On the Road with Anna Campbell 2019 - Episode 4

It doesn't seem possible but we're at the end of another four-month adventure with that fabulous globetrotter, Anna Campbell. Many thanks to Anna for taking us along on her journeys and offering up giveaways at each stop. I'm so excited for this fall when I'll have a chance to be in some of her travel photos with her! 

Well, that went fast! There’s only a week or so of my trip left. I can hardly believe it. Off to Paris at the end of next week to attend the Festival du Roman Feminin (https://tinyurl.com/yy5x5ae6) and then it’s the long journey home to Australia. I’ve had the most wonderful time and thank you to all of you for coming on the voyage with me. And an especially huge thank you to PJ for letting me share some of my travels with you all.  

The last month has been a bit chaotic, frankly! I had a new book out and handling the launch while I was moving around so much has been a challenge. But now my Highlander is safely out in the world and I’ve been with some old friends for nearly two weeks so things have settled down just a little.

We finished last month’s adventures with me on the beautiful island of Eigg in the inner Hebrides, just south of the Isle of Skye. Lots of lovely sunsets! Here’s the link if you missed it: http://www.theromancedish.com/2019/04/on-road-with-anna-campbell-2019-episode.html 

There are four islands in this spectacular group. I’d been to Muck and Rum but I’d never been to Canna. So purely in the interests of completing the set, I booked 4 days on Canna after I finished up on Eigg.

Well, what a gorgeous surprise! Canna is a tiny island owned by the National Trust. Only 17 people live there, although it offers one of the few reliably sheltered anchorages on this part of the coast, so the yachties tend to come and go, augmenting the population quite considerably. It’s less rugged than either Eigg or Rum and much more fertile so I found myself floating in a sea of lush green grass with baby lambs gamboling around me. And there were bluebells everywhere. I love bluebells! As you can see from the photos – I could have filled the whole page with blue, frankly!

There’s a lovely café that offers wonderful gourmet meals (and a nice wee dram to finish the day with as you watch the light fade over the water!) and my guesthouse was a gorgeous arts and crafts house with views down over the anchorage toward the isle of Sanday just across the way with Rum in the distance. The picture with the bluebell path winding up to the white house in the wood gives you a glimpse of Tighard (pronounced tie-ard), this magical place to stay.

The small gravestone in the bluebell wood belongs to the last laird of the island, John Lorne Campbell (no relation!), who was a famous collector of folklore and who donated the island to the National Trust. What a perfect resting place!

Four days wasn’t nearly enough on Canna – the wonderful weather didn’t hurt, believe me! I’ve booked to go back there for three weeks next year to do some writing. Can’t wait.

Since then I’ve been moving around a bit. I had my long trip south which always makes me sad and then I had a riotous reunion with a couple of the Romance Bandits. For those who don’t know, I used to be part of a blog made up of some of the 2006 Golden Heart finalists. While the blog has folded, the friendships haven’t, so it was wonderful to catch up with writers Nancy Northcott (https://www.nancynorthcott.com/) and Anna Sugden (https://www.annasugden.com/), who lives in Cambridge. Don’t we all look happy together in the photo of the three of us? Nancy is the tall girl with the floral jacket in the middle. The photo of me chatting up a Chinese warrior was taken at Buscot Park in Oxfordshire. It was a bit of a shock running into the terracotta warriors in the middle of a rainy English spring!

My next port of call was a catch-up with brilliant historical writer Nicola Cornick (https://www.nicolacornick.co.uk/). We’ve been friends since my visit to the UK in 2004 and when we get together, we never shut up! This time we weren’t shutting up at beautiful Buscot Park, the home of Lord Faringdon (and the location of those terracotta warriors!). It’s a beautiful house with beautiful gardens, even if the weather wasn’t kind to us that day. But the best bit was the room with all Edward Burne-Jones’s Briar Rose paintings ranged around the walls. Breathtaking. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but if you’d like to see this gorgeous space, check out this video: https://www.tatler.com/article/helen-rosslyn-buscot-park-briar-rose-burne-jones

Since then I’ve been catching up with more old friends and drinking lots of tea! But I wanted to finish with a real treasure of a place, Deene Park in Northamptonshire in the Midlands. This spectacular Jacobean manor with Georgian additions was the home of the man who led the famous Charge of the Light Brigade and is full of memorabilia of the Earl of Cardigan and his scandalous second wife (who once lived openly with him as his mistress!). As you know, I love a bit of shame and scandal in the upper classes so I soaked up the stories of all the naughty nooky in society’s top echelons. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the house, but I went absolutely wild in the beautiful gardens. The sunny day helped too!

