Day 09 -- 6/09 - Orkney Islands (Kirkwall)

 After a nice overnight sailing we anchored off the port at Kirkwall around 7am.  We, however, elected to sleep in a bit longer.  After breakfast we obtained our tender ticket and waited for our Lizardfish ticket to be called.  It was a short tender ride in and the tender deposited us right in the center of town.


Kirkwall is a very old city first visited by the Vikings and later colonized by the Norwegian's.  Later it became controlled by the Scot's.


I should also note that Kirkwall has a cruise terminal, but that requires a shuttle bus trip into town or an hour walk.  This afternoon the NCL Dawn is due to use the cruise terminal.


The Dawn is berthed on the left; Regal Princess is moored on the right.

We began to walk the very narrow streets of this very ancient town and found the St.Magnus Cathedral.  We toured that along with the adjoining Bishop's castle before watching in the bookstore a nice movie about the history of the church.  Nearby was a nice free museum which we toured.  We continued our stroll down the main tourist street and eventually made a right turn on Justice street.  We found the post office where we waited for a friend who arrived on the NCL Dawn.  Eventually Tom arrived and we met in person for the first time.  


He tried to mail a package home, but the PO wouldn't accept it because there was no UK return address. We then found a hotel restaurant to enjoy a lunch.  After lunch we said our goodbyes, and we boarded our early tender back to the ship.


Back on board we enjoyed our customary dinner in the the Allegro which was once again quite good.  Our evening entertainment was Siobhan Phillips who was a finalist on Britain's Got Talent.  She was really good!  Except for the fact that we chose to see the movie, "Mary, Queen of Scots", we would have went back for Siobhan's second performance.


And so ended our day in Kirkwall.  Edinburgh is tomorrow.  

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