We’d not been to Le Havre before and didn’t have very many expectations about what we’d find ashore or what there really was to do, but we guessed it might be similar to Cherbourg and so figured we’d have a casual wander, see if anything was actually open (it never is in Cherbourg, that’s for sure), and see what the day brought. We would end up being very pleasantly surprised and since I’m not one of those people who says things like “read on to see what we really thought!” in some vain attempt to persuade you to stay for some reason, I’ll tell you now: Le Havre is about a thousand times better than Cherbourg.

We knew of two things that might interest us based on a quick nose at some sites and the map, and we could see they were in roughly the same direction, so on a cool, cloudy day we had breakfast, gathered our things, then set off to explore Le Havre.

Regal Princess wasn’t the only cruise ship in the port of Le Havre on the day that we visited and we passed Norwegian Getaway as we walked into the city.

I was instantly taken with the general architecture we could see in Le Havre. The area we walked around during the day was largely the area bombed by allied forces during World War II (because the Germans were there, not because we thought we could get away with in the fog of war). Auguste Perret was the architect mostly responsible for the prevalence of modernist looks and the use of concrete, and I adore those styles.

The first of Le Havre’s “attractions” we wanted to see was the Catène de Containers sculpture. It’s a reasonably new sight on the city’s waterfront area but it’s a bold and colourful one. Designed by Vincent Ganivet and erected in 2017, the sculpture forms a vibrant archway to the city and references the city’s importance as a container port.

St Joseph’s Church was the only other thing we had plans to look at in Le Havre. One of only two buildings actually designed by Auguste Perret during the overall redesign of the downtown city area, this brutalist beauty was built in the early 1950s. The design represents a lantern and it’s a dominating form from the outside. But outside is barely half the story.

Inside St Joseph’s Church it’s hard to describe just how beautiful it is. The darkness and raw concrete should feel imposing but brutalism is an emotional, forward-looking design that always feels positive to me. The height of the tower and the colourful stained glass window panes catching the light and beaming a kaleidoscope into the space, coupled with geometric shapes and lines that draw the eye ever upwards is genuinely mesmerising and joyous. My wife – who doesn’t like churches and finds them oppressive usually – sat down to just soak it all in. An absolute treasure of a building.

From one master architect to another now. We headed roughly east, intending only to find a route through to a large green space we could see on the map, but this brought us to a large square in which there was a very odd building shaped like a mountain with its peak removed. This turned out to be the House of Culture designed by Oscar Niemeyer, famous for designing Brazil’s capital city of Brasília, and which for obvious reasons is known by the locals as The Volcano.

In addition to some nice sea-themed street art around Le Havre we were quite taken with the artwork on the exterior of what turned out to be a hotel too.

That green space we were hunting down was the Place de l’Hôtel de ville, or the Town Hall Park as I decided to call it. It wasn’t quite a public square, it wasn’t quite a park or gardens, but it was all very attractive, nicely laid with with lawn areas, sculptures, and some water features, and all with a view to the town hall building itself, the second of those designed by Auguste Perret.

The next sight to catch our eyes was the public art piece called the Narrow House. See if you can guess why it’s called that. This is a representation of the artist Erwin Wurm’s childhood home and it was erected in 2022. It was a disorienting thing to see from the outside and we’d have loved to look inside but it wasn’t open during our visit.

By this time we’d picked two more places we wanted to visit based on the phone map and headed to the first of those, crossing over the elegantly curved Francois le Chevalier bridge and affording ourselves of some views back towards both the Volcano and stunning St Joseph’s Church in the distance.

There were a few fabulous examples of eclectic architecture to appreciate on the short walk we’d planned and we were also quite amused to pass a statue to the city’s founder upon which someone had wrapped a scarf. Possibly a hangover from the pandemic? Possibly local tradition? This felt in keeping with the statue in Glasgow that locals top with a traffic cone.

We detoured briefly at this point to take a few photos of the war memorial. Every city that saw its people killed in the great wars of the twentieth century will have one of these somewhere. Nobody ever learns from them.