Because this is the last of the current series of On the Road with Anna Campbell, this month’s giveaway offers the people who comment on this post TWO chances to win my latest book The Highlander’s Lost Lady. No geographical restrictions.

With all this travel, my To Be Read pile has sunk perilously low. So I’m looking for recommendations. What’s the last great book you read? For me, it was Ruining Miss Wrotham by that wonderful historical romance writer Emily Larkin. If you haven’t read her Baleful Godmother series, you’re missing out on a huge amount of fun. Good luck!

  

On the Road with Anna Campbell: 2019 - Episode 3

It's that time of month again! Anna Campbell is back for episode three of her exciting four month journey. So far, we've enjoyed the beauty of Italy and Ireland. I can't wait to discover what's next. I don't know about you but after tagging along with Anna via her words and photos, I'm ready to book a trip across the pond right now. Welcome back, Anna!

On the Road with Anna: 2019 - Episode 3

by Anna Campbell

So where has our intrepid heroine been over the last month? The sad, but true answer is that she’s mainly been poring over printouts or her computer as she got the final version of The Highlander’s Lost Lady ready for its release. On the upside, she’s had her head down in very picturesque places!

Let’s start with a show and tell for the historical romance fans out there. When I was in Ireland at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, I took this picture of heather. In Scottish-set historicals, you’ll often see a description of hills covered in heather. This lovely flower is what they’re talking about.

I finished up my month-long stay at the TGC at the beginning of April. If you read last month’s post (http://www.theromancedish.com/2019/03/on-road-with-anna-campbell-2019-episode.html), you’ll know I was having a lovely time writing at a beautiful country estate in Ireland. I’m including some pictures of the lake at the bottom of the garden at different times of day.

My next stop was a very quick visit to the Isle of Bute near Glasgow. I was there for only two nights, mainly to see the magnificent Victorian mansion Mount Stuart. Rothesay, the island’s capital, is a charming if faded Victorian resort. The UK abounds in places like this, once bustling with thousands of visitors from Britain’s industrial cities who were seeking sea air and a bit of fun. These days, most of those visitors chase the sun in places like Spain. The resorts are left with often very pretty promenades, a lot of empty shops, and large hotels that you can generally stay in for a song. This photo was taken from my room – as you can see, I had a lovely view across the old-fashioned seafront back toward the mainland. There’s a very particular, melancholy but romantic atmosphere in places like this. I always enjoy visiting them.

I’d finagled my way into a private tour of Mount Stuart, the magnificent Victorian mansion which was the home of the Marquis of Bute, one of the richest men in the world in the late 19^th century. If possible when I go to old houses, I love to have someone showing me around because you get the stories about the families who lived there. Those stories are gold for someone writing historical romance, as you can imagine.

For all its luxury, Mount Stuart was actually quite a cozy place. Look at those pictures of the reception rooms. You can definitely imagine curling up on those sofas with a good book, can’t you? The house is a piece of fantasy – part medieval castle, part Venetian palazzo, all in beautiful grounds sloping down to the Clyde estuary. Even better, when I was there, there were 200,000 daffodils in the garden. Amazing. 

The house was full of mod cons à la 1880, including under-floor heating, electric lighting, a heated swimming pool, saunas, and surround showers, not to mention a secret passage leading from the library up to the billiard room. One of the glories of the place was the extravagant stained glass. You can see some examples in the photos.

The Marquis was a devout Catholic convert so there is both a beautiful white marble chapel and a rather spooky private chapel based on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

If you’d like to know more about Mount Stuart or even if you’re thinking of visiting (highly recommended), here’s the website: https://www.mountstuart.com/

I left Bute for the long, but spectacular trip along the Road to the Isles to the Isle of Eigg. Those of you who read last year’s On the Road posts will remember the spectacular small island just south of the Isle of Skye where I did a whole lot of writing. Well, this year I did a whole lot of editing! But the view from my B&B remains spectacular and Laig Beach just down the hill is still one of my favorite places in the world.

I’m going to finish up with some pictures of Rum just across the channel from Eigg in changing light. As you can see, the sunsets are A-MAZ-ING!!!

I’ve got another week here before I head over to another small island called Canna which belongs to the National Trust. Make sure you check back next month to see the photos from there. After that, I’m heading south to see some friends in England and hopefully a few more old houses. Hard to believe I’ve only got a little more than a month to go on my huge trip!

