I have learned to dry my hair without the aid of a mirror and to apply makeup with only the light from a window 10 feet away. It is an amazingly difficult thing to find a hotel or B&B room with these amenities, it seems. However we have still very much enjoyed most of the places we have stayed this trip. Perhaps our favourite, though, was the Ben Loyal Hotel in Tongue, on the west coast of the Northern Highlands in Scotland. It was not a fancy place by any means but our room was freshly painted and pleasantly decorated and had small amenities, including a dressing table with natural light only a couple of feet away.

But perhaps the thing we most appreciated was the very simple shower. It has come to our notice over our 40+ years of travel that no two showers are the same if you don’t count showers in the same hotel. Every hotel has it’s own way of expressing how the thing we call a shower is manifested. But the Ben Loyal has the simplest one we’d ever seen. You press a button to start and again to stop. That’s all. The heat temp was pre-set perfectly. It was a joy to not have to use the grey matter first thing in the morning to figure out how to run the shower.

The staff at Ben Loyal was very accommodating and friendly, the food was good, the desserts delicious, but the very best feature of all was the nearly 180 degree view from our room windows and from the dining and living room windows. It was such a good stay I really didn’t want to leave. That only occasionally happens to me, so well done Ben Loyal Hotel. Feast your eyes…

The above photos should be seen side by side but WordPress won’t let me do that. They are the full 180 degree view we could see from our window and from the dining room at Ben Loyal.

These above photos are of the hike we made to the castle ruins ‘across the way’ from our hotel. Gorgeous walk, a shame about the biting flies!!! The last photo shows the view from the top back at our hotel.
And finally I must share with you some of the delicious food… Aren’t I always looking after you?

One of the local delicacies are langoustines, a cross between prawns and crayfish or lobster. The other delight was homemade lemon drizzle cake in custard. Well done, I say again.