Tobermory

The harbour at Tobermory is painted in colours so vivid they look digitally enhanced — crayon-bright facades reflected in the water while fishing boats bob beside a distillery making single malt within salt-spray distance of the sea. Somewhere beneath the harbour mud lies a Spanish Armada ship and its rumoured gold.

Tobermory serves as capital of the Isle of Mull, its painted waterfront a blaze of colour beneath the wooded brae. A vessel of the 1588 Spanish Armada sank in the bay — the San Juan de Sicilia — and treasure hunters have searched for its cargo intermittently for over four centuries without conclusive result, which suits the town fine: the legend outperforms any gold. Oak smoke from the harbour smokehouse drifts along the front, the distillery ages its maritime single malt in sherry casks steps from the tide, and children of a certain generation recognise the street instantly — the television series Balamory was modelled on it. Beyond town, Mull deals in white-tailed eagles, otters along the shore roads and Staffa's basalt columns waiting offshore, wildlife appearing on its own schedule.