Joe and Françoise's excellent adventures!: “You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning!”

Our guide told us the title of this blog is a local saying…. And it makes sense to me, so the excursion I took this morning did involve morning drinking….. but let’s start at the beginning.

We were welcomed to the Orkney Islands by a rainbow, which was a nice way to start the day.

We had to get on the tenders to get to the town of Kirkwall because we could not dock in port.

With a small ship like ours, tendering is actually a very easy process.

We started the excursion with a hike along the cliffs (see top picture), stopping first to ooh and ahh over the Gloup (pronounced gloop), from the Norse word gluppa , which means chasm or cave and refers to any collapsed sea cave that lets the waves in. But this is the original gloup and what a great gloup it is indeed!

We then waked along the cliffs, which were beautiful.

It was windy, but not cold, and very pleasant And the showers we saw off shore never made it to us.

I loved the trail carved off the cliffs.

On top of the cliff, there was, of course, the ruins of an old Broch- the 2000 year old round houses that archeologists are still trying to explain (they all popped up at the same time about 2000 ago, there are a lot of them, and then they went out of fashion as quickly as they appeared….)

I also loved the many flowers that cling to the cliffs (more pictures of flowers at the end of the blog).

After that, we headed to a gin distillery, and got a tour of the green house where they grow some of the aromatics they use in their gin.

I learned a lot: vodka and gin are basically the same thing, but gin (by law) has to include juniper, and various gins use different aromatics. The distillery we visited used tarragon, orange peel, cinnamon, vanilla and many other fruits and herbs (such as nasturtium) in their various gins. I’m not a huge gin drinker but liked their “sea glass” gin enough to buy a bottle (also, it’s nice to support the local economy)..

We tasted 6 different ones, in very small glasses…… but still before lunch, it adds up…..

We drove to and from our excursion along bucolic fields, with many little lambs to go “awwww” about. (They have a number painted on them, the same as their mother in case they go frolicking too far away and get lost. The farmer can then reunite them.

There are also many wind turbines everywhere. This is a VERY windy place, and produces over 100% of their electricity using wind.

We arrived back to town early enough for a visit of the charming town of Kirkwall (the largest town in the Orkney's, population 8000). It has a beautiful red sandstone cathedral, which dates from the 1100’s, and was finished in the 1400’s.

Both the style, carving, and saints (and name: Saint Magnus) show its Norse origin. It has nice stained glass windows and some wonderfully macabre grave tombstones.

The town itself starts to feel familiar in its layout: narrow “main” streets linked together by short alleys.

There are many other cool ruins just around town, some dating from the Norse, this one dating from the 17th century (the residence of Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney and not a very nice person)

We had been told by our guide this morning that we HAD TO try some Orkney ice cream. I had skipped lunch, so I did. It was good.

And then, when I got back to the ship, they were serving crêpes, so I felt I would be rude not to have any….. so I did…..

While I was doing this, Joe was doing some day drinking of his own, having chosen to visit a whiskey distillery and learn about the typical smokey whiskey of this part of the world. I was relieved that he did not come back with the 56 year old, 40000£ bottle….

In an effort to stay up till sunset, I ended up playing a very silly "family feud" type game and had a lot of fun.The sun set behind the clouds, but it was still pretty.