When visiting Loch Awe...

Here's a quick advert for the Ardanaiseig Hotel on Loch Awe. Chances are that you won't simply drive past this place and think 'oh, there's that hotel that was mentioned on the blog I was reading'. No, as was pointed out to me last week, you don't simply discover the Ardanaiseig by driving past. And therein perhaps lies much of its charm.

I found it through the more unlikely of routes. In the midst of searching for a bit of software that will drag our front desk into the 21st Century, we came across a fairly interesting Property Management System by the name of Hotel Executive.

Now, our research has shown us that there's hundreds of these things out there and that they are all the best. So, the only way to narrow down the field was to find out someone who's actually using the systems and get a report from the coal face, so to speak.

The Ardanaiseig was the closest hotel using Hotel Executive so I just gave them a ring and was immediately invited down to get the warts and all story on it. It was extremely refreshing to receive such a welcome and to be able to pinch an hour of a busy hotel managers time at short notice for no real gain. And its this same attitude that tells me that if you do manage to find yourself in need of some real hosptiality on Loch Awe, just 30 mins from Oban, you'd probably not do any better than giving the Ardanaiseig a ring.

In fact, book online instead, and tell us what you think of the system!

(And we won't mention the fact that the building started out life as a baronial manner for Colonel Archibald Campbell of Clan Campbell. I didn't tell them of our policy towards Campbells!)