Orkney Islands, Scotland

Dear reader, finally I have visited a truly unusual place - not just another typical tourist attraction or crowded little town that welcomes hungry & thirsty tourists ready to attack shopping malls, but a isolated spot far away from mainland and literary mind-boggling experience. Though most of my ship destinations I take for granted since after all, I had seen them countless times and its they are not my choice anyway, this time I was grateful for working on cruise ship otherwise life would never in a million years bring me on Orkney Islands above Scotland.

It just happened that recently I have been reading Bill Bryson's entertaining book "At Home" and in it he had mentioned Skara Brae, one of the oldest preserved villages in the world, older than Stonehenge and Pyramids of Giza. By strange coincidence, place is also currently featured article & cover story of newest "National Geographic" magazine, which I took as a sign from above that this needs to be seen. And since my ship sailed in direction of little town Kirkwall (capitol of Orkney Islands) I was absolutely determined to get out and see it, if its the last thing I do. Even the fact that I was actually supposed to stay onboard on duty did not prevent me, I just convinced my roommate to stay instead.

Kirkwall was a very cute little town (with impressive cathedral) but I saw it only shortly before bus took us towards Skara Brae which was on the other side of the island - off we went trough the cold wind and rain, my ship passengers bickering about the places and who was first in the line, baby crying (why would anybody take a little baby on what is basically field trip?), people trying to avoid rain on open air double decker, not very pleasant at first. But slowly, the rain stopped, the weather cleared up and we relaxed enough to actually pay attention to countless turquoise lakes, sheep and cows grazing everywhere, little grey farms and a quiet life around us. When we arrived on the another side of the island, where sand beach almost erased our prehistoric destination (the sea was much further in earlier times and now it comes almost to the edge of Skara Brae) we were already thrilled to be there, not to mention hungry and thirsty - first hot chocolate (with marshmallows!) and home baked scone than off we went to walk into this amazing place.

Skara Brae was inhabited 4, 500 years ago, long before pyramids were built in Egypt. What is so fascinating about it is that this is the only place in the world that is so perfectly preserved from Stone age, houses actually have furniture! The sea had washed away quite a lot but we still have village with 8 houses (connected with tunnels and streets) and surrounded with protective wall. It appears the whole tribe of people lived here together and each house had very much same pattern of "furniture" except house nr. 8 which was a workshop for tools. Covered tunnels/streets are quite unique phenomenon and each house also has lots of decorations & carvings, not to mention mysterious stone objects beautifully polished and carved that nobody knows what they were for - some objects are easy to identify (whale bone bowl, a pendant, axe, bone jewelry, a walrus tusk, pin from whalebone and two dice-like objects). Visitors can walk around village (which is beyond our walking level today) and afterwards we went to see the mansion of a local aristocrat on which property Skara Brae happened to be.

Skaill House is a very interesting old house from seventeen century that belonged to ancient Scottish aristocratic family Stewart and passed in other hands trough hundreds of years. It came to be a property of Bishop George Graham in 1615 and since that time what was originally just two buildings was later re-constructed and re-built into a small but very impressive group of buildings with inner courtyard. Its fairly simple and small but uniquely beautiful and elegant in its way, nothing from outside prepares visitor for atmosphere inside, including the Entrance Hall, the Gun Room (with military memorabilia), the Dining Room (once used as exhibition for Skara Brae artifacts), beautiful Drawing Room full of light and magical Library with portrait of house owner's son who tragically died in a horse accident at age of 14. The house itself is so interesting and pretty that I would have been perfectly satisfied with this visit but there was more.

Not far from Skaill house and Skara Brae is a little hill (situated between two lakes) with ancient circle of stones, not unlike one at Stonehenge, its called Ring of Brodgar   - this is not just some random spot because there used to be ancient road that connected Skara Brae with this ring and another ring of stones nearby (Standing Stones of Stenness) and a burial hill Maeshowe, its all in a walking distance. I was thrilled to death to actually walk in these places, not to mention how impressive was to actually be in such obscure part of the world with almost no people around (except annoying tourists from my bus, I was ready to sacrifice several of them there and than, right in the middle of stone circle). Naturally nowadays we have no clue what was the purpose of these stones but we can guess it had something to do with Sun worship and astrology. Cows nearby were chewing lazily and looking at us like we are some aliens bouncing around, in and out of our buses. And than arguing who took whose place inside. I did not bother with people's rudeness because I was too excited with everything so I just took a seat anywhere and enjoyed the view from the top of the bus, even though it was very cold & windy without a roof but I soaked the scenery with greatest pleasure and was still excited later at work that evening. I still am - I am very thrilled that I had an opportunity to see such unusual & historical place that nobody knows about.