And so, we saved one of our favorite places in the world for last on this journey.
Welcome to Ardanaiseig Hotel on the banks of Loch Awe. We have stayed in this area every time we’ve been to Scotland and can honestly say we look forward to the calm, the wandering, the amazing food, and the fantastic staff! We’ve even brought University students here to recover from their jet lag before setting them to work on projects.
To find this hidden gem, you turn off the busy A85 at Taynuilt and head down the single-track B845 until you reach Kilchrenan. Hang a left at the Inn and go past it down another, even more narrow single-track road. And yes, you could meet a lorry at any time since there is a fishery down this road as well, so keep alert, and watch for stags and other wildlife. You just never know what you might see in this wild, gorgeous landscape. About 20 minutes since you left the busy road you’ll come upon the old gatekeeper’s cottage, Rose Cottage. Keep going, pass through the gate, and onto Ardanaiseig’s grounds.
Need a visual? Watch the video. Sorry about the dirty windshield, we’re not exactly video experts. Perhaps there’s a GoPro in our future. It may take a few minutes to load.
Once you pull up to the (19th century!) manor house, the staff will diligently descend upon you, help you with your things and get you checked in. You’ll be in your room before you’ve even had a chance to marvel at the entryway, so come back and marvel later at the grandeur and intricate detail.
There are three different options for your stay here. The first is in the manor house itself. There are 16 rooms and suites of various sizes and views on two different levels, and all are named for a location or feature in the local landscape. On this trip, we stayed in the house, on the second floor, in the Kilchurn Suite (Kilchurn is the local castle ruins on Loch Awe). It’s blue and purple, boasts a SUPER king four-poster bed (glorious!), has a view of the loch, and is right above the kitchen, so you have amazing smells wafting your way morning and night. There is ample space in this room, a huge wardrobe, desk, bench, two sitting areas, and a TV that we never touched. Why would you!? The bathroom has a huge soaking tub with shower, a massive window (and shade), and a complete novelty in Scotland – tons of counter space! Typically, we don’t spend much time in our room on a trip, but this one had us finding excuses to work a little, make tea, take a nap, stare out the windows and sleep in a bit each morning. It was lovely.
Your second option is the boathouse, which is a short walk or drive to the manor house from closer to the loch. We’ve stayed here, too, and can confirm it has an amazing view of the loch and mountains to the South and East which you can take in from anywhere in the house via the loch-facing wall that’s all glass (remember this if you aren’t a fan of being fully clothed) or on the deck. Its location away from the main house keeps it super quiet and secluded. It has a kitchenette, dining area, sitting area, and lofted king bedroom that gets the first glimpses of the sunrise over the mountains each morning – a completely different vibe from the house, much more modern.
On our first stay, we were at Rose Cottage – the gatekeeper’s cottage at the top of the drive and your third option at Ardanaiseig. This was when we renewed our vows on the grounds, so it was nice to have a space completely to ourselves. This was also the time our luggage was lost for our entire two-week trip (except for my dress in my carryon – whew!), and as this is the only room with a washer/dryer, we finally got to wash our clothes properly after a week. Rose Cottage is a complete house with separate rooms: full kitchen/dining, living room, bathroom/laundry, and mud room on the first floor, plus two bedrooms upstairs. It is a bit of a hike down to the main house if you want to visit or eat at the restaurant, but it’s a beautiful walk, especially in the Spring when all the rhododendrons and azaleas are in bloom. Be sure to wave hello to the deer on your walk down to breakfast. We walked down many times in the rain, even then it was beautiful.
All this goes to say, you have lots of options and the owners and staff go above and beyond to make sure you enjoy yourself no matter where you stay.
Keep in mind this is a 19th century manner house, meaning the main house is well over 100 years old. That said, the house has been well maintained, so many of the things we often expect in hotels are there. Still, don’t walk in here expecting a pristine, brand new, modern hotel. It’s so much better than that! The house was built in 1834 by James Archibald Campbell (yes, those Campbells of Inverary Castle) and was originally known as New Inverawe. Once the Campbells sold the house and grounds in 1880, the deed required the name to be changed as it passed to a new owner, and Ardanaiseig was born, first as a private home and later converted to a hotel opening in 1980. It has tons of eclectic charm, creaks and moans, history, beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the loch, intricately carved fireplaces, and is full of antiques furnished by the present owner, an antiques dealer. All that’s to say, expect a unique view around every corner and you won’t be disappointed. Many of the antiques have fun stories that you can read about or ask the staff about. Be sure to ask about the giant painting in the Restaurant – the story is interesting. There are four main public rooms: the ballroom/drawing-room, the library/bar, the entry, and the restaurant. On this trip we spent a couple of afternoons in the drawing-room writing and editing with a tea tray, staring out the huge windows at the loch. It was so nice! I didn’t even mind getting a little work done.
We spent much of our time wandering the grounds on this trip. We had three full days to relax, so we struck out to discover all the new paths that had been uncovered in the gardens and parkland. Their gardener has done extensive clearing work in the past two years and has uncovered and created so many things to discover! We seriously lost track of the number of new paths that had been created and uncovered. Each one felt like you were stumbling upon something old and forgotten. New to us was the dry dock, old rail lines (that they think were used to move building supplies from the loch to the house location), a swamp of invasive Skunk Cabbage, the clay shooting grounds, two dilapidated docks along the shores of the loch, a wedding venue, and what felt like miles of pathways. I was very excited to find the first of the flowering rhododendrons for the season that had been planted beginning in 1916, admired the daffodils popping up everywhere, and had fun finding all the newly created wooden statues, bridges, arches, and games throughout.
