Could you survive two and a half weeks in a car with your husband? I did. Scotland.

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When we arrived in Edinburgh that evening, Stephen and I had arranged to catch up with friends we’d met in Turkey for dinner and Jan and Pauline walked the street of Edinburgh to find a place for dinner. I tell you, Stephen and I were worried they wouldn’t make it back to the hotel alive, considering they weren’t on their five star tour of Canada now, they were roughing it with their backpacking son and daughter in-law. To our surprise there they were wrapped up in bed, safe and sound when we returned.

The next day we headed straight to Edinburgh Castle. We spent a few hours exploring, had some lunch and then met up with long lost cousin Tuck - Anna, who has been in Edinburgh for a little while. After this we headed down the hill to The Palace of Holyroodhouse and Arthur’s Seat. Founded as a monastery in 1128, the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh is the Queen's official residence in Scotland. Situated at the end of the Royal Mile, the Palace of Holyroodhouse is closely associated with Scotland's turbulent past, including Mary, Queen of Scots, who lived here between 1561 and 1567. Successive kings and queens have made the Palace of Holyroodhouse the premier royal residence in Scotland. Today the Palace is the setting for state ceremonies and official entertaining. It was just lovely inside and really fit for the Queen.

After this began the madness of searching for toy knights. They didn’t have them at Holyroodhouse, so Jan and Pauline were off back to Edinburgh Castle before they closed in search for them. Stephen and I couldn’t keep up! The pace was amazing.

On our way to the Orkney Islands was an early start. We left the accommodation at 06:00 and Edinburgh at 06:30, thanks to the roadworks all over Edinburgh, but we got there and let me say I’ve never seen Jan do as many u-turns, illegal turns and going round, round-about the wrong way before! It wasn’t too long, as I slept half the way and we had made it too just outside Inverness for breakfast. After a hearty breakfast we were back on the road to get to Scrabster by 12:30 to catch the ferry. The ferry crossing was a bit rough and Stephen and Pauline spent the whole time on the deck. But we all survived and had two days in the glorious Orkney Islands. For those who don’t know The Orkney Islands are located off the northern tip of Scotland where the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet. Orkney is an archipelago of 70 or so islands and currently 21 of them are inhabited. During our two days we spent our time exploring the island and seeing the sights.

Those sights were started with the Churchill Barriers or Causeways. These four causeways were built after the sinking of the HMS Royal Oak while it lay at harbour in Scapa Flow in October 1939. Barrier No 1 is over 2,000 feet (610 metres) in length. The maximum depth below the highest tide level is 59 feet (18 metres) after the war; a road was built on top of the barriers allowing the south isles of Lamb Holm, Glimps Holm, Burray and South Ronaldsay to become part of the main roadway system of Orkney.

We then headed to the Eagle Tomb; which is located on at cliff edge at Isbister on South Ronaldsay. The Tomb of the Eagles is a Neolithic chambered tomb estimated to have been built around 3000bc, and used for approximately 800 years. It is 3.5 metres high and consists of a rectangular main chamber, divided into stalls and side cells. To get in your must lie on your stomach on a skateboard and pull yourself with the rope. We all rolled in and just in time as it began to rain. The rain didn’t bother Jan and Pauline considering they were covered head to toe in plastic, Plastic Pants, Plastic Jackets and Wellingtons (sorry Gumboots) what I sight I tell you. Stephen and I just looked glamorous in plastic pants; it was quite hard to say no to them partly because their accent was so thick and partly because they wanted you to keep dry.

While driving the length of the Islands in a day we discovered the Italian Chapel, located on the tiny island of Lamb Holm (connected to the Mainland by the first of the Churchill Barriers) which is a unique memorial to 550 Italian Prisoners of War where they were interned in the 1940s. This beautiful little chapel was converted internally from two corrugated iron Nissan huts. The photos speak for themselves.

The next Neolithic site was the Ring of Brodgar which is one of the finest stone circles in the world. The stone ring was built in a true circle, 104 metres wide and originally contained 60 megaliths, today only 27 of these stones remain. It is much older than Stonehenge and Avesbury which we’d seen earlier in the trip. And the Standing Stones of Stenness which is a small circle dating from the third millennium BC and consisting originally of 12 stones, with, nearby, the Watchstone and the Bamhouse stone. The next big draw card was Skara Brae. This is an incredibly well preserved stone village containing an intricate maze of dwellings, with stone beds, lintels and cupboards all intact, and dates back some 5,000 years. The site was revealed in 1850 by a violent storm and is now one of the most famous Neolithic sites in Northern Europe. Stephen was in his element.

One of the last sights we saw on the Orkney Islands was St. Magnus Cathedral, founded in 1137 by Norse Earl Rognvald Kolson in memory of his uncle Saint Magnus. The Cathedral contains their remains, marvellous medieval grave markers and noted stained glass. The Orkney Islands has a Nordic background and the cathedral in the style of a Viking Cathedral. It’s funny that such a huge cathedral is in such a small village.

The time had come to leave the islands and make our way to the Scottish mainland and make that horrible ferry crossing again. But little did we know that our ferry was cancelled, this caused panic in all of us, especially since we had a flight to Ireland the next day. With some help from Liz the Royal Oak Guest House Owner/Manager we were able to book on the midday ferry. We were delayed for about 2 hours, and the captain annouced that apparently we should know why but to this day we have no idea why we were delayed. Although it was a smaller ferry it was cheaper, smoother and had a shorter travelling time. We drive down the highlands we had driven up a few days earlier and spent the night in Inverness.

We were only able to spend the morning in Inverness as we were flying out to Belfast that afternoon. We were off early to catch a glance of Nessie - The Loch Ness Monster unfortunately we were disappointed.

Well this ends our adventure in Scotland and the next blog will be the completion to our time with Jan and Pauline and our time in Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland.

Love to all.
Michelle and Stephen.

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Photos

The Border
One foot either side so to speak.

Jan, Pauline and Stephen
From the top of Edinburgh Castle.

The Old Man of Hoy
The Old Man of Hoy is a 137 metre (450 ft) sea stack of red sandstone perched on a plinth of igneous basalt and is often a favourite of rock climbers.

On the way to Orkney Island
Isn't everyone a lovely shade of green?!?

Tomb of the Eagle
Exploring in the rain and mud.

The only way in....
Getting into the Tomb of the Eagle.

Standing Stones of Stenness
The stones are thin slabs, approximately 1 ft thick.

The Italian Chapel
The inside as decorated by the POWs.

The Italian Chapel
From the outside.

The Brough of Birsay
Insert Sarcasm - This 'Rock' was used as kitchen utensil, you can see by the imprint where to put your fingers and bash against the rock. Amazing.

St. Magnus Cathedral
In the small town of Kirkwall.

Dunrobin Castle
Pauline and I were so impressed by the way you empty the basin that we took this photo.

Loch Ness
What's that in the water?