It was a beautiful day to fly to the Orkney Islands!  Located off the northeastern coast of Scotland, Orkney is an archipelago made up of 70 individual islands, only 20 of which are inhabited.  Kirkwall, our home base for three nights, is the largest town of the islands with a population of 8-9,000.  A total of 23,000 people live on the Orkney Islands.

(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view.)

Tom took us on an orientation of the little town; it’s hard to get lost!  Still, his orientation tour was a great way to get the lay of the land and get filled in on the history of the place.

The highlight of Kirkwall is St. Magnus Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in Scotland.  Founded in 1137, it was originally Roman Catholic and built when the islands were ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney.  Today, it is owned by the burgh of Kirkwall rather than by any church. 

Built of local red sandstone, the Norman architecture of the cathedral is gorgeous.  We enjoyed returning on a couple of occasions during the following two days, just so we could see it in different light—especially in the late afternoon and early evening.

Following our orientation of the town, we walked up to the University of Highlands and Islands (UHI) to meet with Laura who works in the Culinary Department where they teach hospitality and restaurant business.  They have a restaurant on site that students run, and customers give feedback on the service and food.  Another wonderful program the university offers is remote courses on TV that are linked with other universities.  Kirkwall is quite isolated, it’s expensive for students to travel to the mainland, and there is a housing crisis in Scotland; so, being able to go to UHI and “attend” class on TV is very helpful.

After learning a bit about the university and Laura’s background (She’s a huge Yankees fan and got married in Central Park!), she taught us how to make Bannocks, a Scottish bread made from bere barley, which is grown in Orkney and milled at Barony Mill, the only mill for bere in the world.  Bruce and I teamed up, and ours came out tasty!

Throughout our U.K. tour, in addition to the history, we learned a lot of interesting facts from Tom that baffled us as much as it baffles him!  Check this out:

Electricity that is generated by wind turbines in Scotland doesn’t stay in Scotland.  It goes to the grid in England for their benefit.  Scotland actually pays more for electricity, even though they produce it!  Ditto for oil.  Profits from oil drilled in Scotland go to England.

Wales gets the same shaft from England, but in their case, it’s water.  Wales water gets transported to England, and then it’s sent back to Wales at a premium cost.  What the…?

Although Wales could not survive independence, Scotland has the resources to be completely independent, but England won’t allow them to vote on it.  Go figure…

Here are some final sunset scenes around town:

Coming up next: UNITED KINGDOM #10: ORKNEY’S CHURCHILL BARRIERS & ITALIAN CHURCH