Kirkwall, Orkney - August 2, 2025

Kirkwall is the largest town of the Orkney Islands, situated on an isthmus (I always wanted to use that word!) across from Scapa Flow, a huge natural harbor that was the Royal Navy base of operations during both world wars. Being something of a student of history, I had always wanted to see Scapa Flow for myself and now would get my chance.

We started the day exploring Kirkwall on our own. It is a charming town with many stone built buildings from across the ages.

In the afternoon we took an excursion called "Orkney's Archeological Wonders". Orkney has two impressive sites of ancient standing stones from the same Neolithic period as Stonehenge. There is also an excavated village, Skara Brae, from that period. From Skara Brae we could see a lovely curving beach where brave locals were cavorting in the waves, despite a water temperature of 56F that day. Did I mention that the people of these islands north of Scotland are tough?

The tour also took us along the coast line with views of Scapa Flow. It was great to see that huge harbor up close and hear the stories of its history from our guide, but no photos would do it justice. Scapa Flow has quite the history of wrecks and disasters as chronicled here.

We would like to come back to Kirkwall and explore more of Orkney.