Chapter 3

At Sea,

Edinburgh, and

Kirkwall

April 23 – 25, 2024

Introduction to Chapter 3

We are starting on our British Isles cruise and the first day is relatively simple, just cruising up the eastern coast of England.  Day two of the cruise is in Edinburgh, Scotland where we had an excursion while day three is in the rather northern town of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands.

One day “at Sea”, then Edinburgh and Kirkwall

At Sea:  Tuesday, April 23

We spent most of the first day getting familiar with the Sirena and I got my photos of the various parts of the ship.  The weather was rather cool and breezy with an occasional light rain shower.  The pool and pool deck got very little use, even the hot tubs were vacant.  We spent quite a bit of time in the various lounges reading, having a little coffee in the “Barista Coffee Bar” and perhaps a glass of wine in the afternoon. 

The pool deck was deserted.

There were various activities planned, but several of them were scheduled for out on deck, such as a shuffleboard tournament, and it was just too uncomfortable out on the deck for any of these.  The spa had several activities but they seemed to be mostly aimed at drumming up business for the spa and we didn’t see anything interesting.  The casino also had several tournaments, such as blackjack and Texas Hold’em.  I figured anyone playing these would be way out of my league.

In the early evening, we attended the “Captain’s Cocktail Celebration”.  Attendees received free cocktails/drinks, so it was well attended.  After the reception, we headed to dinner in the Grand Dining Room and then to the main lounge for the comedian Dave Krishman.  After the show, we decided to check out the band which was supposed to be playing dance music in the Horizon lounge.  I think someone forgot to tell the band as they were late getting there and their music was not what we would consider “danceable”: we called it a night after a couple of songs.

Edinburgh:  Wednesday, April 24

We got our first taste of Scotland on the next day (Wednesday) with a woman playing the bagpipes on the dock to welcome us.

The piper looked a bit lonely.

It was a relatively nice day, cool but a sunny sky and the bagpipes got us off to a good start.  If you enjoy bagpipes, you can see and hear a short piece in this video.

Our schedule for today was mainly an excursion to walk the “Royal Mile” in central Edinburgh.  We were docked about 10 miles from Edinburgh, on the north side of the river Forth as it opens out into a bay.  Edinburgh is on the other, south, side of the bay so our bus had to cross a bridge to get there.  There are now three bridges crossing the river.  The closest one is the newest (2017), most modern, and is a vehicle bridge.  We would use this on the return from Edinburgh.  The middle bridge is a nice suspension bridge (1964) which we used going to Edinburgh.  The third bridge is called “The Forth Bridge” and in 1890 it was the first major structure in Britain to be made of steel and created a continuous railroad track from London to Aberdeen.  The Forth Bridge is a steel truss design and, to this day, is for train traffic only.

You can see all three bridges in this view from the deck of Sirena.

We loaded into our bus and rode about 40 minutes to get into central Edinburgh.  Here we stopped and unloaded below a high wall that is part of the Edinburgh castle fortress.  The castle was initially constructed in the 11^th century with frequent additional and updates over the years. 

Edinburgh castle from the base of the fortress walls

The castle served as the royal residence until 1633 and was used primarily as a military garrison and fortress after that time.  Today the castle is a world heritage site and one of the most visited historical sites in the British Isles.

We made our way up a couple of flights of old stone steps to the front of the castle where there were several groups of people milling around and some of them going into the castle for a tour.  We would not be going inside the castle, but had a few minutes to look around the outside.  The castle sits on top of a hill (actually, a very large rock called “the Castle Rock”) with a good view across much of the city of Edinburgh.  I made a composite video of the view out the two sides of the open area, overlooking Edinburgh.

The approach and main entrance to the Edinburgh Castle

The castle is considered the starting point of the “Royal Mile”, with the other end being the official residence of the British Monarch in Scotland, Holyroodhouse.  Since the road runs between two royal residences and is about a mile long, the term “The Royal Mile” seems appropriate.  After looking around a little, our guide started us down the Royal Mile.

There were a lot of people almost filling the Royal Mile.

Since this is a major tourist destination, there are a lot of tourist attractions and activities.  The “Camera Obscura and World of Illusions” sounded interesting to me, but the one that was so typically Scottish was “The Scotch Whiskey Experience”.  We soon found out that the Scots are very proud of their whiskey!