Other things to find are the old tennis court, the graveyard, the chicken house, a walled garden, a forest of tall mossy trees, an amphitheater, a tree stand, and when you think you’ve found it all, you haven’t. I just couldn’t believe how much it had changed and how much work they have done to uncover the neglected past since our last visit. Outstanding! The gardens are a true marvel.
You have a couple of options when it comes to meals here. For your evening meal, you can eat in their fabulous, award-winning restaurant. Take it from us, their food is second to none and you won’t be disappointed. But, if you need a change of scenery and have a car, you can pop down to the local pub for a bite at Kilchrenan Inn (remember where you made that left turn on the way in?). They have fabulous food and a much lighter atmosphere. Parking can be a bit tricky if they’re busy, but there is also space behind, at the school and at the village hall. Be sure to call ahead and reserve a table so you don’t go hungry. You can go even farther away to Taynuilt or nearby Loch Awe if you wish. We met our friends, the managers of Ardanaiseig, and their kids for dinner at Ben Cruachan Inn one night in Loch Awe and it is also fabulous. Seriously, I don’t know how anyone could go wrong with the food around there. It’s amazing!
Breakfast at Ardanaiseig is so, so good. I think we’ve had nearly everything on the hot menu at one point or another. As with many other hotels in Scotland, they have cold breakfast options (your starters): fruit, yogurt, pastries, cereals, juices, etc. In addition to this, you can order a hot breakfast (your main) with anything from a full Scottish to salmon and eggs – our favorites. Our advice is to fill up on breakfast and forget about lunch so you can see more on your visit and have a long, relaxing meal at the end of the day.
They don’t typically serve lunch as most folks are out and about and away from the hotel during the day. However, we have worked with them ahead of time in the past when we traveled with Jason’s students. The chef prepared sack lunches for us each day with sandwiches, fruit, and chips. Perfect for our on-the-go itinerary.
Another place I’m excited to try on our next trip is Brander Lodge. Our friends had newly acquired management of that hotel, so it wasn’t open yet, but it has since been reopened and I’ve been hearing wonderful things about the new chef and the Bistro. That would be another great lunch or dinner option just outside of Taynuilt. The Lodge will be a more casual stay, has great grounds full of gardens located on River Awe, has fishing rights for the river, and even a burial site from a battle in the time of Robert the Bruce. The same gardener that transformed Ardanaiseig was busy at work when we had our tour – it will be tip-top in no time. I’m excited to hear how this completely opposite hotel does for the area. We’ll tell you next year. Wink.
So now that you’ve checked in, wandered the grounds, and had dinner, it’s time for a nightcap don’t you think? The bar in the library has an extensive collection of Scotch and on this visit, we were blessed with the local whisky expert doing the pouring. Jason got some great tips and a list of new whiskies to try. Has anyone had Springbank? It’s apparently hard to come by and we couldn’t find anyone with it due to a shortage in its production. It sounds like it’s amazing, they know it and just make it whenever they feel like it. Too funny. And frustrating. I don’t imagine we’ll be finding that one at home, ever.
After three days of some serious relaxation, we had to hit the road again to catch our flight home. On the way back to Edinburgh we stopped at the National Wallace Monument, built in honor of the famous William Wallace (FREEEEEDOOOOOMMMMMM!!!! Yes, that guy). We decided it was high time to check it out since we’ve driven past it numerous times and never stopped. After a very vertical, winding walk-up Abbey Craig to the base of the monument, we climbed the 246 steps to the top. The narrow spiral staircase made three stops on the way up, one for each floor of the Monument. The first was for the Hall of Arms exhibit containing the Wallace sword, next was the Hall of Heroes containing the busts of important Scottish figures in history, then the Royal Chamber detailing the Battle of Stirling Bridge, and finally we reached The Crown with the spectacular view of Stirling and the countryside. It was worth all the huffing and puffing. After a quick glimpse around the gift shop, it was back into the car and off to drop off our trusty Mercedes A series at Enterprise in the city center.
Now car-less, we loaded up and trudged the literal mile uphill to our hotel – Hilton Carlton. Had we been smarter, we would have dropped our luggage off at the hotel first, but the currently one-way, one-lane street is under construction, and we would have been blocking traffic while someone dashed inside to ask the desk to hold our bags. So, we hoofed it and sweated, a lot. We call this character building, right? It was unpleasant. After checking into our free and upgraded room, we grabbed a snack at the hotel’s executive lounge (yay for status and points!), then did a quick poke around the high street shops before they closed and grabbed dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant. Completely stuffed, we walked a bit more, then called it a night.
The following day we had a mountain of wish-list items to fulfill for friends and family at home, so we spent the day wandering the shops on the Royal Mile to find their goodies and ended up buying another bag because we found a great deal on wool blankets for ourselves that we hadn’t planned for (one drawback of only traveling with carry-on bags). We said no souvenirs – oops. Shipping, checking a bag, and buying a bag were all about the same price, so we just couldn’t win, but I ended up with a really cute Harris Tweed weekender. Yay me! We called it an early night when my hip started acting up from pounding the pavement, got some tea at the hotel for a break, and dinner a little later at Byron’s Gourmet Burgers right next to our hotel. We go there every trip and highly recommend it.
A 5 am wake-up call the following morning had us meeting our cab at 6 and to the airport by 6:30 to start our uneventful flight home. It has only been about a month and a half since we landed back in Missouri and we already have plans on the books for a return trip next May, this time with University students. You just can’t keep us out of Scotland!
Thanks for coming along with us! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Haste ye back!
