3 dates available still for Glencoe cottage

30th May, 6th June, 27th June are available, very pretty cottage sleeps 4

This is the view over the bay in Loch Linnhe from the front room of our cottage in Appin, near Glencoe.

The Glen itself is wondrous, quite spectacular; the finest in Scotland - well, we think so. The peaks rise up either side from sea level to nearly 4,000 feet.

Everywhere you look the scenery is wonderful.

But all the stories of this land are epic as well. The MacDonalds of Glencoe are world famous as the victims of the tragic, viscious and clumsy attempt to exterminate them in 1692.

But Appin, here by the cottage, is renowed as the home of the Stewart Clan. The Stewarts provided the great line of British Kings and Queens, from Mary Queen of Scots to Queen Anne, to the fated king, Charles 1st.

We've got the romantic Stalker Castle just down the road from our cottage to prove it, the second most photographed castle in Scotland. One of the Scottish Kings, rather a good one, actually, stayed in the castle a few centuries ago.

But we have modern amenities as well. 400 yards away, within walking distance so you don't need to bother how much you drink before going home, is the Holly Tree Hotel. They've put in an indoor swimming pool, which can be used by folks who dine with them. The dining is top class, and you will get change from £10 from their bar meal dishes.

Here is the photograph of the outlook from their dining room and bar window.

We have three dates available for renting the cottage before the Summer holidays being to fill up the place.

The cottage sleeps 4 people, in the 2 bedrooms, has all mod cons, has been fully refurbished in the past two years. We are a tiny bit proud of the job they've done on the new kitchen, and on the new bathroom.

The dates available are 30th May at £395 less the £20 discount for the credit crunch; the 6th June at £450 less the same discount and June 27th at £495 less the same discount.

If you fancy it then look first at the website, check the availability page because the dates do fill up at the last minute and the one you want might not be free.
Lochside cottage near Glencoe in the Highlands of Scotland

John

Here are some other links to local pages of interest, the first being our availability page
Last minute, late availability Glencoe, self catering cottage
Spring breaks, March April May Glencoe
Weather in the mountains of Glencoe
Weather month by month in the area
Skiing in Glencoe
New website to help find holiday accommodation in the West Coast, Oban and Fort William areas
Tourist and visitor information, this is the biggest Glencoe information site, hotel and cottage accommodation
Events in Glencoe Appin Lochaber Oban and Ballachulish
Last minute, short breaks, in Scotland, owners sites direct
Find the best Scottish holiday cottages on the internet
Cut the costs of your holidays

This little post is just to get us listed with Teknorati

If I put this bit of code into the blog then the ranking service Teknorati will list us.
Not very interesting I agree.

Technorati Profile

A few other links to recent new pages in other sites. Will get back to Scotland's Travellers News soon.
John

No Smoking self catering holiday properties Scotland

Smoking allowed in these self catering Scottish holiday properties

Pets Welcome in these Self Catering Scottish holiday properties

Pets not allowed in these self catering Scottish Holiday properties

All the facts you need about Self Catering Scotland

The facts about Scottish rain

How to find your ideal self catering property on the internet

Sorry only one short holiday break left in Glencoe

March 17th until 21st is the only time we can offer for a short Winter break. Don't know what has happened this year. We have been indundated with early bookings - even into October.

Not complaining, it is rather exciting. Thank you everyone.

I want to put in a link to the viking page we've just done on the web site. This is purely for Google to find it more easily.

The Vikings in Glencoe, the Terror, the Glencoe Battle

Here is the page showing our availability for the rest of the year.

Glencoe cottage availability, self catering cottage

John

November is the month for short holiday breaks in Glencoe

We have made some very good friends amongst holiday cottage owners - the smaller ones, not the bigger businesses, and we have all got together on a new Scottish web site. This tells everyone about the special low rates we all offer around now. These other owners have excellent properties in wonderful locations.

The site is at http://www.lastminutecottageholiday.co.uk/
Special offers, self catering,short breaks, off season

We ourselves start to offer shorter breaks in November. We are full up for the first week in November, but for the next five weeks before Christmas we offer short holidays from Friday to Monday or Monday to Friday. If we did it any other way our poor housekeeper would be working at any odd time - Michelle is absolutely wonderful and we try and play fair with her.

You can see our rates and availability here Last minute availability Glencoe

John
ps the colours are splendid in November.

Karin's right. The Scottish people are friendly and kind

Applecross, on their road to Skye. From our friend Colin at http://www.conchra.co.uk/

Dear John,
We really enjoyed our vacation. We found the cottage to be just right and very cosy. It had all that we needed! We were very happy about the rubber boots and the extra rain gear. Sascha and I appreciated the information about the area and the kids appreciated the videos especially Braveheart! I didnt mind it at all. We loved all the lochs and went hiking many times in Glencoe. That is where I ate haggis and I also tried black pudding. That was a surprise because it is spiced with ginger. I really enjoyed it.

