Orkney Islands, Scotland
The rain was heavy as we walked to our coach for the day's excursion. (Sorry about the quality of photos, rain kept the camera undercover most of the day.) Talk about remote, the Orkney Islands are approximately 1/4 the size of Genesee County and have a population of about 26,000 people, 80,000 cows and 100,000 sheep! Mesolithic nomadic tribes occupied these islands more than 8,500 years ago. Today we visited the 5,000 year old Ring of Brodgar , a ceremonial circle of stones that predates Stonehenge by 500 years. Umbrella in hand, we stepped off the bus and sloshed about 1/4 mile through a muddy pasture. The ring originally consisted of 60 stones placed in a circle 341 feet in diameter. Today, only 27 remain standing. The stones average 18 feet high and are buried 3 feet into the ground. A ditch encircles the ring. With the effort required to construct it, one can assume it was a place of importance or religious sign...