Day One: Bowmore

On the evening of our first day on Islay, we spent our time wandering around the Bowmore region. We had worried that our hotel would be a bit far from the Bowmore Distillery, where we were scheduled to tour the next morning, but when, after a five minute walk, we saw this, our fears were assuaged handily.

The view gave E the inspiration for what would become an amazing series of high art photographs, taken by your intrepid author. I call them "Man in Gray Hoodie in Front of Distillery".

More pictures of E: This time, showered!

Downtown Bowmore was a cute, quiet sort of area, famous for a round church (no corners for Satan to hide in). The views from the bay were amazing. If you ever have to be hungry and jet lagged anywhere, I highly recommend it.

The bustling main drag of Bowmore, courtesy of E

The other road out of town. Two lane roads are for spoiled American tourists

View from the graveyard at the top of the hill. Cemetery picture for you, Mom! 

Down by the water was more scenic than the town. E and I had a disagreement over which picture of a boat looked better - my vertical shot or his horizontal. Please feel free to vote for me via a blog comment.

Panorama by E. You can see my back in the corner.. proof that I exist!

The highly inferior horizontal boat picture 

The artistic genius of a vertical boat picture. 

We ate dinner at our hotel, which boasted a menu rich with rare meats, including zebra. I had an amazing duck in raspberry sauce, E's venison stew was, while nourishing, a little too reminiscent of Alpo for either of our comfort. After dinner, we went back down to the bay area to get a drink, and I started to realized that Islay bars were going to look a teeny tiny bit different than the bars in Hartford.

You don't see this sort of whisky selection at the Spigot. Panorama (and below) courtesy of E. 

When in Bowmore, drink of their whisky. 

After that, we finally allowed ourselves the blissful reward of sleep in a proper bed.