Thursday, September 21, 2017

We woke up, dug ourselves out of the lumpy hostel bed, and made our way to the train station. The Jacobite train pulled in as we found parking. We had a quick bite in the station cafe, then discussed what we wanted to do. Try to ride the train to Mallaig, or just look at the train, take some pictures and head out again to see more of Scotland.

We decided to hit the road and try to hit some more distilleries and scenery. We picked Crieff as our stop that night, and I found an Airbnb quite easily. James’ Cottage.

After breakfast, Stud Muffin had to take a picture of the array of sauces the cafe offered. This isn’t even all of them.

Then we went out to the platform. The train was beautiful! Old, obviously, yet, lovingly maintained and cared for. There were lots of people like us, just looking and snapping pictures. There were also others boarding, ordering their lunch and tea and snack plates.

If we get back to Scotland, I really do want to do this train ride. It looked like a fabulous time, and I’m sure you’d get to see different scenery from the train tracks.

We wandered back to the car and headed out. First stop: Oban. I knew Dave had tasted Oban, maybe even received a bottle as a gift once, and I remembered he’d liked it. Since the village of Oban was on “our way” to Crieff, that was our first stop.

Oban is a small town, on the coast of the Oban Bay. We lucked out, we thought, and got the last parking spot right in front of the distillery. There was a city lot at the bottom of the block, but it looked full, so we tried the narrow, dead-end street and were successful.

Our tour was led by Jim, who had a much thicker brogue than Angela at Dalwhinnie. It was a good thing this wasn’t our first tour because we would have been lost, trying to understand Jim while seeing everything. Oban has a very nice tasting room, and Dave and I each bought a shirt. We thought. Turns out they were both women’s shirts. So I got two. 🙂

We returned to the car to find we’d been ticketed. Sigh. We searched for signs and hours and restrictions, but couldn’t see anything that we’d violated. There were cones blocking off the neighboring spot, but we were well within our spots lines. So we (cough-Dave-cough) took pictures to prove that we were legal. The ticket said we had 21 days to pay and could pay online. I planned to print out all the pictures and send them with our check once we got home. On day 21, I pulled out the ticket and finally read it carefully. We were supposed to go down to that city lot at the bottom of the block and buy a parking pass. Although there are no signs anywhere in that alley that we saw saying that. So I paid the fine online and decided to let it go.

Back on the road, we turned toward Crieff, our destination for the night. Dave did some

research on the area and found one more distillery: The Famous Grouse. We got there early for the last tour of the day so we had a bite in their cafe before the tour. Our guide was Michael. The Famous Grouse was the only distillery we visited that does blends. The others were all single malt.

Of course, Michael thought blends were superior to the single malts. He likened a blend to a full orchestra while the single malts are one note instruments. The Famous Grouse has the Guiness Book of World Record’s largest bottle of Scotch. They filled it as an anniversary celebration and to raise money for charity. Patrons purchased a regular sized bottle and poured it into the giant bottle. When the record is broken and it’s not longer the largest in the world, they plan to auction it off, also for charity.

The tour was excellent and interesting, but I was getting tired of distilleries. I think you tell by my face in the picture on the right, I was pretty much done. I didn’t drink my samples, since I was still driving.

It was about 5:00 by then, so we decided to go find our Airbnb. It was a short drive and the listing said there was private off-street parking. We found both the house and the parking, but it was down a narrow, winding road with no clear way to enter the house, so we circled the block and parked out front. Michael was our host (not the same Michael who gave us the Famous Grouse tour). He eyed our luggage and immediately suggested we think about leaving one of the suitcases in the car. He was concerned about his walls being bumped and thumped on our way up the stairs. We readily agreed. I needed mine though, so Stud Muffin lugged his back to the car, took out his toiletries and a change of clothes.  I asked him to bring in my whiskey samples that I’d left in the car from the Famous Grouse tour. Michael then informed us that a “dram,” is “an unmeasured measure,” of liquid. So … a wee dram of whiskey is an unmeasured little bit in a glass.

Michael asked about our breakfast preference. Apparently Airbnb holds him to a different standard than Julia in Royal Tunbridge Wells. Dave requested the full Scottish with black sausage instead of haggis. I asked for two eggs and a sausage. Dave gave him careful instructions about how to prepare my eggs. I’m not an egg fan, and I the only way I can eat them is if they are really done done. Dave told Michael he could start frying my eggs, then go into town and pick up supplies, come back, and they’d be ready. He’s not exaggerating much. I do like them over hard and well done. Crispy with salt and pepper. Michael promised to do his best.

The next morning we got to chat with Michael a bit more. He was in his 70s. His wife had passed away about 8 years ago. He was Irish, living in Scotland. He’d played professional golf on the European Seniors tour. The breakfast room was full of pictures and trophies. I’ve googled him and found some stories about him on the tour. He enjoyed running the B&B. It was called James Cottage and was the oldest building in Crieff.

Once we were settled in our room, I enjoyed my dram. We were too tired to go out again and try to find a place to park and eat. We had some leftovers from our gas station lunch the day before, so we finished those, and read, and journaled, and relaxed for the evening.