Day 6 - Tuesday, June 18, 2024 - Orkney Island

By Ellen Outten

 

Orkney Island and their version of Stonehenge 




We docked at 9 am and our tour didn't go out until 12:15.  After a morning round of dominos, (I'm not longer winning), we were off on our tour of Mainland, the biggest of the Orkney Islands.


The Ring of Brodgar is one of the main attractions on the island.  Dating back to the Bronze Age, the best guess is 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 of stones may have been used in ceremonies celebrating the relationship between living and past communities orr maybe for observations of the moon.  But there's no evidence, so we can believe what we want.  

Roger wants to believe that dancing giants danced all night and because they can't live in sunshine ( similar to Dracula) turned to stone because they stayed too long at the dance.   His story is as good as anyone else's or he drinks a little.

The ceremonial circle is surrounded by hills and lochs, and could  be spectacular if we had a sunnier day.

View at the Ring of Brodgar

We were told these are burial mounds, none of which have been excavated, so believe what you want.

Lots of people get married at the site throughout the summer, which from what I can figure, lasts about one day each year.

We hit a high of 50 degrees today with winds at 17 mph as well. I'm glad I packed the winter coat, head warmer, hat and gloves.   I wore all of them today and we are still over 1,000 miles south of our most northern port of Honingsvag Noway.






Our next stop was just a few minutes away at The Stones of Stemness.  Here we were allowed to get up close to a grouping of stones, touch them and take close up photos.




Yes, I'm cold!




We were given a good tour of the island on the way back to our ship.

We made a pit stop back at the shop and then took advantage of the free shuttle bus into the closest town ok Kirkwall.  We were able to just walk around and see what the local town looked like.  

There were two craft fairs in town and I wander d through both of them.  Lots of knitted goods, hats, scarves, and some local jewelry.  Nothing caught my eye and after an hour of wandering, we were back on board for the 5 pm departure.
  
The local church in the town of Kirkwall.


If you remember my fondness for pictures of toilets, you shouldn't be surprised at this photo.  I love reading signs.  It appears the people of Kirkwall are extremely polite.  This is a sign in an elevator.

Dinner tonight, heck I haven't shown many so far.  Tomato soup....

Wayne's oysters

Monkfish.  Very good.

This isn't as bad as you might think.  It's meringue on the bottom, strawberries and some whipped cream. I managed to leave most of that.

This picture was taken at 8:00 pm.  Had it been a sunny day, it would have been broad daylight.


Tonight, sunset is at 10:35 and sunrise is 3:45 tomorrow morning.

After dinner, we joined a trivia team game. Let's just say, no other teams have to worry about us.  We beat our previous score and had 6 out of 15 correct answers.

From there we went to the show in the theatre, 4 performers, all British and a Philippine band singing a medley of country music.  Actually they were all very good.

Tomorrow, The Shetland Islands and a visit with the ponies.  We have an early morning tour and will be able to hang in town, Lerwick before departing.  

Lights out for now.


















Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 19, 2024 at 5:50 PM

    Love the historical insights. Even though it is cold, it is still beautiful! Still triple digits here!

    ReplyDelete

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