We were regulars at the co-op in Ballachulish and also visited the slate museum there. We went also to the Isle of Skye which was very beautiful. We loved the drive up there. We enjoyed driving on the left side of the road as well. It took time to get used to because the gear shift is on the wrong side and I always mistook the first and third gears the first and second day. One time I even drove a few yards on the right side before I noticed what I was doing...it was all fun.

We found the Scottish people to be very friendly and kind. I enjoyed the way they took their time with everything. We drove to Inverness as well and at least I had my first "high tea" in a very lovely tea room there. That was a highlight even for my boys. The older one really enjoyed drinking tea and eating scones! The younger one (10 years) had hot chocolate, but what he found most interesting was to watch the workers make the cakes and scones. That was lovely because all that was served was baked right there in an open kitchen. That was a lovely afternoon.

I took many walks on the path on opposite the house and enjoyed the stillness there.
We tried to leave the cottage in the same condition that we found it. Please let me know if I can help with anymore translating for German tourists.

All the best! Karin

Driving in Scotland is different

Touring Scotland by road the Right way

Touring the small Scottish Highland roads is different

These Scottish roads can be dangerous

Speed camera positions in Scotland

How to avoid speeding tickets in scotland

How to get off Speeding tickets in Scotland

Scottish weather in October November and December

4 Do's and 1 Dont's to find your independent holiday property on the Internet

Our family spotted this hotel beside the Station at Verbier in Switzerland. You could ski straight down to it. "This is the place for us" we said. So we booked it for the following year through an internet agent.

When we arrived, it was the wrong hotel at a different station. Ouch!

The internet sales agency. The first Don't

We made the mistake of booking the hotel through an internet agency, where you book online with the Directory, not the Hotel. Don't do it. They know lttle about the property, you lose contact with the owners, and because the owners pay a hefty commission to the agency, above 30% very often, they load up the charges. You'll generally get it cheaper if you buy direct from the owners. That is the first Don't.

Directories. The first Do, but choose big ones.

Of course you can find a property in a Directory, one which quotes the owner's web site and e-mail address and you then deal direct. Just make sure the Directory is a big one so that there are many properties in the area you search for. The directories charge the owners a fee for listing, but it usually works quite well. You ought to bookmark your short-list otherwise you'll find difficulty in finding them a second time around. That's a Do.

Finding owners' web sites.

Not so easy as it sounds because you have to wade through Google's pages of Directories before you find individual sites. There are about 10,000 holiday properties in Scotland. The moment you Google "self-catering Scotland" you are in trouble. The sites in the first pages are all those by clever professionals who know their way around Google's 200 "web crawlers" which identify the sites they think you will want - using only your search term as a guide. Clever, these directories, with oodles of specialised knowledge - about Google. They know about inbound
links, about keyword emphasis, they know about anchor text and they write their text around the search terms they think you will use. That impresses Google no end.

Do narrow your search

You'll get fewer directories showing up on Google if you narrow the area of your search. You would not find our site if you Googled "Scotland self catering", you would have to search through the first couple of pages if you used "The Highlands" but you would find us on page one if you Google "Glencoe cottage" and its variations.

You could also find us on page one if you Googled, simply, "Lochside cottage". People rarely look past page one - they change their search terms. Well, if you get crowded out with directory sites you may have to go to page four or more to find individual owners' sites.

When to book.

In Scotland, the two most popular areas are Edinburgh, and the Highlands - our area. Properties divide into two, there are the large Victorian houses or other houses with four or five bedrooms. If you are trying to get a property for several families to share there are many opportunities, but don't leave it until late. The best properties in the high season are nearly all booked out. You'll have a problem if your date is fixed. By May all of us at the top end have only a week or two to offer in the Summer. We get one third of our high season bookings about 7 months in the previous year, particularly from returning guests.

Off season, you can try for late bookings. The only exception to this is for Christmas and for New Year. These are premium weeks and will sell out.

Spending Hogmanay in Scotland is a pretty romantic notion for some.

Or, Do use these other two ways to find your ideal holiday property. Google the word "Dmoz" This is the world's largest hand-edited Directory, called the Open Directory. It is not too difficult but a bit laborious to navigate your way through the options to find the property you want anywhere in the world in fact.

The route to find us, for example, is: Recreation/Travel/Europe/United Kingdom/Scotland/Highland/Lochaber/Self catering/then you'll get a good number of properties. If you use the Back button you can find other areas, obviously.

