April in Orkney

On the principle that better late than never...

I went to Orkney in April.

Kinda goes without saying that it is an extremely long way away. So many hours in the back of the car. You have to drive to Scotland, then you have to drive all the way to the very top of Scotland, then you have to get on a boat and sail off the edge of the world. But holy shit is it worth it. Not only do you get to venture to John O'Groats (always cause for an amusing selfie)...

But if you're very lucky then a rainbow is there to greet you when you get off the ferry.

Coming from a family of complete and utter history nerds, this holiday was all about the prehistoric remains. Orkney is rather well-off in this respect. There's a stone circle or a neolithic village or standing stone or burial cairn around pretty much every corner. You might think I'm joking but I'm really not. We were talking to someone from Historic Scotland about what would happen if Skara Brae fell into the sea and she said (with no hint of exaggeration) "Oh we'd just dig up a farmer's field and find another one." They have a lot of history up there.

Right round the corner from our holiday apartment were the Stones of Stenness.

Not gonna lie, this recreation of it was my absolute favourite thing in Orkney Museum. I honk every time I look at it.

Just across the causeway from the Stones is...more stones! The Ring of Brodgar to be exact.

You don't really want to get me started on why I think Stonehenge is a bit crap. Honestly people, if you're down that way then go to Avebury instead. A stone circle with a village and a PUB in it. The Ring of Brodgar is better than both of them though, plus as with most things in Orkney, you basically have it to yourself. No other irritating tourists around.

Everywhere you go is blissfully empty and incredibly beautiful.

(This is Maeshowe. Might be a World Heritage Site but shhhh, don't tell anyone. It was a bit dull. Fun Viking graffiti though.)

There are random ancient burial tombs everywhere and you can just let yourself in. Then you can climb into side tombs and poke around and it's awesome.

Some of them are a tad more difficult to get to (hello Cuween!) and you literally have to crawl inside on your hands and knees in the mud but I am an intrepid soul so in I went.

And even when you get lost trying to find one, the views from the hills are quite good as consolation.

Skara Brae is, as we expected, fascinating and breathtaking. Lifetime ambition to visit it: completed! Alas it's not that easy to take an interesting photo of. Soz.

I was also a big fan of the Brough of Gurness. Yes, we did nearly get blown into the sea but a) Shetland ponies:

and b) it reminded me somewhat of Labyrinth. A ruined, windswept, small version of the Goblin City.



Birsay was also rather fab. We found out tide times, strode boldly across the causeway and then sunbathed on the mossy ruins of a Viking house.

And just to finish, because I'm aware this is turning into a flipping essay loudly singing the praises of Orkney, here are some random photos:

Sorry, how much?

Stromness is beautiful.

View from our kitchen window.


Still kinda gutted I didn't buy this.

Couldn't resist.

In summary: GO TO ORKNEY.  It is the windiest place I've ever been in my life and I spent most of the week looking like Cousin It but it's magical. I may have spent half of this post calling things beautiful but I haven't done justice to even a tiny part of it. All these photos were taken with an iPhone camera and I haven't messed around with them at all. No filters: it really is that stunning.

Holiday Dreaming

It seems like an awfully long time since I've been on holiday. Outside the UK anyway. Inside it, I'm good! Quite well travelled in fact, due to the awesome family Easter holidays I go on each year with my mum, aunt and sometimes my cousin. These usually feature heavy amounts of historical exploration, charity shops and reading - all my favourite things!

Next April we're off to Orkney for a week of yomping around Neolithic villages and stone circles and I cannot wait.

As I've never been much of a one for beach breaks, it's unsurprising that my holidays that involve getting on a plane tend to be short city breaks. Recent jaunts include:

Dublin

Belfast



Estoril/Lisbon/Sintra/Evora



Dubrovnik




And, in the years before blogging (so I can't find any of the photos off-hand), Bruges, Florence & Pisa and Barcelona. Ahhh, lovely memories.

