Scotland: Iona

After the nice trip to Staffa, we were sailed over to Iona with instructions to take a regular ferry and a regular bus and then a regular ferry back to Oban again. Iona is a very famous island in Scottish history, mainly because it played such a very important role in the spreading to all of Scotland of that cancer upon humanity; Christianity. Peak interest was actually achieved fairly briefly into the three hour stay there, when I found out that an otherwise ancient and sacred and blah blah cemetery also housed the grave of former Labor Party leader John Smith. Now, I wouldn't vote Labor in a thousand years, be it old or new, Corbynista or Blairist. But John Smith always seemed to me to be a basically decent guy and he died too young. My TripAdvisor review of the cemetery:
"I normally like cemeteries and this is a very old and historical one. However, there was no information that I'm aware of on all the "famous" people buried here, you have to wander through way too high grass to find an individual grave. Is a weedwhacker really impossible to find on the whole island of Iona?"

Anyways, from there on out it was pretty much a dutiful walk through the ruins, taking photos of stuff I would just as soon burn and pillage. Incidentally, I wasn't the first Norwegian to have that idea; my interest was slightly piqued when I read about the numerous viking incursions over the centuries. Sadly, they never managed to wipe the disease away and were instead integrated in it; I wager that a fairly high proportion of the population in these parts have some Scandinavian in them (insert much wiggling of eyebrows, leery looks and nudging here). TripAdvisor:
"Some mildly interesting stuff about the history of the place, but it was usually intervowen with so much religious rubbish it was hard to distinguish fact from fiction. I'm sure it's a much better experience if you're already into the mumbo-jumbo peddled as facts here."

John Smith's grave.


Mumbo jumbo.


Modern mumbo jumbo.


Ruins of an old nunnery.


One slightly interesting feature is the swords you can find on many of the graves on Iona. In addition to the many monks, priests and nuns, there were a fair amount of Highland warriors buried here.


The priory.


This was the road where they carried the dead from the harbor to the priory and the cemeteries.


I believe this building was erected on the site of a previous wooden chapel that held the remains of St Columba. Apparently he was very holy and very important. I fart in his general direction.


The open courtyard in the middle of the priory.


You can just make out the longship at the bottom. Vikings fuckin' ruled.


One of the aforementioned warriors. Probably badass too.


These two beauties were tied up outside a shop. I'll take live dogs over dead monks any day of the week.