Orkney Tours for Mature Travellers: Skara Brae, Gurness Broch and Neolithic Orkney

Orkney lies barely ten kilometres off the north coast of mainland Scotland, yet it holds the densest concentration of prehistoric sites in Britain. Five thousand years ago its farmers were building stone villages with dressers and box beds, while the pyramids of Giza were still centuries in the future. On our Scottish Islands and Shetland small group tour, Orkney fills Days 13 to 15: two full days of Neolithic villages, Iron Age brochs, Norse earls and wartime causeways, then a morning among the palaces of Kirkwall before the overnight ferry to Shetland.

Why Orkney rewards a slow look

Orkney is an archipelago of 67 islands, eighteen of them inhabited. Unlike rugged Shetland to the north, most of it is low and green, with fertile soil that grows grass and summer grain. The old saying runs that Shetlanders are fishermen with farms, while Orcadians are farmers with boats. That good land is one reason the islands have been settled for so long, and Orkney’s abundant building stone is one reason so much of what early islanders built survives.

The result is a landscape in layers. Neolithic villages and tombs sit beneath Iron Age brochs, which sit beneath Norse halls and churches, and over all of it lie the concrete causeways of the Second World War. Like Shetland, Orkney was ruled from Norway for centuries and passed to the Scottish crown in the late fifteenth century, and Norse place names are everywhere. Our guide to Neolithic Orkney explains how the great prehistoric monuments fit together, and our older overview of the Orkney Islands covers the archipelago more broadly.

Day 13: Stromness, Skara Brae and the Broch of Gurness

The group reaches Orkney the traditional way, by sea. On Day 12 the tour stops at Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of mainland Britain, where on a clear day the islands are already visible across the Pentland Firth. After an early breakfast on Day 13, the group crosses from Scrabster on the morning ferry and begins a full day of sightseeing with a visit to the Stromness Museum. Founded in 1837 by the Orkney Natural History Society, it holds natural history collections alongside objects recovered from the German fleet scuttled in Scapa Flow after the First World War, and a small Neolithic whalebone figurine from Skara Brae.

Skara Brae itself is the highlight of the day, and for many travellers the reason to come to Orkney at all. It is the best-preserved Neolithic village in northern Europe, lived in from around 3200 BC until about 2500 BC and then buried under sand for more than four thousand years. A great storm in 1850 stripped back the dunes above the Bay of Skaill and exposed its walls. Today you look down into houses sunk into the ground and joined by covered passages, still furnished with their stone dressers, hearths and box beds. Skara Brae forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.

The day ends on the north-east coast of the Mainland at the Broch of Gurness, overlooking Eynhallow Sound. Founded between about 500 and 200 BC, its broch tower stands at the centre of a whole Iron Age village, with small stone houses, yards and a main street, all enclosed by rock-cut ditches and ramparts. Few sites in Scotland show so clearly that a broch was the heart of a community rather than a lonely tower. The group then reaches the hotel (the Orkney Hotel or similar) in the late afternoon, with time to rest before dinner.

How much walking is there on Orkney?

Expect three to five hours of activity a day, at times on uneven ground. The whole tour is rated Level 2 (Moderate), which means carrying your own luggage, managing stairs, and walking the equivalent of up to 8 kilometres on uneven ground in a day. At Skara Brae you walk from the visitor centre down to the village, and Orkney’s sites are often exposed to wind and rain, so good shoes and a waterproof jacket matter more than distance. If Rennibister Earth House is visited on Day 14, it is entered by a ladder through a hatch in the roof; if you would rather not climb down, mention it to the tour leader on the day.

Day 14: Norse earls, Barnhouse and the Churchill Barriers

The second day begins at Orphir, on the south coast of the Mainland, at the Earl’s Bu. These are the remains of a great drinking hall of the Norse earls of Orkney, recorded in the Orkneyinga saga. Beside them stands the apse of a round church, probably built in the early twelfth century by Earl Haakon Paulsson, by tradition as penance for the murder of his cousin Magnus, and modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Most of it was pulled down for stone in 1757, but what survives is the oldest round church in Scotland.