Funds are tight at the moment, what with the house purchase and all, so I haven't had an city break this year. I'm currently plotting hard for next year though! Plans are free, after all, and there's nothing nicer to do on a chilly winter evening than dream of sunshine and exploration. Do I want to go somewhere historically fascinating like Carcassone? Although Dubrovnik was truly wonderful so perhaps back to Eastern Europe. I've always had a hankering to visit Riga. Maybe even Prague. Actually, the more I hear about that place, the more I want to go. Someone at work has just come back from a jaunt there and had an amazing time. It's very tempting!

I miss the pre-holiday sense of excitement a lot. Furiously browsing airline websites for the cheapest slots, sorting out travel insurance, picking out a lovely hotel room. Admittedly I usually loathe the latter - so much choice it boggles my brain - but with the aid of a good booking site like venere.com to find that perfect Prague hotel I reckon I'll be stress-free and full of holiday joy. The fun stuff like researching what to do once I've landed can then start!

The actual booking part will have to wait till next year but I'm enjoying a lot of idle browsing in the meantime.

*wistful holiday sighs*

Perhaps there's somewhere excellent you can recommend? I'm up for any and all European locations so if you've had a good (or bad) holiday there, let me know! Or hit me up with any links to blog posts you've done about your travels. I'd love to read them.

Cake and Castles

Whilst halfway up a mountain in Wales over Easter, I turned round to my mum and said something along the lines of "Cake, coffee, second hand bookshops and castles: today has been pretty perfect, hasn't it?"  We were being merrily buffeted by wind and rain at this point, I had a serious case of Castle Hair going on (does anyone else with long hair get this? The tangles are EPIC) and it was generally quite grim but I was so, so content with life.

Britain is an endlessly fascinating place. Trips abroad are all well and good but there's so much to see right here. We stayed in Bishop's Castle in Shropshire which is only about 80 miles away from home. Plus I've visited Shropshire quite a lot over the years and have done most of the obvious tourist things there. That doesn't mean we were short of things to do!

Bishop's Castle itself is tiny but rather lovely. You've got to love a place with polka dot houses and lots of yarnbombing, haven't you?





So where did we go? What did we do? We didn't stay in the cottage reading and playing Bananagrams all week, I promise.

We went to Montgomery and found:

Bunners, the BEST shop in the whole world. It's a proper treasure trove of ironmongery, hardware and kitchenware and even has old fashioned petrol pumps outside!

Also the world's most tasteful Spar



And a ruined castle. As I mentioned above, the weather was not great so it wasn't ideal for arty photos. Also I was too busy facing my fear of falling through gappy bridges to get my camera out. They scare the crap out of me. You can't see it properly but there's a drop of about 50 feet below this and oh my god, what if I fell through the gaps and DIED? It's a looooooooong way down!

We went to Much Wenlock and looked around the very beautiful priory. It was a visit full of topiary and Highland coos and lady selfies in the ruins of the Lady Chapel. Also me utterly failing to pose properly for photos.

We went to an Iron Age hill fort (as you do). It used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

Imagination is a very helpful thing when visiting places like this!



We went to a stone circle in the middle of nowhere.

We went to Benthall Hall which is beautiful and has the friendliest volunteers. My favourite fact of all time is that one of the previous owners used to eat 16 sausages a day. Sixteen!! Also see that room on the left hand side of the ground floor? There was a Civil War battle in that room - cannons through the windows and dead soldiers all over the floor.

We went to Shrewsbury for the day where I had a delicious lunch and a lovely afternoon with Char.





We went on quite a lot of zooming around Z roads (my mother is a truly intrepid driver) looking at odd place names. Snailbeach or The Bog anyone?

Then on my birthday we all had cake for breakfast and went off to Stokesay Castle and Ludlow. The sun shone and it was utterly blissful.

Cats in shops alert!! This brilliant cafe/bookshop/record shop in Bishop's Castle (which also sells the best apricot slice I've ever eaten) has an excellent ginger moggy.

Then in a tiny, cluttered antiques shop in Much Wenlock we found this enormous fluffmonster. Apparently he lives in a pub, is called Carling and pays a daily visit to the shop.

ps - I bought some books. Quelle surprise.