Bon-weekend!

 

Have a good weekend everyone.   Bon week-end à tous. Le Pont de Beaugency

Monday's chateau...An autumnal Royal Lodgings

 

Loches 

https://www.experienceloire.com/loches-chateau.htm

Belleisle benches

 

For our last walk in Ayrshire Pauline and I walked along the seafront again before heading back inland along the river Doon and onto Belleisle Park.  

The gardens around the glasshouse were a delight...

and we were spoilt for choice for benches!

The benches of Mount Stuart House...

Leaving Rothesay and the Isle of Bute.

Before heading for the ferry back to the mainland after our visit to Mount Stuart House we decided to check out the Isle of Bute Discovery Centre, formerly the Winter Garden which sits within the well manicured esplanade gardens, note the palm trees! 

The Winter Gardens started life as an open air bandstand (1895), it received its circular cover the early 1920s and its stage hosted top-ranking variety summer shows for many years for the many holiday makers who would venture 'doon the watter.'

The current Discovery Centre has a tourist information and visitor centre - plus a cinema and restaurant. It was a good way to end our visit to the island.

Benchmarking Scottish beauty spots...

The grounds of Mount Stuart House in Rothesay are, as you would expect of such a fine house, delightful, with formal gardens and natural paths leading down to the shorefront. 

A Scottish palm tree!

Richard appears to be proposing to Francoise here but he was actually showing the results of his foraging. 

On the way up to the house we stopped at the 'village' of Kerrycroy.

Mount Stuart House...an overindulgance?

Our visit over to Rothesay was to take in a visit to Mount Stuart House a late 19th-century mansion with private chapel built for the 3rd Marquess of Bute by Robert Anderson. 

The 'house' has the external appearance of a Venetian palace but in red sandstone and no expense was spared in fitting it out with the finest Italian marble and other extravagant embellishments. For the time the cost was astronomical, the equivalent of over £50 million today. 

The guided tour by a lady who had worked in the house alongside the butler was very informative but it was difficult,for me anyway, to see beyond the overindulgence of the place when at the time the money was being spent there would have been a lot of poverty in the country. 

Doon the watter...

Image: visitscotland

On Monday, along with Richard and Francoise, we headed up to Wemyss Bay to catch the ferry over to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. The town has been a popular destination with families from the west of Scotland since rail and ferry links opened up in the late 19th century giving ordinary people the opportunity to head 'doon the watter' on steamers from the Glasgow and from this little harbour to enjoy a seaside holiday.

The interior of the railway station serving the port is a delight and must rank highly in the award for 'prettiest station'. In its heyday it would be crammed with working class folks taking advantage of their recently granted annual holidays heading for the ferry to make the crossing to enjoy their summer break. 

The 35 minute ferry trip is a pleasant experience with great 365 degree views of the Firth of Clyde as you make your way over to Rothesay. The last time I made this trip was as a boy on one of our annual 'school trips' and that was not yesterday!

Once back on dry land we would head for what was our intended destination, Mount Stuart House, an outrageous country pile built in the Gothic Revival style and the ancestral home of the Marquesses of Bute but I'll save that for another post.