Unfortunately, we did not have time for this “Experience”

We continued down the street with our guide explaining some of the history and telling us about some of the buildings.  You can tell by the way the people were dressed in the photos that it was cool, although we did have a sunny day.

The Royal Mile is downhill al the way from the Castle to Holyroodhouse.

Most of the buildings have been repurposed over the years to better serve the tourist trade of today.  A former large church is now a combination market and meeting place called “The Hub”.

It used to be a church, but is now a market and meeting place

There are many interesting stories along the way, such as Deacon Brodies Tavern.  The short version of the story is that the Deacon was a bit two-faced and not always such a good guy.  So, the sign with his likeness in front of the tavern has two sides: one side (below) has him as a proper Deacon and businessman while the other side of the sign has him dressed as a bandit with a mask.

The good side of Deacon Brodie

A little more than half way down the road our guide gave us 45 minutes of “free time”.  This is usually intended for the people who want to do some shopping to look in the shops and buy what they want as souvenirs.  We seldom buy anything like that so we just look around and see what there is to see.  In this case, there was a large church, St. Gile’s Cathedral, so we took a look. 

Interior of St. Giles’ Cathedral

St. Giles’ is a Presbyterian church where John Knox used to preach.  The St. Giles church was founded in 1124 and has survived both many years and some very turbulent religious upheavals in Scotland and has undergone significant damage and several renovations.  After taking in the cathedral, we did wander through some shops where the primary products were various wool pieces from the many sheep we would be seeing over the next several days. 

We rejoined the guide and others in our group to continue our walk down the Royal Mile, soon getting to the end of the walk when the road ended in front of the King’s Gallery: the art gallery of Scotland.

The King’s Gallery

The King’s Gallery used to be known as The Queen’s Gallery, but I could not find the reason for the name change.  I suspect (but could not find confirmation) that the name changed with the passing of Queen Elizeabeth and the coronation of King Charles. The King’s Gallery was directly in front of the of the official end of the Royal Mile, the Holyroodhouse Palace.

Holyroodhouse Palace

The palace is the British monarch’s official residence in Scotland.  I’m sure there is some other uses of the large facility, especially when none of the Royal Family is actually in residence there, but nothing was mentioned.  We walked by some of the gardens and out-buildings in front of the palace, and then headed to meet our bus for the ride back to the Sirena. 

This afternoon there was a “port talk” by Susan Leng describing what we could expect in upcoming visits to Stornoway and Glasgow in the next few days.

Dinner this evening was in the Red Ginger restaurant where we were seated with a single lady traveling solo, who was very interesting.  We shared out table with others almost every night and met some very interesting and pleasant people that way.  After dinner we enjoyed a cognac in Martinis lounge before going to the main lounge for Nik Page’s first performance. 

Kirkwall:  Thursday, April 25

We arrived at the Kirkwall dock with sunny but windy and cool (cold?) conditions.  Kirkwall is located on Mainland Island, the largest of the Orkney Islands which are off the northern tip of Scotland.  Kirkwall is at about 58 degrees north, as is Stockholm, and the Artic Circle is at 66 degrees north, so we were a ways north, and it was chilly in the brisk wind.  Kirkwall must be getting some reasonable amount of cruise ship business as the dock facilities looked to be pretty new and there was another, smaller, cruise ship anchored in the bay.

The cruise port facilities looked rather new.

The actual town of Kirkwall and its regular fishing and cargo port/marina is just to the left in the photo above.  You can get a better idea of the area in a short video.  Our plan for today was to take an excursion (“Ancient Treasures of Orkney”) to see some of the historical features of the area.  We left the Sirena, boarded a bus (no bagpipes today), and headed across the island.  The streets were all narrow but well maintained two lane (or less) roads.  Many of the roads were only one lane but had wide sections for drivers to pull over while vehicles passed in the opposite direction.  There was very little traffic, but when we encountered a traffic light for a small area of road construction, our bus had to stop for a minute, although there was no other traffic within sight.

This is probably the only “traffic light” on the island.

