Northern Islands

The Northern Isles: Orkney and Shetland

Orkney and Shetland are Scotland’s Northern Isles, and they are not simply a remoter version of the Highlands. Both were Norse territory for centuries and only passed to Scotland in the 1460s, pledged as part of a Danish princess’s dowry and never redeemed. The place names are Old Norse, the accents are unlike anywhere else in Scotland, the Gaelic culture of the west is absent, and the landscape – treeless, wind-scoured, ringed by cliffs – looks like nowhere else in Britain.

They are also very different from each other. Orkney is green, fertile, low-lying and stuffed with prehistory. Shetland is bleaker, wilder, further out, and closer to Bergen than it is to Edinburgh. If you have time for only one, that difference is the decision.

Orkney

Orkney is an archipelago of around 70 islands, about 20 of them inhabited, lying just off the north coast of the Scottish mainland across the Pentland Firth. The Mainland – confusingly, the name of the largest island – holds the two main towns, Kirkwall and Stromness, and most of the famous sites.

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney

Orkney’s prehistoric monuments are the reason most people come, and together they form a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They are, remarkably, older than Stonehenge and the pyramids.

• Skara Brae – a Neolithic village of stone houses, occupied around 5,000 years ago and buried in sand until a storm uncovered it in 1850. The stone furniture – dressers, beds, hearths – is what makes it extraordinary. Book ahead in summer.
• The Ring of Brodgar – a vast stone circle on a narrow isthmus between two lochs, open to the sky and free to walk around.
• The Standing Stones of Stenness – older still, and among the earliest stone circles in Britain.
• Maeshowe – a chambered cairn built so that the setting midwinter sun shines down the entrance passage, and later broken into by Norsemen who left the largest collection of Viking runic graffiti anywhere in the world. Guided tours only, and they must be booked.

Kirkwall and Stromness

Kirkwall is dominated by St Magnus Cathedral, begun in 1137 in red and yellow sandstone and one of the finest medieval buildings in Scotland. The ruined Bishop’s and Earl’s Palaces stand opposite, and the Highland Park and Scapa distilleries are both within reach of the town – see our Highland Park page and the wider Scotch whisky guide.

Stromness, on the west side, is the ferry port from Scrabster and much the more atmospheric town: a single flagstone street winding along the shore, piers running down to the water, and the excellent Pier Arts Centre.

Scapa Flow and the war years

Scapa Flow, the great natural harbour at the heart of Orkney, was the Royal Navy’s main anchorage in both world wars. The interned German High Seas Fleet was scuttled here in 1919, and the wrecks that remain make it one of the world’s great dive sites. After a U-boat sank HMS Royal Oak in 1939, the Churchill Barriers were built to seal the eastern approaches – they now carry the road to the southern isles. Alongside them stands the Italian Chapel, built by Italian prisoners of war out of two Nissen huts, scrap metal and extraordinary ingenuity. It is the most moving thing on the islands.

The smaller isles

Hoy is the exception to Orkney’s flatness – steep, dark hills and the Old Man of Hoy, a 137-metre sea stack reachable by a fine cliff walk. Rousay is known as the Egypt of the North for its density of archaeology. Westray and Papa Westray are linked by the shortest scheduled flight in the world, which takes roughly a minute and a half in the right wind.

Shetland

Shetland lies about 100 miles further north again, a group of some 100 islands of which around 16 are inhabited. Nowhere in Shetland is more than three miles from the sea. Lerwick, the only town of any size, is a stone-built port facing the harbour of Bressay Sound.

Archaeology and history

• Jarlshof – near Sumburgh at the southern tip, a site with more than 4,000 years of continuous settlement layered on top of itself: Bronze Age houses, an Iron Age broch and wheelhouses, a Norse longhouse and a laird’s mansion, all in one field.
• Mousa Broch – the best-preserved Iron Age broch anywhere, standing over 13 metres tall on an uninhabited island, reached by a small boat from Sandwick. Summer evening trips run to watch storm petrels return to nest in its walls.
• Scalloway – the old capital, with a ruined castle and a museum telling the story of the Shetland Bus, the wartime operation that ran fishing boats to occupied Norway.

Up Helly Aa

Shetland’s fire festival, held in Lerwick on the last Tuesday of January, is the largest of a series of Up Helly Aa celebrations across the isles. A squad in Viking dress hauls a replica galley through the streets by torchlight and burns it, and the night continues in halls across the town until dawn. It is a genuine community event rather than a tourist spectacle, and accommodation for that week books out far in advance.

Wildlife and landscape

Shetland is one of Britain’s great wildlife destinations. Sumburgh Head has puffins at eye level from May to early August, along with guillemots, razorbills and fulmars. Noss and Hermaness hold enormous gannet colonies. Otters are more visible here than almost anywhere else in Europe, and orcas are sighted regularly from the shore in summer.

Unst, the most northerly inhabited island in Britain, has the cliffs of Hermaness, a bus shelter that has become a minor celebrity, and a viewpoint from which the next land north is the Arctic. Shetland ponies graze loose across the hills, and Fair Isle – between the two archipelagos – gave its name to the knitting pattern and hosts a famous bird observatory.

Light: the simmer dim and the mirrie dancers

The far north gives you two things nowhere else in Britain can. In midsummer, the simmer dim means it never really gets dark in Shetland – you can read outside at midnight and play golf at 1am. In winter, the same latitude gives some of the UK’s best chances of the aurora borealis, known locally as the mirrie dancers, on clear nights between roughly October and March.

