So used to laughing at the things in my heart

After our lovely evening introduction we woke up with one long day to spend getting to know Islay.



And we managed to see quite a lot of it, more than I had expected. This is Kilarrow Parish Church in Bowmore, unusual for its completely round shape.



Our first distillery was the mighty Laphroaig.



In the visitor's centre we were greeted and offered a free dram each. I declined with a sad face, saying "I'm the driver," and the bar server produced this with a flourish. The driver's dram, to take away and drink later. Happy day!


Sure, this historically important bottle is not at all drinkable, but maybe wipe out the display case? Ew.



No such luck at Lagavulin, where K scored my free drink instead.    

We also stopped at Ardbeg, which had a very impressive forecourt. (No free dram though.)



This celtic knot design is not painted on - it's actually made with white and black/grey stones. The skull sculpture below, I can't explain. There was also a large copper still displayed outside, which made a bit more sense.





We went through Port Ellen twice, on the way to and from the distilleries.



St John's Church, Port Ellen. I didn't nail the kind of shot I wanted but there was something appealing and fascinating about this blocky brown church.



A good chunk of our time in Islay was spent driving on single-lane roads, which we shared with sheep at times (just go slow, eventually honk the horn and they get out of the way). We stopped often to admire the views or the coo.







After lunch we cruised quickly past another distillery, Bruichladdich. And later in the day we wound up visiting one more, Kilchoman. Here they had a malting floor you could peer into, which was interesting. The particularly malty smells are different at each distillery too. I thought we might visit one or two distilleries in our whole trip and not bother with many more. But they are all over the place and it was easy to make a quick stop and kind of fun to collect them. (I didn't have the luggage space to collect too many bottles though). There are still four or so Islay ones we didn't go to.



But the highlight in the Kilchoman area was the church. These colours in the stone and the surrounding landscape make me feel such good feelings. (See also the top photo in this post).






It was a great day and we managed to get around most of the island, down to the Mull of Oa and over to Port Charlotte as well. Of course there was more we could have done with more planning/time - we took a long drive to the carpark and then didn't actually go for the walk to the American Monument at Oa. We also drove around quite a while looking for and failing to find the Ballinaby standing stone. I didn't really mind in either case though as there was so much beautiful country to enjoy, sheep to dodge and cows to photograph.



Finally we went back to the very comfortable Ballygrant Inn for the evening and enjoyed the good cooking and impressively-stocked bar, as well as the two dogs and a three-legged cat who liked to keep the guests company. I spilled a little bit of whiskey on my knitting. Only a little bit, thankfully I didn't waste too much. (Nevermind the knitting, it was perfectly washable). This was more or less the end of our Islay visit as planned to take the 7am ferry back to the mainland the next morning, because we needed to get to Skye by the following evening.