After breakfast this morning, we bid Brae and the Brae Hotel goodbye. It was about a 40 minute ride to Lerwick where we stopped to visit The Broch of Clickimin.
The following information about Clickimin is from the Undiscovered Scotland website:
About 1000BC a bronze-age family built a small farmhouse on a grassy islet surrounded by loch or marsh, and they walled the islet to enclose their cattle and sheep. Evidence has been found on the site of barley cultivation, which was ground in stone troughs, one of which can still be seen at Clickimin. The visible remains of the farmhouse lie to the north-west of the main broch.
Some time around 200BC a ditch was dug across the neck of land connecting the farm with the southern side of the loch, probably crossed via a draw-bridge, and a much stronger wall was built around the islet. The aim now was less to keep livestock in than keep people out.
A hundred years later, about 100BC, a "blockhouse" was built immediately inside the only gate through the wall. This provided additional defense at the weakest point of the islet and may have been intended as the start of a feature that encircled the inner part of the settlement.
From around AD500, occupation became less organized and the houses in use were poorly built and partly dug into the ruins of the earlier structures. By the time the Norse arrived in the 800s, Clickimin had been abandoned and forgotten.
The site remained simply a mound on an islet for more than a thousand years. Then the inquisitive "gentlemen of Lerwick" succumbed to the Victorian penchant for fairly crude archeology in the 1850s and dug up part of the mount and "restored" what they found within. The area was professionally excavated in the 1950s and the result is what you see today, complete with the various different phases on show.
After our visit to the Broch, we walked a short distance to a grocery store to pickup a sandwich for lunch before our flight. Sombrugh Airport is small and no food is available. On the way we saw several groups running along the street. It was about 58 degrees with light rain. I am guessing this was a local run.
Our plane awaits us...
The flight to Edinburgh was uneventful, a good thing. Edinburgh is a much larger airport, with over 12 million passengers passing through each year. We arrived back at the Marriott around 4:00 PM and retrieved our main luggage we had left in storage while visiting the Shetlands.
We met back as a group one last time for our farewell dinner. After a very nice meal of potato and leek soup, cod, mashed potatoes and green beans followed with cheesecake, we needed to walk. We took about a mile walk around the city and a few early evening photos follow.
Heading back to the hotel, I got this photo of the sidewalk just a couple of doors up from the Marriott. Edinburgh on a Saturday night is a busy, crazy place.
We all thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Shetland Islands. Kay said she was glad she had the opportunity to go, but once was enough. She just had enough of the cold and wet. I really didn't think it was so bad, and the scenery was certainly worth the weather. Of course, as I said earlier, we had exceptionally good weather for the Islands.
Just a word about our hotels in the Shetlands. Both hotels were quite modest by American standards, but completely adequate. At both hotels the food was exceptional. It was better than at most restaurants we have visited, which is unusual for hotel food.
The Brae Hotel for our last two nights was a really modest hotel, but had the best food and service ever.(also the best prices). It was normal for the desk clerk who checked you into the hotel to be taking your dinner order. The hotel manager, Malcom, at various times, took orders, delivered food, cleared the tables as well as anything else which needed doing. Everyone had to be able to do everything. It was always done with a smile. This was my favorite hotel of any of the seven we have stayed.
Tomorrow is our "extra" day in Edinburgh before catching the train for Aberdeen on Monday. It looks like there will be some rain, but our plans are to visit the Surgeon's Museum in the morning then have lunch at Oinks, which we were unable to do last week, then hike Calton Hill.
Good night...
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