The final sneaky way is to do what 600 people every year do. They go to our own site where we have listed about 25 attractive self-catering properties whose owners we have come to know. They are all over Scotland, and all good properties. Try them
http://www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/holidayhomelinks.html

Good hunting.
John
Lochside cottage near Glencoe in the Highlands of Scotland

Short Breaks Glencoe

Winter breaks in Glencoe
Help for holiday home owners for their Web sites

"You'll not beat this place, Johnnie"

Gllian never calls me Johnnie unless she is happy. New place just opened in Glencoe village street, Carnoch Restaurant. (They do Take-away too – very valuable if you are fed up with cooking for yourselves)

Our meal bill totalled £26 for a Salmon dish of superb quality and beautifully cooked , and Haddock and chips, but with a very light batter, followed by Banana pancakes, and cream, two lattes, two large glasses of wine. The ingredients were of the highest quality and so was the cooking.

The owner’s eye – it makes a big difference
They are lovely people, too, and unlike all the other restaurants in the area, the young owner is out front mixing with the customers. Book 01855 811140

This might not be too fair on David at Crafts and Things across the road. He is always around welcoming people, saying hello, but he does not do full meals.

Our lady at our table was from Glasgow, as you can tell probably from the following exchange.

“Did you take the tip from the change?”
“No, I never touch your money, I’m not married to you.”

For quick with you’ll never beat Glasgow people. I was brought up on it, because I was raised there and am proud if it.

John
www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/appin.html
www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/holidayhomelinks.html
http://holidayhomewebsupport.blogspot.com
www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/touringscotland.html

I might regret saying this - few midges this Summer?

You heard it here first. There will be few midges around this Summer.

Great news. I'm thinking of putting out a press release on this. We are at the cottage now and there are no signs of the dreaded midge. They usually start around May, build up to a ferocious climax in August, and die off in Septemer having feasted on human blood all Summer.

You won't believe the next bit, but I promise you it is true. Although we are on the West Coast with its notorious reputation for midge atrocities, and you can see the human remains from countless bites all around the Glencoe Lochan in the Summer - why do you think they put the Glencoe Hospital there? - we get virtually no midges where we are at the cottage.

We have not had one guest complain about midges here, at this spot. No I can't believe it as I write. Neither Gillian nor I, in all the nineteen years we have been here, have ever complained about the midges. and we are wimps. The first to scurry off to bed if there was any danger of a bloodsucking female around. It is the females who bite. As ever.

Why few midges this year, then?

We now have a comprehensive midge measurement service for the first time in Scotland. In the Spring of last year they were forecasting that midges would be bad in a dry summer. They weren't. they were very light. They know this because there are machines around that kill off midges, and the scientists can collect the remains and get a count.

To their amazement, they collected significantly fewer than the year before.

If we are to get aother long dry hot summer, then starting with a lower population and breeding stock then I think we should get fewer still.

The midge forecasters don't start until this month, so I'm getting my forecast in early.

Nothing like hot news - a scoop in fact.

John

www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk

http://holidayhomewebsupport.blogspot.com

http://www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/glencoewalks.html

http://www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/touringscotland.html

The wrong man was hanged here in 1752

This is the site of the killing of the Red Fox. It is about 200 feet above the curve in the road between Ballachulish Pier and Kentallen. It is actually the ancient road to the South which used to pass in front of our cottage. The victim was carried from here to Ballachulish House where he died from his gunshot wounds.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "Kidnapped" based upon a true tale of the Highlands. His uncle built the Corran Ferry so he knew our area well. In the story, a lad was accused of killing a local "factor" - the man who collects the rents in the Highlands. He was chased and harried all over the country to Edinburgh, but they hanged the wrong man, his 52 year old cousin, for the murder.

The victim was a Campbell - always they seem to feature in these atrocities, the Campbells. This one was very unpopular with the Stewarts of Appin because he was a bit tough on them. He had plans to clear out a lot of the Stewart families from their lands. These are the lands around our cottage, including Ardsheal across the water from our lounge. 1752 was the year exactly 70 years after the Massacre of Glencoe.

This chap Colin Campbell, The “Red Fox” was having a drink in Inshaig the old pub in Duror with James Stewart, known as James of the Glens. James was arrested, and taken to Inverary for trial. It was rigged, James was hanged on a rock above to-days Ballachulish Hotel and beside the bridge. You can see the rock there if you look. His bones were tied together and left there as a warning to others.

Friends later cut them down and buried them at Keill Graveyard near Duror just off the road to Oban two miles to the South of us.

Gillian and I made a serious effort a few years ago to find the graveyard. It was ruined, very overgrown and based in the middle of farmyard buildings. We found it but it took a bit of doing.

There is a big row going on in the local papers now about how it has become even more difficult to find because the farmer has locked gates and hampered access. We hope it gets opened up properly, it is a national treasure this site.

John

ps The weather has been unbelieveable up here. Who says it rains in Scotland?

www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/glencoenews1.html

www.holidayhomewebsupport.blogspot.com

www.bayviewkentallen.co.uk/glencoespringtime.html