Off to the Isle of Iona

Posted on February 5th, 2010 under Uncategorized

Greetings!

It’s hard to believe that February has found us again.  I am happily back in my cozy corner of St. Andrews after some adventurous trips through the Highlands.  With several weeks between the end of exams in early January and the start of the second semester this upcoming Monday, a friend and I decided to explore the breathtaking beauty of the Highlands and Islands.

I felt like Bilbo Baggins setting off on a grand journey, wanting to see mountains, but always with the domestic comforts of a pocket handkerchief.  Be forewarned any traveler to the islands, though these places beckon with natural beauty, like the songs of the sirens they can lure you into rather tricky places.  The islands have a dooming tourism industry, in the summer.  But in the winter, many of these places bunker down until the spring thaw.

My companion and I did not realize this when we happily set off on our merry way.  Our first destination was the Isle of Iona.  We set out from St. Andrews to Edinburgh where we caught a train to Glasgow.  From there, we were able to travel up through the Highlands to the port town of Oban were we caught a ferry taking us to Mull.   From Mull, we caught a bus taking us to the small town on the other end of the island where we caught a ferry taking us the last leg ofthe journey to Iona.

This is when we first started to realize how remote some of the places we were heading to actually were.  Providentially, there was one other person on the Mull bus with us.  This person, being more knowledgeable about traveling in the islands than we, had prudently booked the ferry.  The ferry runs during the day, but will only run if booked after a certain hour.  As the three of us boarded the ferry, we left the world I knew behind as we got closer to the rugged coasts of that small windswept island.

When we arrived on Iona, it was completely dark, without any street lights or neon signs that normally light even small American towns.   The commercialism and materialism of my modern world is absent from Iona, which is made up of a small, but close community of sheep crofters.

My companion and I had booked our hostel, but had not received an answer.  In fact, we were not even sure where we were going.  We very much appreciated the kindness of our friend, the same one who booked the ferry, who let us use her phone to call the hostel.  Because the island community is so closely knit, she knew the house number of the hostel owner.  He was glad to know we’d arrived and set out to pick us up.  I was relieved (and not a little surprised) that we had in fact made it all the way to the Isle of Iona.

St. Columba sailed to Iona from Ireland in 563 and founded a monastery there.  Through this monastery, Christianity spread through the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.  The monastery still attracts tourists and pilgrims.

1 Comments

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  UGG Boots says on February 17th, 2010

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