Orkney Islands—Ancient Sites

We are definitely seeing a lot of the Scottish islands on this trip! First was Mull, Iona, and Staffa. Then we stayed on Skye. Then a quick trip to Harris and Lewis. Now, we are staying on South Ronaldsay, but to get to most of the Orkney tourist sights you have to travel north. Luckily they have put in several causeways to connect islands. They are a bit scary to drive because they are narrow (barely two car widths) with no shoulder. It makes passing oh so much fun! At least they lower the speed limit to 40 mph on them (but do post signs that there may be strong crosswinds and you cross them at your own risk). So, we cross Burray, Glimps Holm, and Lamb Holm before we get to Mainland (the name of the largest of the Orkney Islands). And we walked across to the Brough of Birsay during low tide. That’s 12 islands by my count!

On Orkney we saw tons on Neolithic sights. Settlements and standing stones dated from 5000 years ago (3100 B.C.). It is amazing to see how they built such elaborate villages and tombs with only stone and bone tools. And it is amazing how much of it is still intact. Plus the Maeshowe Burial chamber is perfectly aligned so that the sun shines in the passageway on the winter solstice. It is full of Viking graffiti too which is interesting to see.

Just down the road as the stone circles, the Stones of Stennes and the Ring of Brodgar. The Barnhouse Village sits between the two stone circles (as does another settlement they are currently excavating).

We also went to Skara Brae which was a city a bit farther north on mainland. Again these houses are 5000 years old and were buried under the sand until a sandstorm uncovered them. The bed boxes (left/right), fireplace (center), and dresser (back) are still intact. Only thing missing is the roof (and in some cases not even that)!

There were also the remains of a Viking settlement on the Brough of Birsay.

We also did a bit of shopping and bought hand-knit lamb’s wool fair isle sweaters. Yes, I know I said no sweaters, but I just can’t resist fair isle. Especially when I met the designer and knitters.

We were looking for an activity on Sunday and David found a guy who was teaching archery. It was great fun, even though it was very windy. David was better at the close-range targets and I was better at distant targets.