07-04-2023 Scotland at last, on the Hebrides Islands

 Gearrannan Blackhouse Village

For me, the next three days that we spent in Scotland were the most exciting part of our cruise.  Mo and I have been to Ireland, and Mo was in Scotland as a young woman, but I had never been there and we had never traveled to Scotland together. This was our first taste of a country with centuries of history plugged into my own genes.  With the introduction of DNA testing, I discovered I have much more Scottish heritage than I do Irish or any other origin.

Once again we were anchored offshore from the port at Stornaway, the largest town of the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland.  Mo and I departed as soon as tender service allowed because we wanted to visit the town on our own before meeting our tour group on the pier at 2:30 for a tour of "Historic Lewis", designed to showcase the history and culture of the island of Lewis, the largest and most populated island in the Outer Hebrides chain.  

The Isle of Lewis is shaped by the sea and harsh climate.  Steeped in history, the island has been inhabited for over 6,000 years, with nothing between it and North America.  Although we were to pass near the Standing Stones of Callanash, there was a message in LARGE PRINT in the Currents magazine to be certain that we knew that visiting the stones was not part of our chosen tour.  The tour that visited the stones was sold out before we were allowed to make tour choices, so I was aware that we wouldn't see them.

We spent a couple of hours in Stornoway, exploring the small side streets, with me attempting to navigate the very narrow sidewalks with the walker.  I was glad I had it, however, since there were a few hills and a lot of walking involved in our explorations.  It was great to have a place to sit when I needed it.

The Neogothic Lews castle rises on land above a beautiful park on one side of the town, but we decided against visiting there and instead decided to spend our time exploring the town.  Stornoway is the center for the manufacture of Harris Tweed and tourism is also important to the economy.   The town was established by Vikings in the 9th century, with the settlement growing slowly around the natural harbor.  The economics of Stornaway is built on traditional industries like fishing, making Harris Tweed, and farming, but currently, it is influenced by tourism and the oil industry.

On the main street closest to the port, we saw an outstanding and very photogenic local landmark, the  Stornaway Town Hall.  The building is important in the history of Stornoway and is an iconic building on one of the most prominent sites in the town.

There were a few shops, and with a short time to explore, we skipped the shops to make an attempt to find the churches, which were highly touted in the city guide.

In this case, I was glad that I had taken the time to download the Google map for the island, and we used it to make an attempt to find the church.  The city maps are often very poorly made, not to scale, and often not oriented in any particular direction.

With a bit of walking, we found the Scottish Episcopal Church, but it was not open for visiting.  We saw tiny gates leading to charming gardens, but no possible way to enter with my walker.  

After walking around several blocks looking for the church entrance, we gave up and continued on toward the much larger Free Church of Scotland in another direction.

There were helpful docents at this church and we were invited to enter and watch a video about the beliefs of the Free Church of Scotland.  It was an interesting visit, and the austere interior reflected the somewhat austere version of Protestantism represented by this denomination.

The kind woman who showed us the church offered to take our photograph and would have spent more time with us, but we needed to be on our way for our tour of the rest of the island.

We met at the pier to board our bus that would lead us on a circular tour of the northern half of the Island.  Our tour guide was a young woman with a lilting Norwegian accent, not quite as funny or charming as our Irish guide had been the previous day.  But as she told of the history of the Outer Hebrides and their Viking past, it made a bit more sense to have a Norwegian guide.  She told us she had recently relocated to the island for good and loved living here.  We enjoyed her stories about her Pentecostal Church of Scotland membership and other church services that she attended, which seemed to be her major social activity on the island.

Our first stop was at the black house village of Gearrannan, steeped in history, in a location of outstanding beauty.  The village's history only goes back to the early 1900s, and yet it looked much like some of the sets on the Outlander series, set a couple of centuries earlier in the story. 

Since 1989, a local community trust has been painstakingly restoring the once derelict properties and croft (small farm) land to recreate an authentic settlement.

Traditional methods have been used to recreate the dry-stone masonry and thatched roofs of the original croft houses.  A typical "blackhouse" was a long rectangular building forty to fifty feet in length, with an interior width of 10 to 12 feet.  All the corners in the outside walls were rounded, and great care was taken to ensure that the outer walls, which were of undressed stone, had a slight slant to allow the rain to drip off and not seep into the interior. The thatched roof was a fundamental characteristic of the blackhouse and thatching was a family or community activity with the skills passed from generation to generation. 

The small rocky paths that led to vistas of the surrounding landscape and the distant ocean were covered in blooming heather and brilliant green grasses.  It was extremely quiet, even with all the people from the tour milling about.  

As was often the case on our tours on this trip, we were given just 15 minutes of free time to walk around, visit the museum, and peruse the small artists' shop, where I didn't have enough time to make a thoughtful purchase.  Another moment that I wish now that I had managed differently because some of the small art pieces would have been good gifts for my daughters.

Yes, I did manage to snag the front seat of the bus for this tour!

Once on the bus again, we traveled a short distance further along the rugged coastline on Loch Carloway, to the exceptionally well-preserved Carloway Broch, a 2,000-year-old circular, dry-stone-built, fortified tower. 

Here we viewed the collapsing stonework which made the interior galleries and stairways visible.  

Several folks from our group climbed the steep narrow stairs to the upper levels of the broch, but neither of us was even slightly inclined to try it.  I had a hard enough time trying to get through the low, narrow doorways to the interior of the ancient building.

The broch was on a high hill with another view of the Loch Carloway, and several farmhouses scattered about the landscape.  

There were sheep, and old stone ruins scattered about as well.

Google image of the Outer Hebrides west of the coast of Mainland Scotland.  

When we left the broch, our circular itinerary took us along the west coast of the Hebrides, pounded by the force of the Atlantic Ocean.  We motored across the moors on our way back to Stornaway.  However, along the way, our guide pointed out the Callanish Standing Stones, barely visible through the bus windows in the distance.

I took a photo but stole the second photo below from the internet to show what we missed.  Throughout the Outer Hebrides, and the Orkney Islands which we would see on the next day, there are numerous ancient sites of standing stones, brochs, and other prehistoric ruins.  

 Photo from the internet of the Callanish Standing Stones

I would love to return to Scotland, but it would require a minimum three-hour ferry ride to get to the island from the mainland, so I am glad we were able to see these islands from the ease of a cruise port.

Once we returned to the ship, we decided that it was a good evening to see if the 24-hour room service was a good option for a relaxing evening in our stateroom.  Our dinner was just OK, in fact, I wrote that it was "ok" in my notes, and never took note of what we ordered.

That evening the Riviera Lounge entertainment was to be a Concert of Movie Themes, performed by the Brilliant String Quartet at 9:30.  We chose instead to stay in our room and relax in preparation for our next day of touring, the third day in a row with a formal tour.

On a different day, I caught of the lovely musicians performing in the Grand Bar.

The photo below I took from our veranda at 11 PM as we rounded Cape Wrath on the northwest coast of Scotland.