Vikings

Another beautiful day today so we headed out to Largs for the first day of the Viking festival.   Last time we went to Largs it was a wee bit chilly and we didn't have the spectacular view of Arran that we got today, but it was good to be back.

The Viking festival commemerates the battle of Largs which saw the vikings being pushed from the Scottish West coast.   Instead of a battle, the festival now has a re-enactment camp, craft stalls a fun fair and a parade.  I fancied a trip on the long boat, but the queues were all the way day the pier - but it did make for a fantastic blip out in the bay!

After a look round and a bit of present shopping we grabbed lunch at the local Italian deli in good timing for the parade to pop by.  The owner came in to the diners and said 'we are here, we're just going to nip outisde to watch the parade'.  Then came past the pipers, the vikings, the  fanyc cars, the fire engines, the tractors (there's always tractors at these things) the brass band, the boys brigade, the local kids with anti-viking signs and possibly a slave (bit dark), a samba band and then I got back to my sandwich.  The vikings were the best bit, and they did a good job of shouting and scaring the girl the next to me!

Unfortunatley the viking who I met by chance in Lanark back in March who told be about the festival wasn't about, but we still had a great time.  On the way home we stopped off at the viewpoint overlooking Largs for some fantastic views of Arran and the town itself.  The town was quite busy, so I got bored in the ice cream queue which turned out to be a great decision as on the way home we stopped at the Lime Tree Larder enticed by the signs which said 'home made ice cream.  The woman who ran the place had so many delicious flavours that we ended up with three pots and sat oustdie their lovely barn in the sunshine tucking into ice cream.  We will definitley be back and well worth the stop if you're in the area!

In the evening, we nipped down the road to Strathaven to catch the 'evening glow' part of the weekend's balloon festival.  It was heaving, and we were a little dissapointed in that there were just five balloons lined up and the burners were lit in time to the very loud Coldplay blasting out.  We stayed for a couple of minutes, decided that was it and hightailed it back home. Busy day!