Getting to the Northern Isles

Ferry to Orkney. NorthLink sails Scrabster to Stromness in about 90 minutes, passing the Old Man of Hoy on the way – the best-value crossing if you are already in the far north. Pentland Ferries runs Gills Bay to St Margaret’s Hope, and a summer passenger service operates from John o’ Groats. There is also a longer overnight route from Aberdeen.

Ferry to Shetland. NorthLink runs overnight from Aberdeen to Lerwick, taking around twelve hours, with some sailings calling at Kirkwall. Cabins are worth the money; book early for summer and take a sea-sickness plan seriously if the forecast is rough.

Flights. Loganair flies to Kirkwall and to Sumburgh in Shetland from Aberdeen, Inverness, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with connections through Edinburgh Airport. Flying saves a day in each direction, and in winter it is often the practical choice.

Getting around. Take a car if you can – bus networks exist but are sparse. Inter-island ferries and the small Loganair inter-island flights connect the outer isles, and both need booking in high season.

When to go

May to August is the season: long days, seabird colonies at their peak, every attraction open, and the best chance of settled weather. June is arguably ideal – the light is extraordinary and the puffins are in. Late August onwards the seabirds leave. Winter is dark, windy and beautiful, with the aurora, Up Helly Aa in January, and many businesses closed.

Whatever the month, bring waterproofs and windproofs. There are almost no trees to shelter behind, and the wind is the defining fact of both archipelagos. See the best time to visit Scotland for the wider picture.

Where to stay and where to eat

Accommodation is limited and books out early, particularly around Up Helly Aa, the St Magnus Festival in June and Shetland Wool Week in the autumn. Hotels, guest houses, self-catering cottages and hostels all exist in and around Kirkwall, Stromness and Lerwick, with B&Bs scattered across the smaller islands. Book months ahead for summer. See our accommodation guide, hotels, guest houses and hostels pages.

Eating out is a real strength, built on what comes off the boats and the land: scallops, crab, lobster, haddock, Orkney beef, North Ronaldsay mutton from sheep that eat seaweed, Orkney cheddar and Shetland lamb. Kirkwall, Stromness, Lerwick, Scalloway and Brae all have good places, and the fish and chips in Shetland have a reputation that reaches the mainland. Restaurants in small communities keep short seasons and short hours – book, and check they are open before you drive an hour.

How long do you need?

Three full days is the minimum for Orkney and it will feel tight; four or five lets you add Hoy or Rousay. Shetland needs four days at the very least, and a week if you want Unst and the outer isles. Doing both in one trip is possible – there is a ferry link via Kirkwall – but allow ten days or more.

For help fitting them into a longer trip, see our Scotland itineraries, the North Coast 500 which ends near the Orkney ferry ports, and planning a trip to Scotland.

Island-hopping between Orkney and Shetland

It is possible to combine both archipelagos in one trip. The NorthLink overnight service between Aberdeen and Lerwick calls at Kirkwall on certain sailings, which lets you travel Orkney to Shetland by sea without backtracking to the mainland, and Loganair operates flights between Kirkwall and Sumburgh. Either way, build slack into the plan: these are exposed northern waters, and winter cancellations are routine. A useful rule is never to schedule a connecting flight home on the same day as a ferry crossing.

Food and drink of the Northern Isles

Both island groups produce far more than their size suggests. Orkney has beef and cheddar with protected status, oatcakes and bere bannocks made from an ancient barley still grown here, a well-known brewery, gin distillers and two whisky distilleries in Highland Park and Scapa. Shetland has lamb reared on heather and seaweed, mussels and salmon farmed in the voes, and a fishing fleet that lands white fish daily. North Ronaldsay mutton, from sheep confined to the shoreline by a drystone dyke and living almost entirely on seaweed, is one of the strangest and best things you can eat in Britain.

Crafts, music and festivals

Knitwear is the signature craft: Fair Isle patterns and Shetland lace are genuine local traditions rather than tourist inventions, and Shetland Wool Week in the autumn draws knitters from around the world. Both island groups have strong fiddle traditions and a busy calendar of music. Orkney’s St Magnus International Festival in June brings classical and contemporary music to the cathedral and venues across the isles. Silver and gold jewellery drawing on Norse and Pictish designs is made and sold across both archipelagos.

Practical notes

• Fuel and supplies – fill up before heading to the outer isles, and expect small shops with limited hours on Sundays.
• Mobile signal is patchy away from the main settlements. Download maps before you go.
• Midges are far less of a problem here than on the west Highland mainland – too much wind. That same wind is the thing to plan for.
• Daylight swings dramatically: close to 19 hours in June, and under six in December.
• Driving is easy on good, quiet roads, but watch for sheep on unfenced stretches and take inter-island ferry timetables seriously.

Frequently asked questions

Orkney or Shetland – which should I visit? Orkney for prehistory, green landscapes and easier access; Shetland for wildlife, wilder scenery, Norse culture and the sense of being genuinely far north.

How do you get to Orkney? By ferry from Scrabster, Gills Bay, John o’ Groats or Aberdeen, or by air to Kirkwall from several Scottish airports.

Do you need a car? It makes an enormous difference. Public transport exists but is infrequent, and the best sites are spread out.

When can you see puffins? Roughly May to early August, with Sumburgh Head in Shetland among the most reliable places in Britain.

Are Orkney and Shetland part of the Highlands? No. They are separate island council areas with their own Norse-derived culture and history, and locals will politely correct you.

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