I’ve got a giveaway this month, a download of my new story THE HIGHLANDER’S LOST LADY, which is out 29^th April. No geographical restrictions. Just leave a comment on this blog to be in the draw.

I’ve told you about one of my favorite places in the world. What’s yours? See you next month!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Highlander's Lost Lady
by Anna Campbell
The Lairds Most Likely - Book 3
305 pages
Release Date: April 29, 2019

A Highlander as brave and strong as a knight of old…
When Diarmid Mactavish, Laird of Invertavey, discovers a mysterious woman washed up on his land after a wild storm, he takes her in and tries to find her family. But even as forbidden dreams of sensual fulfillment torment him, he’s convinced that this beautiful lassie isn’t what she seems. And if there’s one thing Diarmid despises, it’s a liar. 

A mother willing to do anything to save her daughter…

Widow Fiona Grant has risked everything to break free of her clan and rescue her adolescent daughter from a forced marriage. But before her quest has barely begun, disaster strikes. She escapes her brutish kinsmen, only to be shipwrecked on Mactavish territory where she falls into her enemies’ hands. For centuries, a murderous feud has raged between the Mactavishes and the Grants, so how can she trust her darkly handsome host? 

On the Road with Anna Campbell: 2019 - Episode 2

Hi PJ! Hi Romance Dishers!

Back for another episode of On the Road with Anna Campbell. We last left our intrepid heroine halfway through her three weeks in Venice (you can read my first OTR post for 2019 here: https://www.theromancedish.com/2019/02/ ).

Our intrepid heroine was actually a bit of a naughty girl for those last 10 days or so in Italy. She was in town supposedly to edit The Highlander’s Lost Lady which is out at the end of April. But with the lure of so many beautiful places outside, she ended up being out more often than she was in. On the upside, she got some very nice photos!

As you can see, the weather continued glorious. It was even warm enough to sit outside and eat in the open air, which I certainly hadn’t expected to do in February. I walked for miles and got lost over and over. As PJ will tell you, that’s part of the fun of being in Venice.

I did a couple of museums, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/collections/index.html )which is full of wonderful modern art, and the Ca D’Oro (http://www.cadoro.org/?lang=en) which is full of medieval and renaissance pieces in the most spectacular palazzo. The picture of the Grand Canal from the colonnaded landing was taken from there.

I also caught up with a couple of friends and had a (very short) gondola ride across the Grand Canal. One of the highlights was a visit to the terrace of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (https://www.dfs.com/en/venice/t-fondaco-rooftop-terrace)  with its panoramic views right across La Serenissima. You really do feel on top of the world there. If you’re planning a trip to Venice, I’d highly recommend doing this. It’s free but you have to book – they only give you 15 minutes up there!

The two pictures with the one of me in the gondola are from my last day in this beautiful city and are in the way of a promise to myself that I’ll get back there before too long. I shouted myself a rather extravagant lunch at a beautiful restaurant called Algiubaggio di Antonello. The moody picture next to it was my last shot from my last walk around the canals.

Venice continued to come up trumps for me the next day when I scored an upgrade on both legs of my flight to Dublin. This was just a quick visit to the fascinating capital of Ireland – I did a tour of Kilmainham Jail (http://kilmainhamgaolmuseum.ie/ )which has a tragic and dramatic history of convicts transported to Australia and the imprisonment of the heroes of the 1916 uprising, had a haircut, and did a lovely drive with a friend of mine, romance writer Abby Green (https://abby-green.com/), along the gorgeous sea coast not far from the city. The photo at the top of this column gives you an idea of both the scenery and the new coiffure!

Since then I’ve been settled in the lap of luxury at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (http://www.tyroneguthrie.ie/) in Annaghmakerrig in Country Monaghan, up near the Northern Irish border. Because of my lack of achievement in Venice, I’ve had my head down but not so down that I haven’t taken a few nice photos in this gorgeous environment.

Tyrone Guthrie was an internationally renowned director, producer and writer from the 1920s through to the 1960s. After his death, he bequeathed his beautiful family estate to the Irish nation as a retreat for artists. I’ve been meeting the most amazing people here, painters and dancers and theatre types, and a whole stack of writers. Ireland seems to grow writers the way my lawn grows dandelions! I feel very lucky to be here.

I’m in the late Lady Guthrie’s room – which is definitely feeding into my fantasies of being the lady of the manor! Look at that lovely view from my desk out over the lake. If you look at the photo of the house, my room is upstairs on the far right-hand side above the main entrance. Very la-di-dah! The other pictures are from my walks along the lake where I go when I need to clear my head after spending all that time steaming up Scotland with my hero and heroine!

