Castletown – Part 1

Firstly, I need to clarify that when I said we will have spent two months in our little cottage I didn’t mean on this trip, but as a cumulative total over our three stays in this cottage.  We are only here for three weeks this time.

The town that our little cottage is located in is Castletown, the ancient capital of the Isle of Man.  (The modern capital is Douglas.)  Let’s go for a little stroll.

We’ll start by walking along the harbour.  The floral display on the bridge is stunning.

Looking back the other way you see the colourful boats and Castle Rushen.  Fancy that, a castle in Castletown.  The tides here are quite big, so at low tide these boats are out of the water.

Here is  another shot at a lower tide, but still quite a lot further to drop before low tide.

As always, not so  pretty at low tide.

The pub next to the castle is the “Castle Arms”, but better known as the “Glue Pot”, which Mick has been known to frequent.  It is a pokey little place and I wonder what stories the walls could tell, if only they could talk.

There is a swinging bridge across the harbour, which we actually saw while open.

See the stone wall across the harbour.  Well, that is the back of the Nautical Museum which houses “Peggy”.  More on her later.

As you can imagine, there are lighthouses at the entrance to the harbour.  I think these are particularly pretty. but I may be biased, as they are in Castletown.

The Steam Packet Company runs the car ferries to and from the Isle of Man.  They are currently owned by Macquarie Bank – yes, an Aussie company.  However, they had much humbler beginnings with offices in Castletown.

We’ll head back into town now. 

See this little bridge which seems to disappear into a house.  It is actually a little lane into the next street.  There are heaps of little laneways running everywhere, once you get to find them.  You can certainly tell that the town evolved well before the need for cars, or even much in the way of carts.  Apparently the streets are crooked to stop the wind whistling up them.  I can assure you it doesn’t work.

There are all sorts of things on display in people’s windowsills.  They are so deep that they are perfect for this.

We’ll head up another little lane now to see some more.

More soon.