Saturday – The Orkney Islands

The sail out of Lerwick last night was under bright sunny skies. These were taken at cocktail hour as we set sail:

And on Saturday morning we anchored off Kirkwell in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. It was cool (48º) and overcast. We are in port with Ambassador Lines Ambiance. Ambassador is a new UK based cruise line with just two ships so far. The Ambiance holds 1,400 passengers to our 928. After breakfast and once anchored with the help of the port Pilot, we tendered into port and boarded our bus for our introductory tour. The tour guide told us we were actually lucky because for the past two days her tours had seen nothing but the road five feet in front of them because of thick heavy fog. So, count our blessings. We saw more than that. Lots of cows on Orkney, famous for its cheddar cheese.

First stop on our tour was at the Ring of Brodgar. Everyone knows about Stonehenge. The Ring of Brodgar is even older. There’s been limited archaeological investigations at the Ring of Brodgar, so we don’t know its age for sure. In the absence of scientific dates, our best guess is that the main ring was constructed sometime between 2600 and 2400 BC. The surrounding burial mounds and stone setting likely date from between 2500 and 1500 BC. The Ring may have been involved in ceremonies celebrating the relationship between living and past communities. It’s also been suggested that the sites in the surrounding area were used for observations of the moon from the Ring of Brodgar, though there’s scant evidence for the activities Neolithic people did at the site, or why. It’s easy to see why Orkney’s Neolithic inhabitants might have set up a ceremonial circle on this spot – surrounded by hills and lochs, the site has a truly spectacular setting. Standing in its centre gives the sense of being in a natural amphitheater. Unusually, the ring has a truly circular layout. Of the original 60 stones, 36 survive, ranging between 2.1m to 4.7m tall. The stone circle has a diameter of 104m, and is encircled by a rock-cut ditch, or henge, measuring 136m across, making it one of the largest and finest stone circles in the British isles.

Next we stopped in Stromness (formerly Hamnavoe) located on an inlet of the Scapa Flow, We had a nice walkabout before reboarding the bus back to the ship.

You’ve got to love the variety of flowers we saw growing down just one little alleyway.

Lunch was on the ship, and we left port earlier than normal at 4:00 pm. The pilot was back on board for the departure and we sailed once the last tender had been uploaded to its berth. We are winding down now. We stop in Rosyth (near Edinburgh) tomorrow, have a sea day on Monday, dock in Greenwich (near London) on Tuesday, and disembark on Wednesday.