Rothesay grew as a Victorian seaside resort on Bute, its curved promenade above the bay where CalMac ferries arrive from Wemyss Bay in about 35 minutes; a second, much shorter crossing over the narrow Kyles of Bute links Colintraive and Rhubodach in a few minutes, at the island’s north end. At the town’s centre stands Rothesay Castle, built by the Stewarts from the early 13th century with an almost perfectly circular curtain wall, still surrounded by its original moat. South of the town, Mount Stuart is a Gothic Revival mansion built for the 3rd Marquess of Bute in the 1880s; it was the first house in Scotland wired for electricity and had, unusually for the time, a heated indoor swimming pool. On the west coast, Ettrick Bay is a mile of sand with views across to Arran and the Argyll hills. The West Island Way, Scotland’s first waymarked long-distance path on an island, crosses about 30 miles of moor, farmland and shore from one end of Bute to the other.
