ORKNEYS

 We are in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands just off the north coast of Scotland. Bit easier today as we are docked & no immigration to deal with. Small town with a sprinkling of shops, mostly touristy with hand knitted jumpers at £150 a pop. We wandered about town, took in a museum that revealed to us that this was an important place 5000 BC with developed buildings & settlements. Scara Brae is nearby. This was before Stonehenge was built.

This is a garden building of am important island dignatory - it is built from the recovered ballast from a pirate ship.

In wartime, both WW1 & WW2, this was the main home waters base of the Royal Navy with several hundred ships based here. After WW1, 52 ships of the German navy were brought here. As the Versailles treaty was being completely the Germans scuttled the whole fleet. Most of the ships were cut up for scrap and even today this is still going on and you can buy bits on eBay.

WE'RE ON & WE'RE OFF

 Nice limo to the ship, beemer M series, boarding went OK, no problems with the booze and fairly speedy. Nice spacious cabin in a peaceful part of town.

Arrived in Edinburgh under the Forth rail bridge, weather great despite the rainy forecast. However the Spooner travel agency had blips.

1. No Ubers to take us to the top of the Royal Mile (planned to avoid the steep slog up to the top of RM)

2. Backup plan to walk to the nearby ScotRail station approx 11 min walk backfired because halfway there we had to ascend 100 steep steps. Mrs S not best pleased. However train was great, £3.95 return. Not great for everyone, there was a couple of Yanks from the boat on the station confused about where to board for Edinburgh, I offered to help & noticed their ticket was for Inverkeithing - is that not Edinboro?

We had a lovely day, visited Museum of Scotland, then had a tour of an old house on the Royal Mile which was saved from demolition by the Scots NT. It is set out over 3 floors, the 3rd in 1911, the 2nd floor as in 1760 and the 1st in 1630.

Tomorrow Kirkwall.