On the way to our first stop, we passed by Scapa Flow, a large bay with very protected entrances, where England positioned the British fleet during the darker days of both World Wars.  It would be very difficult, some thought impossible, for German ships or U-boats to enter the bay and attack the fleet.  Rick Steves did a nice piece on Scapa Flow you might find more interesting than my description,

Our first stop would be at the Ring of Brogdar, the remains of a ring of stones very reminiscent of Stonehenge that we visited only a few days previously.

We had to take a short walk to the Ring of Brodgar.

The Ring of Brodgar is an almost perfect circle, actually much larger in diameter than Stonehenge, although not as many of the stones remain.  Archeologists estimate the ring was built almost 5000 years ago, like Stonehenge, and like Stonehenge, no one is sure just what purpose it was to serve. 

The stones are large and are buried 8 – 10 feet into the ground and rock.

People studying the ring estimate that it originally had 60 large stones around the perimeter but only 27 remain today.  Unlike Stonehenge, it did not have any of the horizontal topping stones laid across the vertical stones.  The stones are on a raised area, with two entrance ramps or “causeways” across a lower ditch that encircled the stones.

You can see the raised area and some of the surrounding ditch.

The photos above give a good idea of the size of the ring, but a short composite video look at the stones might be better.  After walking around the ring and taking a good look, we walked back to the bus, loaded up and headed to our next site, the partially excavated, UNESCO World Heritage Site “ Skarta Brae”.   The village is situated on a large bay and during our visit, the wind was blowing from the ocean with a definite chill.  Although the beach does have a lot of sand, I was not tempted to “take a walk on the beach”.

The beach at Skara Brae

The village consists of about 10 somewhat individual, but interconnected “houses”, all dug into the ground and reinforced with stone walls.  Archeologists estimate it was occupied from about 3100 BC – 2500 BC predating the Ring of Brodgar and even Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza.

Walkways connected the individual houses which had doors to limit entry.

The buildings had a form of central sewer system, including flowing water to wash the waste from the village and into the sea.  Given the chilling wind, I certainly understand the wisdom of building your village essentially underground with passages between the houses so occupants did not have to go out into the weather.

Over the centuries, the blowing sand had completely covered the remains of the village and it was discovered by accident.  In 1850 the owner of a large house (see the photo below) was surveying the damage done on his property by a bad storm.  The storm had blown away a lot of the sand covering Skara Brae, the owner stumbled across some of the remains, and initiated further excavation. 

Much of this would have been completely covered.  Skraill House in distance

The Skraill manor house was built in 1620 and our tour included a visit into the house which had been largely restored to its condition and furnishings of the mid-1800s, about when Skara Brae was discovered.   It was definitely a grand house for those days here on the relatively remote Orkney Islands.  We walked through much of the house but took special note of the guest book on the table in what we would consider the living room.  Can you make out the signature?

The guest book is signed “Elizabeth R (Queen Elizabeth) August 24  1983”

We stopped in the Skara Brae gift shop for a cup of hot tea to warm up from the chilling wind, very glad we had brought reasonably warm jackets with us.  Back in the bus we passed by another stone circle but this one only had three stones remaining, so it did not rate a stop and closer investigation.  The large stones in the circles were often plundered for use in newer buildings, but would be very difficult to track.

Three large stones are all that remain of this circle.

We headed back to the dock and Sirena where the other cruise ship was still anchored in the bay with tenders shuttling back and forth to the town.  Sirena was a little bigger than the other ship, so I suspect it was a case of the larger ship getting the limited dock space.

Sirena and friend awaiting our return

We were back in time for a slightly late lunch in the Terrace Café.  There were a couple of other tours getting back about the same time (about 1:15 – 1:30) and everyone realized that the Terrace Café was only open until 2:00, so quite a few people descended on the only dining facility open.  With a large crowd and the outdoor seating area closed, the café was crowded with some tables in the aisles and open tables were very scarce.  This same scene would repeat several times during the cruise.

The rest of the afternoon we relaxed, read books, had a glass or two of wine and made our way to Martinis bar to listen to Alexandr on the piano until time to head to the Grand Dining Room for dinner.  Tonight’s entertainment was the Sirena Production Company doing an “unplugged” acoustic rendition of popular music.  The music was enjoyable and good “listening music” but it did not seem very “acoustic” to me.

You can now click on your “Back Button” to return to the main document/page, or…

You can click to continue to Chapter 4.