After a restless night sleeping in the 400-year hotel on beds that felt like they were made of 400-year-old stone, we went down for an early breakfast. We didn’t go down because we wanted an early start but because it was only served between the limited time of 8:00 to 9:00 AM. A nice little buffet though, except for the mushy hot oatmeal. Something I hadn’t eaten in a while.

HK also tried the oatmeal for the first time in her life. She told me the German translation for it is “Oat Slime.” Which to be honest is a pretty accurate translation. But it still warms the body in the same way the whiskey warmed the body the night before. Okay, it doesn’t warm it in the same way, oatmeal warms the body in a different way.

After breakfast back to the room to pack and head on to the road for the island.

After a stop in the town of Inveraray where we decided not to spend £10 each on an old jail tour and another £10 each for an old castle. Living in Europe old castles aren’t as exciting as they were when I first moved to Europe. Instead, we snapped some pics of an old boat and some not necessarily old cows.

As we drove to check-in at the ferry, we found out something interesting. It turned out that most people make a reservation for the ferry and luckily, we were just in time to catch the next one at 1:00 and just in time to get one of the four remaining tickets. It wasn’t going to Port Ellen on the island of Islay; instead, we were on the one to Port Askaig. We could have waited a few hours for the Port Ellen so we could land on the lower side of Islay and drive north but since the ferry was leaving on didn’t leave until Wednesday morning and it’s a small enough island that we could start at the top, work our way down, and get back up in time for the Wednesday morning ferry we took the quicker option.

Note: If planning a trip to Islay check the ferry schedules and book in advance.

A funny note of the trip is that everywhere we went offered free wi-fi but it also never actually worked at any of the places it was offered. At least so far on the trip. That’s counting the hotel, a few stops, and even the ferry we were on for the 2hr commute to the island.

Being out of connection to the world is never much of an issue for me so no real complaints about that other than not getting to post a random travel pic on Facebook or Instagram or check emails to make sure nothing drastically bad has happened at work while I was away.

Dinner on the island turned out to be quite difficult to find. In the town of Bowmore, there were three restaurants. The first was a Chinese takeout that we decided to avoid. The second was the restaurant in a hotel that had an hour and 45-minute wait, and the third also a hotel restaurant that had a 45-minute wait, so we went with that one. During the 45-minute wait, we sampled some Bowmore 12yr, Kilchoman Machir Bay, Lagavulin 8yr 200 Anniversary Limited edition.