1644sw

With the prices of cruise ship excursions, we decided to do things on our own instead of signing up with the cruise ship. Does anyone have any ideas what we can do in Kirkwall and S. Queensferry, Scotland. Or....possibly get on a train to visit other neighboring cities that are worth the visit. We have no idea what is to visit in both these cities. HELP!

RosemaryM

Hi,
I assume you are talking about Kirkwall on the Orkney Islands. It is a small town, not a city. In the town itself St.Magnus Cathedral is beautiful. Further afield, and I am afraid I don't know whether there are buses, we had a car, you can find the lovely Italian Chapel built out of odds and ends by Italian prisoners of war which is definitely worth seeing. Also the famous neolithic sites of Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar. We found these fascinating.
No info on South Queensferry but I believe it is just over the bridge from Edinburgh and there are thousands of posts on Edinburgh to find.

AKNIC

1644sw:

Kirkwall is a very interesting city and you should not miss the Cathedral.
The downtown is fun to explore, several nice restaurants for lunch.
We took the ferry from Kirkwall to Shapinshay and stayed two nights at Balfour Castle. On Shapinshay you can rent bicycles and explore the island.
Cute place for lunch also in the very small town. We also toured one of the scotch distilleries on Kirkwall (actually we were killing time before our plane left and it started raining) but it turned out to be quite interesting.
AKNIC

sheila

Kirkwall is a very pretty town and worth just having a mooch around. The cruise ship thing is quite big so you'll find a lot of shops catering to that trade.

There are some shops selling fine silver jewellry- something Orkney has become famous for. You can take atour of, I think, both the Ortak and Ola Gorie workshops.

As has been mentioned St Magnus Cathedral is a bit of a "must see". I love the Bishop's Palace on the other side of the road as well. The museum is worth seeing too.

sheila

South Queensferry is a very pretty little village, but short of walking along he shore, there's nothing to do/see. If you're into people watching, and nice eating- there are good restaurants in S Queensferry- then get the service bus into Edinburgh.

Barbara

As Sheila said, there's not much to di in South Queensferry.The Hawes Inn is of some interest, being the place Robbert Louis Steveenson was inspired to write his book, Kidnapped. It's also a nice wee pub where I spent many a pleasant Sunday evening....

Only a couple of miles away is Hopetoun House, a really lovely old stately home. Dalmeny is close too.

S. Queensferry is not far from Edinburgh and that's probably where most of your cruise-mates will go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Queensferry

auldyins

A couple of web sites you might find interesting - www.wildaboutorkney.com and www.visitorkney.com

Craigellachie

Soth Queensferry has some wonderful eating places at prices to suit almost any pocket. Instead of doinig the obvious thing and heading for Edinburgh you can also go north into the Kingdom of Fife. It's a short trip to Dunfermilne, former capital of Scotland, last resting place of Robert the Bruce and favoured place of our patroness St Margaret. For a longer excursion you could get the train to Leuchars and bus or taxi (about 5 miles) into St Andrews.
Train services from Dalmeny (the railway station for South Quensferry) are not very frequent but a short taxi ride across the Forth Road Bridge will take you to Inverkeithing where nearly every train stops before or after crossing the Forth.