Scotland The Brave and his Guardians flew from London across England and the Irish Sea to Castletown in The Isle of Man.
They drove from Castletown to Douglas, the capital. Scotty approved of the view from their room which shows the famous Promenade. This was a rare time the tide was almost fully in. They set off to explore.
Tides and ferries: Here you are looking from southward from our hotel along the curve of the Promenade back to the ferry port. You can see the white bulk of a big ferry just below the green headland to the left of this photo. The tide is about half way out. Or halfway in.
When high tide finally appears the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company ships set off for Ireland or Liverpool. At this time of year they are loaded to the gunnels with amateur motorbike racers and their machines.
At low tide, the smaller boats in the harbour wallow in the mud and don’t look pretty at all. But here they are at high tide.
There are lovely formal gardens all along the Promenade although, as you see, they’re often rather damp. What you can’t see in this photo are the high-powered motor cycles that were ranged outside almost every building.
Tourists and TT Races: These buildings were resorts for ‘Bank Holiday’ visitors in Victorian days. During our visit in early July they were fully booked out by the leather-armoured owners of those motorbikes, who were there for the Southern 100 Races.
Had we tried to visit in May-June we would not have been able to find a room at all as the Isle is packed with visitors for the TT Races (Tourist Trophy) on the winding mountain Snaefell course. Every room is taken, houses are let, even fields are hired out for campers.
We visited in July on purpose believing that this problem would not exist. But even more races are held then. When we set off next day on our guided tour of Man with Nigel from Albany Tours, we even had to detours into lots of different little roads to get around the areas near Castletown where the Southern 100 was being held.
We walked a lot in Douglas or took the horse tram, and so we noticed many small delights in the architecture. Most of the fore-shore buildings still bear the names bestowed on them during the Victorian Era such as the Trevelan (above), The Empress and The Gaiety Theatre.
There are other unexpected details too like Switzerland Road and along from it the Edelweiss. The chocolate -box building below is the Railway Station for the Isle of Man Steam Railway. Sadly, we didn’t get to ride on it.
Next Episodes: We will tour Ellen Vannin and see old villages and Peel and the spectacular Rushen Castle. We also incidentally traveled much of route of the TT race – but not at 180 km/hour.
BOOKS with Scotland in them (our Scotty, that is)
You can also see Scotty in all the books by Mawson. One is called It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In (in that one he delivers the post) and another is She Ran Away From Love (he delivers the post again.) In Dreamy Days and Random Naps you can see him being a king and also a superb guitarist. Don’t miss that one! You can find Mawson’s books on this Link here, and on his Writer-Bear Page on Amazon.This is what the books look like:
You have wandered into Mawson Bear’s web-den. Mawson is the Writer-Bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and Dreamy Days and Random Naps and She Ran Away From Love. Mawson’s Guardian is co-creator of When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer, by Carola Schmidt
Mawson Bear 