Duart Castle, Isle of Mull, Scotland

As if to prove how having a photo reinforces a memory, this is how I more clearly remember seeing Duart Castle. Quite why seeing it from that first ferry ride to Mull is such a vague memory for me but it might have been that I was satisfying my hunger at the time. In retrospect that now seems a travesty with the shores of Morvern at one side and the fairytale appearance of that castle on Mull's coast and with some of the islands rising up behind it but it was still all there for the way home anyway.

While others ventured elsewhere on the island on the day, I contented myself with an out and back stroll from Craignure that landed me next to Duart Castle. Rather than taking a ride on the island's narrow gauge railway to Torosay Castle, I walked with no fixed objective though the sight of Duart Castle drew me along the road going in its direction. Still a cheapskate student at the time, I forsook attractions like the island railways, the gardens of Torosay Castle (though I think that I made a purchase at its shop; might have been film) or the innards of Duart Castle. Now that I think about it, I could have seen them too in the film Entrapment with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones but I never got to seeing it (critical response was tepid, if I remember correctly). Instead of all of this, I stayed out of doors to enjoy glorious sunshine after a cloudy departure from Oban. In hindsight, I probably chose the better part for a first encounter.