Our Scottish Holiday (part 2) — Theresa Gromski Studio

The most photographed boats in Scotland! Salen, Mull.

Mull - Tobermoray

Our next stop was the Inner Hebridean island of Mull and our location for 4 days was a modern house on the outskirts of the small capital of Tobermoray. In complete contrast to the lodge in Strontian this place was a design delight! The Green House (there are four houses on Hector’s Row, painted in eye catching primary colours and situated up a steep hill just a ten minute walk from town) Are beautifully designed and filled with modern and Mid century furniture and designer kitchenware. An absolute delight for anyone interested in interiors. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a small outdoor space. A well equipt kitchen stocked with designer accessories from Hay, Dualit and Allessi, I loved it! You can rent it through Airbnb. Or find it on Instagram here

The island of Mull, the largest island in Argylle is wild and stunningly beautiful with something here to please everyone. Stunning white sand beaches such as Calgary Bay and Fidden Beach. Deep lush forests, incredible wildlife, dramatic coastal scenery and islands such as Iona and Staffa along it’s western coast.

The lively capital of Tobermoray with its colourful houses wrapped around a pretty fishing harbour is renowned for it incredible seafood. You may also recognise it as the location where Ballamoray the TV programme was filmed. Our best meal out of the holiday was at the tiny fish restaurant situated at the end of the harbour, Cafe Fish. It’s tricky to secure a table so make sure to book ahead. We sampled a mixed fish platter and it was amazing. Highly recommended! Be warned though it took us many phone calls to get through but was well worth the effort! Only a few tables so you have to book well in advance.

Mull has quite rightly earned its reputation for incredible wildlife. Within half an hour of driving off the ferry point we had seen a pair of golden eagles hunting along a ridge, an osprey and buzzards. So one of our must do’s on the trip was to take a wildlife tour out on a boat to the small, uninhabited Island of Staffa. We used Staffa tours. There’s a possibility to see dolphins, seals, whales, sea eagles, otters, a whole host of different seabirds including puffins (sadly as we were there in late august they had already left)

One of the absolute highlights of the trip was watching a pod of dolphins swim alongside our boat and leaping through the wake, something I’ll never forget. We also saw scores of seals on the rocks approaching Staffa. Literally only two days before we took our trip orca’s we’re spotted on the same trip.

Staffa, named the ‘Island of Pillars’ is spectacular, a home to wildflowers, puffins and one of the most majestic sights in Scotland, the incredible Fingal’s Cave. The sea cavern which is over 20 metres high and is formed of incredible hexagonal basalt columns and arches. You can climb along the edge of the columns to reach the cave and go right inside. It looks like a bit of a scary climb but my kids aged 5 and 9 managed it with no qualms, just hang on to the hand rail tightly! Well worth it for a view into the cave. We also climbed the (slightly rickety!) metal staircase up to the top of the island for a wonderful cliff too view.

Beaches - Mull is ringed with the most incredible white sand beaches, lapped with crystalline clear turquoise waters, hidden bays and beautiful little tidal islets such as Erraid which you can walk or swim across to when the tide is right.

We visited Calgary bay on our first afternoon, it’s considered one of the most beautiful beaches in Scotland and didn’t disappoint. As you round the headland a huge crescent of white shell sand backed by rolling green hills greets you, just stunning! There are a few facilities here including a campsite. There’s also a nearby Calgary Art in nature gallery where you can explore the sculptures in the surrounding woodland. Am Birlinn is a good seafood restaurant to visit not far from here if you wanted a nice place for lunch off the beach.

Fidden beach was another favourite, not far from the ferry over to Iona, we spent a morning here paddling in the beautiful clear water and exploring rock pools and the pink granite outcrops. There’s a campsite right behind the beach which would be a wonderful spot to wild camp.

Iona - After visiting Fidden beach we took the foot passenger ferry over to the sacred Isle of Iona. Situated off the west coast of Mull, it takes just 10 minutes to reach this magical place. Quiet, unspoilt and charming Iona has declared itself a fair trade island and actively promotes ecotourism. We spent a wonderful afternoon exploring the ruined nunnery, the farm shop and fair trade village store selling local handmade products and then had a drink at the Argyll hotel garden overlooking the harbour with views across to Mull.

