We are here on Orkney and I am loving it, loving it, loving it! We had a destination in mind for the day but weren't quite sure how to get there. After a visit to the Travel Office, we decided to hop on a tour bus that would take us to Skara Brae, the Ring of Brogdar, the Stones of Stenness and the Italian Chapel just south of Kirkwall. That would take up a good chunk of the day and also get us to a lot of places we already wanted to see. We had breakfast outside at this little cafe, picked up some grub for lunch and then boarded the bus which was driven by a sweet Scotsman named Ewan. Also on the bus was a nice girl named Meagan from Toronto who is working in Inverness this summer in a bakery. She basically does all the cool stuff that the people on Food Network Challenge to, plus she makes good bread. We adopted her into our little partnership and had such a great time with her. The bus took us right up to Skara Brae, which is one of the oldest Neolithic villages found in Scotland AND Europe in fact. It began with a reconstructed example of what the dwellings would have looked like and then let us look down into the Skara Brae ruins.
Skara Brae has a very interesting story. It was a Neolithic Community over 5000 years old, dating back to about 2700 BCE. They were a hunting, fishing, gathering and farming society that was entirely self-sufficient in their own right. They had a religion and a community life but had their own private dwellings with each family. At some point, huge storms from the sea began to move the inhabitants of Skara Brae out, possibly to their own farm areas, as many Neolitic families were beginning to do. It eventually became covered and sand and debris and lost to the world. In 1850, a huge storm again uncovered the ruins of Skara Brae, much to the surprise of the residents of Skaill House who lived literally just next door. A huge archeological dig ensued and now people come to Orkney to see the ruins. However, there is still a ton that we don't know about these people. It was really cool to see these old houses, hallways, etc. It's crazy to think taht these were around over 5000 years ago!
From Skara Brae, Meagan and I went into see SKaill House. It's a smaller version of those big manor houses with just a ton of history about the family and the house and people they interesacted with. The highlights of the house: the creepy tiger rug, ladies room, the invalid chair, the bottle door and the tiny little figure that was hiding in the secret passage of the library.
Next we headed to the Ring of Brogdar. These are huge Neolithic stones that were placed in a large circle. It's considered a henge becaues of the ditch that surrounds it. They're not entirely sure what it was for but, like Stonehenge, they somehow line up with the equinox. It's crazy what these Neoloithic people could do. There used to be 6-0 stones but now there are only 24 left because some fell over and others have been stolen. We also went over to the Stoens of Stennes which was down the road about a mile, just a smaller version of the Ring of Brogdar. Only four stones remain of this oe but there's a great view of Maeshowe which is an incredible trove of Viking ruins and ruincs from one night when some Vikings took shelter there and did a bunch of graffiti. The Stones of Stennes is also where Russell and Holmes take on Brothers at the end of The Language of Bees.
Our last stop, after a quick drive through Kirkwall, was the Italian Chapel. This chapel wasbuilt by the Italina POWs that were imprisoned on Orkney at Camp 60 during WWII. They didn't have a chapel and asked if they could build one. It started out as just a gew huts but eventually became what we see today. It's basically made of plastar but they painted on the stones to make it look like a chapel from Italy. It's absolutely gorgeous inside, with very simplistic paintings up at the altar.
As we passed over to the Italian Chapel, we crossed the Churchill barriers which were created by Churchill when he was Lord of the Admiralty to help keep the German U-boats out of Okrney waters, as well as make it easier from people to cross back and forth from various areas of the Orcadian Islands.
The bus dropped us back off at Kirkwall and we had about 45 minutes to wander about. We weren't able to go into St. Magnus Cathedral because there was a wedding taking place (people were lining the streets- it was like a mini Royal Wedding!) so we went into the Orkney Museum as well. We kind of went through it quickly and I was creeped out by the faceless mannequins (like the Living Plastic in Doctor Who), plus it also had a very weird layout and it was difficult to figureout where we were headed next. At 3:45 we said goodbye to our new friend Meagan and headed down on the bus to Houton Ferry.
From the ferry stop, we were going to go see a museum and some other sites but it was getting a bit late and so we decided to just walk back to Stromness. We walked about 5.6 miles, past a lot of fields with cows and sheep, lots of quaint little houses, views of Hoy and, at one point a random phone booth. We walked past a bus stop and checked the times and it turned out a bus was coming by in two minutes- perfection, since we had a day pass on the buses. Instead of walking the last three miles back into Stromness, we took the bus to the Co-op, bought some dinner and went back to the hostel.
It was a loooong day but ended with some spaghetti and some Orkney wine that was delicious. Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds! And if you'd like to see more pictures, they are all up on facebook.
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