April 29th, 2023 Day 116 of 128

Oban, Scotland

Another day, another port in Scotland today. There is a chance of rain of rain today, but the temperatures are rising a tiny bit, so we are happy to not be so cold. We were up early this morning to get ready for our day. We grabbed breakfast from he Neptune lounge and then headed to the Main stage to meet our excursion group at 9:15am. Today is another tender port so it always takes a little longer to get passengers ashore. We were greeted at the pier by a man playing the bagpipe. A wonderful welcome into this Scottish port. Oban was originally a fishing village that exploded in population in 1794 when they started the whiskey distillery here. Along our drive to the castle we so lots of fields field with Sheep and lots of baby lambs. We also saw another herd of highland cows today. Along our drive we saw a beautiful church Saint Conan’s Kirk and the ruins of the Kilchuram Castle. We boarded our bus and and headed north to the the Inveraray Castle. The castle is the current home to the 13th Duke of Argyll Torquhill Ian Campbell. He is married to the the heiress of the Cadbury fortune. The castle was “originally” built in 1746 when the cornerstone of the existing castle was laid on the sight of a previous castle built in the 15th century. At the time the Duke didn’t want the town so close to his castle so he demolished the existing town and moved it further away. In 1975 there was a fire here and the townspeople all came to the castle to help removed the rare and priceless relics and they stored them in their homes and their barns until the castle could be fixed. The collection at the castle includes more than 1300 pikes, muskets, swords and other weapons. The collection was very impressive to see and they way the had it displayed was very eloquent. The 2012 Christmas episode of Downtown Abby was partly filmed here. There is a pain in the Saloon that houses a piano that tis said to be where Lerner and Lowe composed some songs for “My Fair Lady” and there is an autographed photo of Audrey Hepburn on the piano. *So here is the super cool part of our day. The Duke still lives here currently with his family. He just returned from a trip to Singapore most likely to attend the coronation of King Charles and Camilla. Oh yeah, and he was working in the gift shop today. We actually got to meet him and have conversation with him. Now that doesn’t happen everyday. * We purchased a couple of hats, postcards and a magnet at the gift shop before heading off. We took the bus back to the pier and Megan and I had a chance to walk around the town of Oban for a bit. We visited a whiskey store, found the post office and she sent home some postcards, had some fish and chips and bought a few souvenirs. We had to be back on the ship by 3:30pm today. We had time to come home and do a couple of things “around the house” before heading to the Pinnacle Grill for another wonderful specialty dinning experience. Tonight’s theme was Scottish Dinner. We had the honor of having crew member Spencer as our guest this evening and had the chance to celebrate his birthday a day early with him. The head chef is Scottish and tonight was his turn to shine and share his favorite foods and culture with us. Everything we ate tonight came from within 20 miles of where we are right now. Everything was resourced locally and bought fresh. Even the Haggis. There were seven courses to our dinner tonight and to say we are full is an understatement. We took lots of photos of everything we got to enjoy and we hope you enjoy them!