small and charming seaside town. If you ever find yourself there, their distillery tour is a good one.



From Oban we caught a ferry to Mull, bussed across Mull, and from there took short ferry ride to Iona. Waiting on the transportation and moving at the prescribed pace was hard for me, but they do have everything perfectly timed and the scenery is fully worth it.




Now we're back in sunny Edinburgh with a very full week of real life ahead.


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