Check back next month for the next lot of adventures. I’ve got another two weeks here in Ireland, then I’m heading to Scotland. I’m visiting a new island, Bute, and also returning to the beautiful Isle of Eigg which many of you will remember from last year’s posts.

I’m finishing up with a photo that makes me smile. The day I went to Peggy Guggenheim, I walked for miles. It turns out Google maps are unreliable (to say the least!) amidst the twists and turns of Venice. Starving and dead tired, I stumbled into a restaurant called the Trattoria ai Cugnai. Very old and atmospheric and traditional, as you can see. And it turns out, the gondoliers’ choice for where to have lunch. I suspected I was in good hands—and I was.

I’ve got a download of the bestselling boxed set of my Dashing Widows stories to go to someone today. 

No geographical restrictions. Tell me about your favorite restaurant/café to be in the draw. Good luck and see you next month!

On the Road with Anna Campbell: 2019 - Episode 1

Hi Everyone! PJ, here. Are you ready for an adventure? Our favorite romance author / world traveler is on the go again and taking all of us along. Anna Campbell will be joining us at the end of February, March, April, and May to share her journey through France, Italy, Ireland, Scotland and England. I hope you're as excited as I am. Welcome back, Anna!

Hi PJ! Hi Romance Dish girls!

Lovely to be back here talking travel again. I had such a good time last year when I talked about my travels around Europe. I’m away for four months in total—a lot of that is writing time, but writing time still leaves space for sightseeing. This trip, I’m doing Paris, Venice, Ireland, Scotland and England. No exotic Balkan destinations like Slovenia or Croatia this time around! But I’ll still have lots of photos to show you and lots of places to tell you about.

As I write this, it’s midday and I’m sitting in my apartment in a very cold and foggy Venice. It’s 3 degrees C outside (37F). I haven’t yet ventured out, although I will later. The plan while I’m here is to edit The Highlander’s Lost Lady (The Lairds Most Likely Book 3) which is out at the end of April. It’s a nice excuse to stay home in the warm!

I left Australia two weeks ago to fly into Paris, where I had a lovely week mainly pottering around the Louvre Museum and getting over my jetlag – oh, and eating lots of croissants! I’ve learned with big art galleries like the Louvre, the best way to do them is to arrive with no expectations of covering a lot of ground, take my time, and concentrate on small bites.

Mary Magdalene by Quentin Metsys, The Annunciation by Rogier Van Der Weyden (detail), The Adoration of the Magi by Ulrich Apt the Elder

As you can probably tell from the pictures here, I mainly hung around 15^th, 16^th and 17^th century Northern European paintings. There are worse places to go to get over a flight from Australia!

I also went to the ballet twice. The weather outside was frightful and Palais Garnier, the elaborate 19^th century opera house near where I was staying, was delightful! Get a load of that Chagall ceiling! The dance works were all cutting edge modern, which I enjoyed, although there’s something about that setting that cries out for tutus and blokes in tights.

After a week in Paris, I moved on to 19 days in Venice. I’ve been to Venice twice before, in 1985 and in 1995, so it’s nearly 25 years since my last drinks on the Rialto. Too long when I love it so much. I don’t drive, so there’s something particularly friendly to me about a place where nobody else does either, unless it’s a motorboat or a gondola.

Something I’d forgotten about Venice is how beautiful and clear the light is. I hadn’t forgotten how ridiculously photogenic it is. So far, the main change I’ve noticed is how many people are around. It’s Carnevale here, and I got caught up in huge crowds on Sunday when I went out. People were dressed up in all sorts of costumes, mainly 18^th century, but there were quite a few aliens in the mix. Lots of beautiful masks, too.

I’m a week into my stay and so far, I’ve done a lot of editing and a lot of walking around, particularly in the quieter parts of town. I’m finding it’s difficult to take a bad photo here – there’s something about water and old buildings and that high clear, blue sky that makes for a great composition.

I’ll finish on a lovely, although sad romantic legend. On one of my walks around the area I’m staying, Canareggio, I saw this intriguing sculpture of a camel and a young handler in Turkish costume on the side of a rather run-down palazzo (run-down palazzos aren’t exactly thin on the ground here!). I went back to my apartment and looked the house up on Google. It turns out it’s unofficially called the House of the Camel and the legend is that it was built by an exiled Moorish merchant who told his lady love that when she made it to Venice, just ask for the House of the Camel and she’d find him. Sadly, she never turned up. Sob.

