Brodick

The Isle of Arran presents a pretty simple layout for visitors: a road that runs essentially around the coastline and another that goes up and over the mountainous center. The town of Brodick sits in an indentation in the eastern (more sheltered) coast, facing Ardrossan across the firth.

We chose to stay in a B+B (left red dot) about a mile north of the center of town (right red dot), along the perimeter road.

While at one time the island, like a lot of Scotland, produced very high quality wool for export, currently its economy is driven mostly by tourism. This means that the population varies seasonally, often tripling in the summer. We were not lonely in July. Though there is pretty regular bus service around the island, we opted most of the time to simply walk into town. Our B+B sat directly across the road from the first green of the local links golf course. In the view below the greenskeeper is mowing early in the day.

The course stretched in a casual fashion about halfway back to the center of town; so a few times we walked through the course on our way back and forth. Here’s a view of the B+B from the first green.

More about the golf later. The town of Brodick presents an unpretentious collection of buildings and businesses to the highway. There are lots of family-oriented eateries (we had ok Thai food one night), putt-putt golf, souvenir shops and other vacation oriented activities, all clustered along the road with houses on small streets climbing up the hill behind.

In our walks we did come across a ‘resort’ hotel tucked in behind the residential neighborhoods. It offered a higher level of entertainment and dining but also charged $350-400 a night. Nice looking place and grounds.

How a place like this makes it through the off season is a mystery. We sampled a nearby restaurant that had been created from an older estate. It also sat a bit off the beaten track but seemed to cater to more local clientele.

Some outrageous landscaping framed the approach driveway. Looked as if it belonged in Hawaii.

I’m not sure if the house included this greenhouse or if it was added when it became a restaurant; but it gave us a very congenial setting for dinner, especially with the geraniums hanging everywhere.

In our few days in Brodick we learned that the weather pulses across the island in a fairly regular way. Almost every day included some really comfortable, sunny weather interrupted by a dash of rain that would suddenly appear and then disappear. This pattern creates some dramatic skyscapes that became companions to our activities.

No one appears to pay much attention to what we saw as drama. Everyone just takes it for granted. One day we saw a women’s golf tournament starting out into one of these daily showers with everyone in slickers and under umbrellas. When we got back from our excursion a couple hours later the sun was out, the women were finishing up, life was good.