Orkney Tours

About Orkney

Orkney is an archipelago of roughly 70 islands off Scotland's north coast, connected to the mainland by ferry from Scrabster, Gills Bay, or Aberdeen, and by flights to Kirkwall. The islands feel distinctly different from mainland Scotland — green, low-lying, fertile, and with an identity shaped as much by Norse heritage as by Scottish. The wind is constant, the light extraordinary, and the sense of deep history is everywhere. The Heart of Neolithic Orkney, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1999, brings together four remarkable monuments on the Orkney Mainland. Skara Brae is a 5,000-year-old village — older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids — with stone houses, furniture, and passageways preserved intact after being buried by sand for millennia and uncovered by a storm in 1850. The Ring of Brodgar is a great stone circle of 27 remaining stones (from an original 60) on a narrow isthmus between two lochs — free to visit and open year-round. The Stones of Stenness, erected around 3100 BC, keep four towering stones, the tallest nearly 6 metres. Maeshowe is a chambered cairn accessible only by guided tour, with Viking graffiti carved on its interior walls. Beyond the Neolithic sites, Orkney offers Kirkwall with its magnificent red sandstone St Magnus Cathedral (founded 1137), the Scapa Flow wartime heritage, the Italian Chapel (built by prisoners of war from a Nissen hut in the 1940s), and superb island-hopping. Hoy has the Old Man of Hoy sea stack and dramatic cliffs. The outer islands — Westray, Papa Westray, Sanday — offer seabird colonies, white beaches, and profound quiet. Orkney's food scene is exceptional for its size — Orkney beef, crab, lobster, cheese, and craft beer are all locally produced. The islands host a thriving arts and music scene, with the St Magnus International Festival each June.