That’s the trouble with legends! No guaranteed happy endings. Believe me, if I was in charge, that Camel House would have seen a wedding before it was done!

My next post will be about Ireland where I haven’t been since 1986! I’m definitely travelling down memory lane this trip. See you in March!

And just to confuse things further, how about a Scottish book as a giveaway? Someone who leaves a comment here goes into the draw to win a download of the first of my Lairds Most Likely books, The Laird’s Willful Lass. No geographical restrictions. Just tell me what legend or fairy story you think is the most romantic and why. Good luck!

Deadline for comments to be entered into the giveaway is 11:00 PM, March 2.

For more photos from Anna's travels, visit her on Facebook. 

For more information about her books, visit Anna's website. 

On the Road with Anna Campbell

On the Road with Anna Campbell - - Episode 4


Cheers to you, PJ and your fellow Romance Dish peeps!

I can hardly believe that this is my last On the Road with Anna Campbell – at least for this year’s trip. I’m currently tucked up snugly with some friends in the UK where it’s raining and we’re wondering if we’ll risk going to see a walled garden this afternoon. 

I fly home in a couple of days with so many wonderful memories of my adventures. And it’s been such a pleasure sharing them all with you here.

Life has become a little more exotic since we last spoke from lovely Poolewe in far northern Scotland. I’ve had a couple of weeks in the Balkans, visiting four different countries in the former Yugoslavia. I took so many photos – if you’d like to see more of this beautiful part of the world, please check out my Facebook page: https://tinyurl.com/y9btmv4p

First up was beautiful Slovenia where in between playing tourist, I did a big signing at Felix Bookstore in the middle of Ljubljana, the capital. The readers there are so generous and enthusiastic, I felt like a rock star. Many of the people in the audience came from several hours away. Thanks to my publisher in Slovenia, Učila International, and Publishing Director Mojca  Benedičič, and all the lovely people who showed up to turn the evening into a party.

Outside the signing, I got a little bit of time to play tourist. Slovenia is tucked up under the Alps so the scenery is like The Sound of Music, the air is like crystal, and the water is like champagne. Ljubljana is a gorgeous city full of magnificent Art Nouveau buildings. It's a lovely place to sit beside the river and watch the world go by while enjoying a drink or two.

The dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana and in the castle, which has been used for Game of Thrones filming, there were these fun dragon wings for people to pose with. Don't be too afraid – I'm a reasonably tame dragon lady! You're only at risk of being lightly singed!

From Slovenia I traveled via Zagreb to the gorgeous Croatian town of Trogir, which is like a mini Venice. A friend and I were joining an eight-day tour of the Dalmatian Coast which ended up being full of lovely surprises, too. I took a million photos but I've restricted myself to some from the beautiful island of Korcula which is another mini Venice. That palazzo-looking place in the collage IS a palazzo and was also our hotel. I was definitely leading the high life during those few days!

From Korcula, we visited Kotor in Montenegro – the picture at the top of the blog of me looking very happy with a glass of wine comes from dinner that night. Then we ended our week with a couple of days in beautiful Dubrovnik. Another Game of Thrones location – GoT followed us most of the way along this coast. I'm not surprised film crews gravitate to this area – it's all so darn photogenic!

After the tour finished, I stayed another two nights in Dubrovnik and used my spare day to visit Bosnia – see what I mean about lots of countries! Brave souls jump from the famous Ottoman bridge in Mostar into the cold water below – I spent a lot of my time on the Adriatic coast wishing I'd brought my swimming costume. I didn't that day! The water is apparently freezing in the river flowing under the bridge.

I'm already planning next year's jaunt! This trip I'm just finishing has been amazing – and even better, I'm going home with a lot of pages written as well. Win win!

So are you a water baby? Do you like to swim? Where is your favorite swimming place, if you do? I'm actually better in the water than I am on land – I don't know what that says about me. I'm definitely bringing the swimmers next time I'm over this way!

I've got 2 Kindle downloads to give away – your choice of Lord Garson's Bride or The Dashing Widows boxed set. No geographical restrictions. Just leave a comment on this blog to be eligible to go into the draw. Good luck! (Winners will be chosen from all comments posted before 11:00 PM, May 31, 2018)

And thank you to all of you who have come on this voyage of discovery with me over the last four months!


Thank you, Anna for taking us along on this journey and giving us the opportunity to experience all the wonders of your discoveries through your beautiful photos and words, both here and at Facebook. I can't wait to "travel" with you next year! 

