Orkney Part 2

We had a gorgeous sunny day to spend exploring a number of the Neolithic sites on Orkney. We started with Skara Brae, which is an extremely well preserved Neolithic village on the west coast of Orkney.

A very strong storm in 1850 uncovered the village that had lain covered by a grassy sand dune for hundreds of years.

Archaeologists believe it was built and occupied about 5,000 yrs ago. There are 10 houses that were actually built underground and were connected by covered passages…

… and even had apparent indoor privies - small rooms with access to drains that led away from the village. Each house had a central hearth, stone beds and even cupboards -

Next on our agenda was the Ring of Brodgar -

This was built around the same time as Skara Brae, and is older than Stonehenge and the pyramids in Egypt. Thirty-six of the original 60 stones are still standing in an enormous circle (340 ft in diameter)…

… that is surrounded by a 10 ft deep trench that was dug out of bedrock. Some of the stones were quite tall -

We walked for several miles around the site…

… enjoying the peace and quiet, and birdlife ;) …

… and we walked to the nearby Stones of Steness -

These were erected around the same time frame as Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar.

There were originally 12 stones around a central hearth, but only 4 remain standing. This could be the oldest stone circle in the British Isles.

This was the swarm of bugs that accompanied us between the stone circles:

When we got back to our B&B for the evening, we found out that the local band was going to play to welcome the ferry into port, as part of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. As always, be sure to open this post in a browser, so you can watch the video -

In case you’re not a big fan of bagpipe music, I’ll close with a more serene version of Orkney -