Kirkwall (Ring of Brodgar and Skara Brae)

Yesterday we docked at Kirkwall. The weather was cold but fortunately it was not raining. I was able to take quite a few photos before we caught our afternoon tour bus to visit the ancient sites that make up the Heart of Neolithic Orkney and are some of the most important archeological sites in Western Europe. 

First we had a scenic 30-minute drive into the interior of the main island where we saw the Stones of Stenness, the oldest standing stones in Britain, stand 19 feet tall. 

Then farther down the road we walk around the Ring of Brodgar displaying 27 of its original 60 stones it is a wonderful relics of the Stone Age, dating from 2700 B.C. 

 We hid our first bottle of the day along the path to the stones.

Then we moved on to our second stop at Skara Brae. Skara Brae is a Stone Age settlement that was buried under sand for thousands of years until it was uncovered by a violent storm in 1850. 

 

 The site was amazing and they had a life sized reconstruction of one of the homes that you could walk through.  

 It was here that we hid our second bottle.

The site is right on the coast so it had beautiful views and many stacked stones.

On the same property we visited Skaill House the finest 17th-century mansion in Orkney. 

Then finally we returned to the cruise ship along the historic coastline of Scapa Flow. 

There were cows, sheep, (everywhere you looked) and shetland ponies but very few trees.  It is so windy that the trees won't survive unless they are nestle in valleys or behind houses.  Kirkwall is very far north and very cold in  the winter. They even bring the animals inside for the winter to keep them out of the cold.

 All over they have these walls with the vertical stones to keep the sheep from climbing out. 

 

 Some of the cows were quite beautiful...but alas none were Highland cows.

Today we docked in Inverness (invergordon) where we will see Cawdor Castle and the location of the historic battle of Culloden.