On the Road with Anna Campbell

On the Road with Anna Campbell - - Episode 3

Greetings from Bonny Scotland, PJ and Romance Dish Fans!

Like last month’s post from France, this is another two-location effort. I’ve been writing up a storm – actually given what the weather is like, that’s probably true! I haven’t had a lot of blue-sky days since I arrived although at least there have been some patches of lovely weather.

I’m working on a new series called The Lairds Most Likely. The original plan was four novellas – three regular stories and a Christmas special. But story one, The Laird’s Willful Lass, just grew like Topsy and ended up becoming a full-length book. So the new plan is three full-length stories and a Christmas novella which I’m currently writing. Seems odd to be thinking about mistletoe and mince pies in April, but that’s the writer’s life.

This month I’m talking about two places I visited in order to write, both spectacularly beautiful, so while there hasn’t been a lot of outdoor action to report, I managed to get some lovely photographs that I hope will make up for my dedication to my art!

People who follow me on Facebook will know last year I spent three and a half weeks on Eigg, a glorious speck just south of the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides. It’s a small island with a big personality and views so beautiful, they make you want to weep. Last year’s visit was in the way of an experiment to see if I’d settle down to work on a self-guided writing retreat or whether I’d be too keen to get out and see things. The experiment worked (Catching Captain Nash and half of The Christmas Stranger were the result) so I decided to do it all again. This year I didn’t go far afield at all which is why nearly all the photos are variations on the same view. Mind you, it’s some view!

As you can see the prospect from the guesthouse where I stayed was utterly amazing, especially at sunset when the sun sank gracefully behind the mountainous island of Rum across the channel. Below the guesthouse, there was a beautiful beach where I walked most days, weather permitting. The view from Laig Beach was even more spectacular than the one from up the hill. At low tide, you caught the reflections of Rum on the wet sand, and if you looked to the right, you saw the Black Cuillins on the Isle of Sky, still covered with snow. My hero in Willful Lass owns a castle with a view across to Skye (a little bit further north along the coast than Eigg) so this felt like a good omen for the new series!

I then headed north to catch up with some friends. On the way, it was such a thrill to pass romantic and spectacular Eilean Donan Castle near Kyle of Lochalsh. I saw a statistic somewhere that this is the world’s most photographed castle. The day we were there, you certainly couldn’t move without tripping over tripods!

I’m currently tucked up in another very nice B&B at Poolewe which is a new place to me. It’s right up north, just south of Ullapool, and the nearest town of any size is Gairloch from which you can see the north end of Skye (another omen?). It’s been lovely playing tourist in my friends’ car over the last few days before I settle back to finish the Christmas novella.

Although Poolewe is a tiny village in an isolated location, it has a couple of claims to fame. It was a top secret naval base and site for agent training in World War II, and the Allies sent supplies to Russia from here to keep the second front going (the casualty rates were appalling – there are a number of sad monuments around the village to the brave men who died in the campaign).

Poolewe is also the site of world-famous Inverewe Gardens (https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/inverewe) which I visited two days ago and hope to go back to often. Because the Gulf Stream flows along the coast, this part of Scotland is surprisingly warm, so some unexpected plants grow here, including palm trees and eucalypts from my homeland. The gardens have been here since the mid-19th century, so there are magnificent old magnolias and rhododendrons, not to mention towering redwoods. It was wonderful to see the gardens in spring with the daffodils and other spring flowers scattered through the beautiful woodlands.

The last pictures were taken from Gairloch where I had dinner last night. One of the lovely things about the west coast of Scotland is that you’re never short of a memorable sunset! In the distance in the sunset pictures, you’ll see some low hills. That’s Skye. In between is a photo of a beautiful little secret bay at the head of Loch Maree off the road south from Poolewe. Such an atmospheric place!

See you next month when things get very exotic. After Scotland, I’m heading for Slovenia and Croatia, so there should be lots of Eastern European charm in the next post.

Are you a gardener? I must say I like LOOKING at gardens but I’m hopeless when it comes to growing one. Do you have a favorite style of garden? A favorite plant or flower? In honor of the magnificent Inverewe Gardens, let’s talk greenery!

I’ve got 2 Kindle downloads of the boxed set of the Dashing Widows to give away today (if you’ve already got that, you can choose a Kindle download of Lord Garson’s Bride instead) to someone who comments. No geographical restrictions. Good luck!

I can certainly see why Scotland inspires you, Anna. What glorious photos! Thank you so much for taking us along with you.

Readers, for more photos from Anna's travels, visit her Facebook page.