All three days we are in Scotland Kim and I have settled on different shore excursions. Today she set out for a panoramic walk along the Yesnaby Cliffs while I was off to explore the Ancient Stones of the area. Both of us visited Skara Brae, a neothlic era village which is over 5,000 years old (older than the pyramids of Giza in Egypt!). The weather today was spectacular with crystal blue skies, not a cloud to be seen and temps never were out of the upper 50s with a wonderful stiff breeze blowing all day long.
Skara Brae & Skaill House
The manor house was first built in the late 1500s (the white-ish structure towards the left)
The Ring of Brodgar
This neolithic ring circle built about 2800 BC is about the same age as Stonehenge, but is a larger structure. There has been no excavation done here yet in order to preserve the original site, so what it was used for, why it was built still remains a mystery!
The Standing Stones of Stennes
Some interesting trivia about the Orkney Islands......the "nearest" land to the west is North America! The Orkney Islands are on roughly the same parallel as the southern tip of Greenland! Today's temperature (57+ degrees) is a typical summer temp and they will have 20 hours of daylight this time of year....but in the winter the average daylight hours are only six hours long! More days than not it's raining here (so we were very lucky!), and one in twelve days the winds are gale-force in nature! Lastly, Skaill House was visited by the Queen Mother in the mid-1990s and there were photos of this historic visit on the table - she shared dinner with the family and the dinner table is set with the same dishes used for that momentous occasion!
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