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More from our Summer 2004 vacation. On our last day at Oban, we took a day tour to the island of Iona. This is a very important island in Christian history. A monastery was established there in 563 by St Columba, which became the staging point for the evangelisation of southern Scotland and northern England as well as a centre for Christian scholarship. It is not easy to get to, even today.
A day trip from Oban allows maybe three hours on Iona itself; if we had the visit to do over again, we would stay on Iona for one or two nights. It's a beautiful and wonderfully peaceful place—even more peaceful in the evening and early morning than in the afternoon when all the day trippers crowd in.
The next three photos illustrate the logistics of transportation from Oban to Iona. First, there's the ferry from Oban to Craignure on the island of Mull; this takes about 45 minutes.
Second, there's the 30-mile bus ride from Craignure to Fionnphort on the far side on Mull via a single-track road—another 75 minutes.
Third, a foot-passenger ferry from Fionnphort to Iona. This last leg takes only 15 minutes.
So, after rising bright and early in Oban, we arrived on Iona at 12h30. We went right to the Argyll Hotel for an excellent pub lunch. Then we set off toward the nunnery and Iona Abbey. We looked around the ruins of the nunnery, walked by MacLean's Cross, and looked into St Oran's Chapel and the Abbey. Time was much too short, and we felt we had only a few minutes to spend at each location of interest before we had to rush on to the next. It was at this point that we wished we had planned to spend a night or two on Iona itself.
Above is the Abbey as it looked on the day we visited. The original monastery was destroyed by the Vikings in the 8th and 9th centuries, re-established in the 12th century, and disbanded again after the Reformation; then the abbey was restored in the 20th century and a Christian community lives and works there today. The permanent population of Iona is currently about 130.
Below, the StatDaughter and I are standing in front of St Martin's Cross, which dates to the late 8th century. At one time, Iona was covered with hundreds of standing crosses, but today only three survive. This is the only one standing in the place where it was originally erected.
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