As was described by
Cyrus,
Iona is an island off the the west coastline of
Scotland.
It is largely reachable only by
ferry from off the Isle of
Mull. This ferry is on the far side of Mull at
Fionnphort and is reachable only by way of the sole
single track road on the island. While you can ferry your
car over to the Isle of Mull and drive to Fionnphort, it is highly reccomended (By locals and this author...) that you skip that, and use the publicly available tour
bus that makes regular scheduled runs to and from the two ferry ports on the island.
The
Druid Cairns are an attraction, but a large part of the
tourist activity appears (At least to what I've seen...) to center around the
Abbey (
Columba had originally established a
monastery on the island, and sometime around 1200, it was transformed into a
Benedictine Abbey) and the ruins associated with it. At some point in its history, Iona became a burial place for
royalty- with some 48
Scottish, 8
Norwegian, and 4
Irish Kings having been buried there by the middle 1500's. The
Cathedral at the Abbey still hosts an active
congregation with regular services held.
Up until 2002, the Abbey was maintained by the
Trustees of the Cathedral, an organization with ties to the
Church of Scotland- a role that has been in place since the
Duke of Argyll transferred the ownership of the Abbey to them in 1899. In 2002, the Trustees determined that maintenance of the Abbey was getting increasingly difficult financially, so they transferred ownership to
Historic Scotland, who maintains many of the castles and abbeys in Scotland in the public trust.