Orkney Highlights Tours

We get all sorts of weather, but it is always beautiful.

One of my favourite museums.

My second visit of the day was to the Castle of Mey. Best known as the holiday home of Her Majesty Elizabeth the Queen Mother, it was started in 1566 by George Sinclair the 4th Earl of Caithness. It was also known as Barrogill Castle. By the time the Queen mum bought it in 1952 it needed a lot of work to make it habitable. Today the Duke of Rothesay (aka Prince Charles) holidays here every year. The garden are lovely and the castle itself seems like a real home. Oh and they have an good Tearoom with excellent iced lemon drizzle cake. Exterior photos only as photographs are not allowed inside the castle.

What a great couple of days I’ve had with Harry de Roij and his coach party from the Netherlands. Fine people, and lots of fun. Here we are at the Tomb of the Eagles.

On my walk yesterday I found this little flower. Pretty, isn’t it. Primula scotica.

Yesterday I set off along part of the walk along the west coast of Orkney. My destination the little visited Broch of Borwick. Brochs are Iron Age fortified dwellings of undetermined purpose. There are over 500 of these structure, found only in Scotland and mostly in the north. Shaped like small power station cooling towers they most likely had both a status and a defensive purpose. They are often sited on prominent viewpoints. This one is at the top of a cliff and half of it has fallen into the sea. You can make out the remains of an old Iron Age village around the tower. It is about an hour and a quarter walk from where I left my car.

Walking along the primrose path. Orkney is lovely in the spring time.

This fellow is Dr John Rae, Orkney native and arctic explorer of the Victorian era. A remarkable man.

A few glimpses of Orkney. It’s beautiful isn’t it?

Tonight I went in through these doors of Orkney College, part of the university of the Highlands and Islands. Why? Because, like a number of my fellow guides I was keeping up my CPD (Compulsory Professional development) Tonight’s subject was a fascinating talk by Caroline Wickham-Jones, Visiting Research Fellow at the Northern Studies Institute. The subject “Landscapes Under the Sea”. An interesting introduction to the archaeology of submerged landscapes. We like to keep up to date!

The “rear view” of St Magnus Cathedral. The cemetery contains a number of interesting graves, including that of Dr John Rae explorer of the Canadian Arctic and true discoverer of the North West Passage; and of one fellow who died on the 30th February!

Orkney has a number of very fine museums. This one is The Orkney Museum in Kirkwall. It is a pre-reformation town house built for the clergy of the St Magnus Cathedral; it served as a town house for the Baikie family for several hundred years before coming in ownership of the local council in 1951, subsequently becoming the extremely fine museum it is today. There are beautiful semi-formal gardens to the rear which are a great place to relax after taking a guided tour of Kirkwall with me!Https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk /…/orkneym…/index.html

St Magnus Cathedral in the Easter Monday sunshine with the tower of the medieval Bishops Palace just behind it.

Happy Easter from Orkney Highlights Tours to all friends and followers.

Friends of mine run this rather splendid B&B on the outskirts of Kirkwall. Ideal as a base if going out on a tour with me.

Today is St Magnus Day. I can take you on a tour of the cathedral named in his honour or help you around the St Magnus pilgrimage route.

If you are visiting the north Highlands on your way to Orkney and like Outlander this might be for you.