Orkney Islands
I’ll be honest. I had heard of the Orkney Islands, but that was literally the extent of my knowledge about them. They’re an archipelago of about 70 islands, 20 of which are inhabited. The biggest city, and the capital, is Kirkwall, which is derived from the Viking term for “place with the church on the sandy bay”.
Whatevs. It’s a lovely part of the world, with rolling hills and lakes and pastures.
One of the claims to fame for this area is the Ring of Brodgar. Not gonna lie, every time someone said it out loud, my brain skipped right past Brodgar and landed on Trogdor the Burninator.
If any of you understood that reference, I’ll be absolutely gobsmacked. If you did get it, you might be jealous to know that I once had a stuffed Teh Cheat that made noise when you kicked it. But I digress.
The Ring of Brodgar is a henge. You might be more familiar with Stonehenge, which is a more famous henge, but the Ring of Brodgar is older.
A henge is a place surrounded by a ditch, usually somewhat circular, used for who-knows-what. Is it a worship site? A gathering place? A UFO landing pad? Nobody knows for sure. What they do know is that these stones were hauled a great distance before being placed here. It’s both eerie and beautiful at the same time.
We had about 45 minutes or so to explore the henge before heading back to the bus and getting unhenged (sorry) and ended up in a charming little village called Stromness.
It’s a quaint little seaside town with narrow streets and 300-yr-old houses.
Rob found a new friend while we were in town.
Then it was back to the ship, where we discarded a few things that we had on hand, and headed back down to shore for a trip into Kirkwall (the capital of the Orkney Islands and the place where the ship docked). It was a cute city.
Yes, I said ‘city.’ Even though it has a population of just under 10,000, it gets to claim the title of ‘city’ because it has a cathedral.
Before we caught the shuttle into town, I asked the lady working the shuttle queue if there was a place that I might get a haggis for lunch. She said that I should go to Harbour Fry and she pointed to where it would be on the map. So we went. Rob got a haddock and chips, which he said were very, very good and we shared an order of onion rings which were, frankly, amazing. I got the haggis supper, which was a slice of haggis, breaded and fried, with a metric shit-ton of fries.
So I finally got my haggis. And… it was fine. It’s not something I’d go out of my way to have again, but if it was presented to me, I’d gladly re-partake of it. It felt less like a delicacy and more like one of those things you have when you can’t think of anything else.
After lunch, we wandered through the shopping street and looked at various store, including this nice place with some booze and a lot of locally-produced foods, such as mustards, jams, and cured meats.
We had dinner with our friends Linda and Hope at the Chef’s Table. That’s an unusual restaurant on board where you don’t get to choose what you’re having - the chef has a set menu of 5 courses with wine pairings for each course. Tonight’s was the “British 2” menu, with leek/cheese sausage, fish/chips, steak/Guinness pie, and a lemon syllabub. Then it was off to the Star Theatre for an evening of classical and Spanish guitar music by guest artist Mark Hussey. It was a good evening.