The Glass Barn - A stunning greenhouse filled with plants and vintage furniture and home to Isle of Mull cheese (did someone say cheese, because I’m all over that!) This is a beautiful place to visit for coffee and lunch, there’s also a small shop where you can buy local produce.

The Trossachs and the Treehouses on the Lanrick Estate

After a wonderful time in Mull we headed back to the mainland with a quick stopover in Oban. We ate Delicious fresh seafood from a harbour side straight off one of the fishing boats (I’ve literally never seen oysters so big, they were the size of small chicken breasts! 😂) And a quick walk around to look at the beautiful Victorian architecture. It was boiling hot though (I never thought I’d say that about a holiday in Scotland!) so we didn’t stay long and drove into our final destination (and the accommodation I was most excited about) Our tree house on the Lanrick Estate in the Trossachs.

The Treehouses which you can book here are incredible! They didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Five different treehouses (some of which are wheelchair accessible) set amongst the trees on the Lanrick estate. They are eco friendly and mostly built with timber all sourced on the estate.

Ours had underfloor heating and an outdoor bath all using power sourced from underground heat pumps. The interiors were just perfect; log burners, Weber barbecues and luxurious but simple Scandi styled interiors, with the biggest comfiest bed I’ve ever slept in. Plus there was a tree in the kitchen/living area, I mean what more could you ask for?

When we weren’t chilling on the outdoor deck (in the glorious weather we were now getting) we spent lots of time exploring the estate. The river Teith runs through the estate and there is a beautiful little fishing lodge with a fire pit and cosy cushions and sheepskins for residents of the treehouses to use. We spent a wonderful evening on the banks of the river barbecuing sausages, toasting marshmallows and drinking locally made gin and tonics (us not the kids!) We also saw red squirrels here which was so exciting!

Things to Do

The nearby area of the Trossachs National park is only an hours drive from Glasgow and Edinburgh so makes it a popular getaway for Scots escaping from the city for the weekend and I can see why. Beautiful lochs, rolling hills (and a few mountains, more of THAT later) and pretty villages such as Luss and Balloch.

Rowordennan on the eastern shore of Loch Lomand

Ben A’an

One day Mr Gromski decided it would be fun for us to do an easy mountain climb (not that easy as it turned out) So we set out to climb Ben A’an, this is considered a relatively easy climb for the best views-to-effort ratio. Apparently!

It was actually a pretty rough climb, most of the ascent is steep boulder scrambling, with some relatively gentle flat parts half way up. My kids who were 5 and 9 at the time did amazingly well but we stopped 15 minutes from the summit to let Mr G get up to look at the view. Umm except there wasn’t one as the mist had descended. Sad times 😂 Looking at t’intemet though it looks like it should have been marvellous!

Loch Lomond and Luss

Nearby Loch Lomond is the largest freshwater Loch in the UK. Long and dotted with pretty islands and crisscrossed with ferries to take you from the east shore to the west. The east coast is quieter and has a number of pretty villages such as Balmaha and Rowardennan. We spent a leisurely last day exploring the east side of the Loch and paddling in the waters of Milarrochy bay before driving over to the busier west bank and the picture perfect village of Luss.

Luss has been described as the ‘loveliest village in Scotland’ and I can see why. Picture perfect arts and craft cottages built by the local laird for his estate workers in the 19th century line the Main Street down to a lovely little beach and jetty on the shores of the Loch. We spent a beautiful final evening of our holiday watching the kids play in the water.

First stop, we visited the Faerie Trail here in Luss, which starts from the main town car park. A woodland walk set in surrounding woodland and filled with beautiful wooden sculptures and tiny faerie houses in the trees. A magical way to spend a few hours and my kids loved it!

One last thing though, by far the most asked question about our holiday was, can you guess? MIDGES!! everyone wanted to know, did they ruin our holiday? Well no they didn’t as we didn’t see a single one! So many people messaged me saying they’d been put off going to Scotland because of them. Well don’t be. Be prepared, we had midge nets to wear over our heads if needs be and came prepared with Avon’s Oh So Soft (so good against insects it’s used by the Marines apparently) I have no idea why we didn’t see any, we spoke to lots of locals and they hadn’t seen them either. What happened to the Midges?!!! An eternal mystery and no doubt if we go back next year we’ll be plagued by them!

I hope you enjoyed my Scotland blogs and it makes you consider visiting this magical part of the world! (the first part you can read here )

Theresa x