Wonderful Kirkwall

The Orkney Islands looked beautiful at dawn today as they slowly materialized out of a fog bank. We got off the ship in the middle of a rain shower, 60° temperatures and 20-mile-an hour winds. Wandering into Kirkwall, we didn’t quite know where to go first. We ambled into a few craft stores where Glenda bought presents for friends. Then through the rain and clouds we saw tall steeple that seem to call us. A sign on the front told us we were entering the Church of Saint Magnus, a strikingly beautiful Anglican structure serving a congregation here since the eighth century. Its architecture shouted its Norse heritage loud and clear. I expected a Viking to peek out from behind anyone of the beautiful columns supporting its Romanesque arches. In fact, this church gave the town its name. The Vikings who settled here in the 800’s called the place Kirkvegr, or the church on the bay. Gradually that name was elided by the Picts, and then the Scots, and finally by the English into Kirkwall.

After seeing the church we wandered through the streets noticing that there was not one piece of litter, nor a single stroke of graffiti. The houses are small but beautiful in their simplicity, and each one is as neat as a pin. The people of Orkney take great pride in their islands and it shows.

I had seen some mention on the web about the Orkney Wireless Museum. For much of its history, Orkney has been remote, desolate, alone—and proudly so. Throughout the twentieth century radio provided a vital link to the outside world. A ham radio operator set up a little museum about the development of wireless communication, especially as it relates to the Orkneys. Inside we found an amiable volunteer who happily told us that he and his wife moved here when he was transferred by the oil company that employed him. The oil industry in the North Sea is still one of the big businesses here. The radio guy liked it so much that they decided to stay. In the small museum displays examples of old commercial AM radios that I remember from my youth, as well as ham radio equipment and a few examples of set used for military radio communications.

The people here were marvelously kind, and they were genuinely pleased to have us visit their island. They told us that the largest industry here is agriculture, followed closely by tourism. During the pandemic, no cruise ships visited, but now business is back and Kirkwall expects more than 130 ships to visit this summer alone. The islands were part of Norway until the 1300’s when the King of Norway gave these islands as a wedding present to his daughter when she married the King of Scotland. Ever since then, the Orkney Islands have been part of Scotland. Edinburgh and Aberdeen are about five hours away by ferry and car, and the residents get reduced rates for airline flights that take them to Scotland’s capital in less than an hour.

As we left Kirkwall to return to the ship, Glenda asked, “Do you think it would ever be possible for us to move here?”

I don’t think she was serious, but I can understand how she found the Orkney Islands with their beauty, their wonderful people and their unpretentious lifestyle to be enormously attractive.Read more