The first of the two remaining stops we wanted to make was the cathedral. We’re not religious – far from it – but history and architecture do creep alongside religious monuments around the world and we’re rather fond of those subjects.

The building only became a cathedral in the 1970s but it, or some version of it, has been standing in this spot since the sixteenth century. The Baroque style is very distinctive in a city where modernism is everywhere and the reason that the church survived the extensive bombing of Le Havre may lie in its relatively compact form.

Inside the cathedral we were surprised and a little freaked out by the netting in place to protect worshippers during some renovation work. There was something decidedly spider-like about it all, as if this religious building had been taken over by Shelob.

Le Havre Cathedral’s organs were a gift from Cardinal Richelieu. He wasn’t quite as evil as the Three Musketeers would have you believe.

Our final stop in Le Havre was to a taproom called L’Havrais Bière. You know us – maybe; if you’ve read any of our other posts; and if you cared to remember – and you know we like locally-brewed beer if we can find it. This place was superb. The beer was absolutely gorgeous and then we spotted cakes and cookies too. I mean, everything a person needs after a few hours walking around enjoying the culture of a new city.

And so to the walk back to the ship, largely retracing the early part of our route outwards in the morning. We passed by the container arches artwork once more.

A distinctive art piece turned out to have a close connection with our cruise ship. This was both an artwork and a weather vane, made in bronze, sculpted by Klara Kristalova, and known as the Sea Witch. If you’re familiar with Princess Cruises, with whom we were cruising, then you’ll know that the cruise line’s logo and the artwork on the prow of Princess ships is also that of the Sea Witch. A lovely coincidence.

My wife likes seafood. I don’t. It’s a texture thing. And if there was ever anything that was going to reinforce my dislike of seafood then it was coming across some bins in which discarded scallop shells were piled high. I cannot describe how vile the smell was. Be very thankful that the internet still doesn’t have a protocol to cover transmitting odours when you visit web pages. I had to take a deep breath, run to the bin, take this shot, and get far enough away from the stench before passing out, and I could still feel the smell on me somehow. Unbelievably awful.

That pretty much concluded our time in Le Havre and we loved what we saw in the French city, knowing that we only saw a small fraction. This is a place we need to visit again if only to hunt down more of the lovely art and architecture.

A short walk later brought us through the port, past the NCL ship and to our own where all that remained of the cruise was to watch one final sail away, pack our cases, have some dinner, grab a last few drinks, and get ready for the holiday to come to an end in Southampton the following morning.

This had been our first proper British-based cruise – we don’t count the mini ones that started up in the wake of the pandemic – and it was interesting to see some places that are reasonably close to home yet we’d mostly neglected because of that fact. Being a European itinerary it had been very port-intensive because we’re cursed with having a lot of history and culture here in a small amount of space so it hadn’t been the most relaxing of trips, but full of fabulous sights and great experiences and we’ve no complaints with what it offered overall.

On the evening that we departed Scotland our meal in the main dining room was as below:

We caught a little bit of some entertainment, although I can’t remember what it was exactly, only that it was amusing. Afterwards, though, we headed to Crooners and decided to splash some of our onboard spend on the special, double-size cocktails that include the glasses to take home as souvenirs. We still use them occasionally, but due to their size it’s only ever with something that has a lot of mixer in it. We like to drink, but you’ve got to be sensible sometimes.

We’d not had many sea days on this cruise and this was the last of them, heading south on the North Sea down the east coast of England. The weather had mostly been good on this cruise and that remained the case on this day.

The Red Hat Society were out in force and gathered in the piazza of Regal Princess for some last group photos because it was the final formal night on the ship too. They added a lovely burst of colour to the cruise.

We’re fond of trivia when we cruise but the port-heavy itinerary meant we’d not taken part as much as we’d normally have liked. However, the sea day presented several chances to give our brains some exercise and we pretty much cleaned up.

Because it was formal night we decided to hit the Elite Lounge for some pre-dinner nibbles and drinks in relative quiet, entertained by the house band.

