Day 23 - Shetland - Lerwick - 30 September 2024

 Day 23 - Shetland - Lerwick - 30 September 2024

We arrived in Lerwick at around 7:00 a.m. and of course that is too early to book into the hotel.  We took a drive to see where it is, and The Grand Hotel is in the centre of the town. We thought that it would be a good idea to wander around the town to get the feel of the place and see whatever happens to be close to the centre.  We were welcomed to Shetland.

A lovely welcome

Close to the centre, we found Clickimin Broch.  What is a Broch you may well ask. We had to look it up.

A Broch is a fortified house, basically.  The name comes from the Scots word 'brough' which means fort.  Generally, a broch is constructed using stone.  It is round and there is a stone wall constructed around a central, circular building that is the house.  The second, outer wall acts as a deterrent and the central building is the living quaters.

It was very interesting to see how comfortably they lived.  This broch was constructed about 2,400 years ago. That takes some mental consideration to appreciate that length of time.  The details of building were precise and complex.  It is still unknown whether it was a house or a fortified building. Perhaps it was both. The experts are confident that it was two storey and have provided their opinion on how the building was used.  I believe that it would have been very warm and particularly comforting.

The proposed house

Clickimin Broch

The outer wall

Definitely two stories

We decided that we may as well look at some of the attractions and chose the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. It is the Sumburgh Lighthouse. It is the oldest lighthouse on Shetland and was constructed in 1821.  Until 1991 when it was automated, a lighthouse keeper stayed at Sumburgh.  The lighthouse also had a powerful foghorn that was operated in times of very heavy fog.  The foghorn was powered by diesel engines and three were installed to ensure it could always be operational.

The foghorn has been restored and is operated once a year.  Unfortunately, that will be on 30 October this year.  On the path to the lighthouse, there is a statue of an orca because many are seen in the waters around the island.

The lighthouse is on the hill

The foghorn

The lighthouse

Diesel engine for the foghorn

The coast

We learnt a really interesting fact about Shetland. It very rarely snows here because of the gulf stream. I fact, the weather is pretty mild compared with other parts of Scotland.  Crazy hey?

Look at that!

After the lighthouse, we thought that we would look at Jarlshof, an ancient building site. By the way, there really are Shetland ponies in Shetland!

Shetland ponies

Jarlshof is over 4,000 years old when the neolithic people inhabited the area.  There are very distinctly different types of house construction that support the theory that people of the bronze age, iron age and then the more modern period of 2,000 years ago.  There is a ruin of a Laird's house.  The shape of the houses were different.  There is evidence of Vikings.

It was a fascinating thing to see and once again, verified the fact they really did live quite comfortably, even though life would have been a lot harder than ours.  We spent a long time there. 

Very comfortable

Lots of rooms

For grinding flour

The Laird's house

The size of the Laird's house

General view

It really was a fascinating thing to see and it made us realise that really, the main thing that has changed is the material used to build houses. I am not sure that many houses being built today will still be around in 4,000 years.

We had not booked into the Grand Hotel so back to Lerwick.  Nothing is very far away and that is a good thing. We settled in and then tried to find a place to eat. That was interesting. We found that it is Wool Week! We didn't even know that there was a thing such as Wool Week.  Lots of knitters from over the world gather in Lerwick for a week to discuss knitting, wool, patterns and other things.  Also, most places do not open on Monday evenings. We eventually got into a French restaurant, C'est la Vie but only if we took a late sitting. We agreed.  We found it interesting.  The restaurant is probably best described as very efficient and then they automatically apply a 15% "Service Charge.  We have no idea what that is about.

Well, the Grand Hotel is in need of renovation and that is supposed to be happening. It was very clean and comfortable, and the staff were extremely helpful. Our first impression of the Shetland Islands is that they are exceptional.