Sunday, July 10
We didn't rush to leave the ship as we knew the shops wouldn't open until 10am, and being a Sunday we weren't sure if they would open at all! We had also read that the Museum was closed on a Sunday, and that the other big attraction was St. Magnus Cathedral, but being a Sunday we knew it would be closed to visitors while church was on.
The Cathedral was closed to visitors from 11am to 1pm, so we decided to attend the morning service at 11:15am, and we were glad we did. It is a Church of Scotland church, so this was a first for us. The people were friendly, and the service very traditional, but we enjoyed it. However with the service being held in such a lovely old Cathedral meant we had beautiful stained glass windows, amazing vaulted ceilings, old memorial stones with lovely carving on them and military standards hanging in some of the chapels to look at!
After the service we found the Orkney Museum was open, so we spent a couple of hours in it as it covered the full history of the Orkney Islands from about 5000BC to present times, and there were many rooms covering the different periods. They also had a special exhibition commemorating the Battle of Jutland, which was a big naval battle in 1916 where about 9000 German and British sailors died as many ships on both sides were sunk.
We returned to the ship after an uplifting and informative time in Kirkwall.
We didn't rush to leave the ship as we knew the shops wouldn't open until 10am, and being a Sunday we weren't sure if they would open at all! We had also read that the Museum was closed on a Sunday, and that the other big attraction was St. Magnus Cathedral, but being a Sunday we knew it would be closed to visitors while church was on.
The Cathedral was closed to visitors from 11am to 1pm, so we decided to attend the morning service at 11:15am, and we were glad we did. It is a Church of Scotland church, so this was a first for us. The people were friendly, and the service very traditional, but we enjoyed it. However with the service being held in such a lovely old Cathedral meant we had beautiful stained glass windows, amazing vaulted ceilings, old memorial stones with lovely carving on them and military standards hanging in some of the chapels to look at!
After the service we found the Orkney Museum was open, so we spent a couple of hours in it as it covered the full history of the Orkney Islands from about 5000BC to present times, and there were many rooms covering the different periods. They also had a special exhibition commemorating the Battle of Jutland, which was a big naval battle in 1916 where about 9000 German and British sailors died as many ships on both sides were sunk.
We returned to the ship after an uplifting and informative time in Kirkwall.
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