From Orphir the group continues to Barnhouse, a Neolithic village on the shore of the Loch of Harray, a short walk from the Standing Stones of Stenness. It was found only in 1984, and excavation uncovered the bases of at least fifteen houses, lived in from around 3000 BC. Where Skara Brae shows you a village frozen in sand, Barnhouse shows the people who lived alongside the great ceremonial monuments. Time permitting, the group also visits Rennibister Earth House, an Iron Age underground chamber discovered in 1926 when a threshing machine broke through its roof. If you would like more background on Scotland’s prehistoric stones before you travel, our article on standing stones, Neolithic history and whisky makes a good companion.

The afternoon turns to the twentieth century. On the night of 14 October 1939, a German submarine slipped into the fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak, killing 835 men. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had the eastern approaches sealed with solid causeways, now known as the Churchill Barriers, and from 1942 some 550 Italian prisoners of war helped build them. The group drives to Holm to see the barriers themselves, which still carry the road south today, with the rusting hulls of old blockships alongside.

On Lamb Holm, the first island linked by the barriers, the same prisoners left Orkney its most moving wartime building. With little more than scrap metal, concrete and paint, they turned two Nissen huts into a chapel, its plain corrugated roof hidden behind an ornate painted façade. Our article on the Italian Chapel in Orkney tells the story of the men of Camp 60 who built it. The group returns to the hotel in the late afternoon, and the rest of the day is free.

Does the tour visit the Ring of Brodgar and Maeshowe?

They are not named stops on the current itinerary, which concentrates on Skara Brae, Barnhouse, the Broch of Gurness and the Norse and wartime sites. Barnhouse lies a short walk from the Standing Stones of Stenness, and the Ring of Brodgar is close by on the same strip of land between two lochs. If seeing them matters to you, ask a Tour Specialist about the latest itinerary before you book.

Day 15: Kirkwall’s palaces and the ferry to Shetland

The last Orkney morning is spent in Kirkwall, the islands’ capital, at the Bishop’s and Earl’s Palaces. The Bishop’s Palace is part of the medieval cathedral complex, and beside it the roofless Earl’s Palace was built around 1600 by Earl Patrick Stewart, a nephew of Mary, Queen of Scots, whose rule was so harsh that he was executed for treason in 1615. His palace is still counted among the finest examples of French-influenced Renaissance architecture in Scotland.

The afternoon is free to explore at your own pace. St Magnus Cathedral, begun in 1137 and still a working church, is a short walk away, and our guide to Kirkwall and St Magnus Cathedral suggests how to spend the time. In the evening the group has dinner together before boarding the overnight NorthLink ferry to Lerwick, and wakes in Shetland. Our page on the Shetland days of the tour picks up the journey from there.

How long does the tour spend on Orkney?

Two full days, plus a final day in Kirkwall. The group arrives on the morning ferry on Day 13, spends two nights at the Orkney Hotel or similar, and leaves on the evening of Day 15 on the overnight ferry to Shetland. Breakfast is included every day, with dinner together on Days 13 and 15.

Orkney on the wider island route

Orkney comes late in a journey that begins on Arran and works north through Mull, Iona, Skye and the Outer Hebrides. By the time you reach Skara Brae you have already seen the Callanish stones on Lewis and the blackhouses of Arnol, and Orkney gathers those threads together in one small, crowded landscape. Our route guide to Scottish island hopping, from Arran to Shetland follows the whole 20-day itinerary, and our overview of the best of the Scottish islands compares the island groups if you are still choosing where to begin.

Few places let you stand in a five-thousand-year-old house in the morning and a wartime chapel in the afternoon. In a small group, with the ferries arranged and a tour leader travelling with you, the days on Orkney are spent among its sites rather than its timetables. You can read the full day-by-day itinerary on the Scottish Islands and Shetland tour page.