Passing back through the piazza area on the way to dinner a little later we had to run the gauntlet of photographers but having my own camera to hand meant I was able to turn the tables on one of them. I do this quite often on ships.

So, finally, here’s the menu and photos of the food we ate for this gala night on Regal Princess.

In the next post in this series we hit the final port of the cruise and the only one that’s outside the British Isles: Le Havre, France.

This was from our very first cruise all the way back in 2008 aboard Diamond Princess in Asia for our honeymoon and it was taken on one of the last sea days of the fabulous experience. I didn’t really take very many photos of the ship at all which can be explained by a lack of mobile phones with good cameras on them and me only having a 50mm prime lens on my DSLR at the time with the photography hobby being very new. I did pick up a Tokina wide angle lens in Hong Kong during the cruise and this shot was using it and getting more of the ship in view. But because it was late in the cruise all the excitement and strangeness of being on a ship for the first time had eased away into wonderful relaxation aboard and things like photos and videos of ships just wasn’t a thing back then. Oh for a time machine.

The photo now is a lot brighter and sharper, with a lot of the noise colour noise removed and some brightening of the shadows to just pick out what’s going on under the covers. A pale wash to both lighten the yellows and make the water in the pool pop has been added and the curves have been stretched to bring out more contrast.

Our embarkation point was at the marina situated between the Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing, and with us travelling eastwards out of the Firth of Forth this meant we’d sail under the Forth Road Bridge and the Forth Rail Bridge.

The first point of interest on this boat tour if you exclude passing under the bridges – although passing under bridges is always cool; ask any cruiser, or troll for that matter – was Inchgarvie, one of several small islands in this area of water. This particular island’s location made it a useful stopping point for boats between both sides of the water before the bridges were constructed and, like some of the other islands, it had housed fortifications at numerous points in its history due to the strategic defensive location.

It wasn’t long before we passed Regal Princess at anchor. Look! I can see our cabin from here!

Hound Point is an oil export terminal. Oil, processed and stored on the southern shore, is pumped to the terminal to then be loaded onto carriers. I like the industrial beauty of these monsters even if, like sane people, I long for the move away from fossil fuels and preferably ahead of them simply being exhausted for short-term and selfishly short-sighted gains for the already super-rich.

We now approached Inchcolm, and from the southern side there was a lovely view of the abbey that we’d be exploring in a little while.

Our boat docked around the northern side of the island just beside the amusingly-named Inchgnome upon which numerous gnomes stood.

We were now free to explore the island for an hour and a half on our own. Our guides on the boat had given us some history of the place, indication of where we couldn’t go – there was a private property just beyond the abbey ruins – and warnings about the gulls. They were nesting during our arrival and would be numerous, noisy, and potentially aggressive. We were told to keep our distance and if the gulls didn’t want us near them then they’d make it clear and we should back away if we didn’t want to risk losing an eye.

There are a few tales about when a religious building was first constructed with dates in the twelfth century mentioned, but it wasn’t until 1235 that Augustinian brothers and priests started using it as a proper abbey. Inchcolm Abbey was eventually abandoned in 1560 as a result of the Scottish Reformation and it had suffered numerous attacks in the intervening centuries. Nevertheless, it is the most complete example of monastic ruins in Scotland.

At the back of the abbey we started to head off up a grassy area and got just a little way up it when the gulls gave us cause to reconsider. A combination of not wanting to cause the birds stress and not wanting to be known as “those people with the bleeding heads” on the journey back sent us into the abbey ruins once more instead.

Inchcolm Abbey just had a great feeling about it. The sense of isolation helped, and maybe the winged threat all around added to the atmosphere, but the completeness of some of the areas such as the cloisters and refectory really made it easy to find yourself immersed in the place.

We headed back closer to the area where we’d been dropped off on Inchcolm Island. At certain times of the year puffins will nest around the island and had there been a chance of seeing them then I might have been able to persuade my wife to join me as I then headed up the hill for a look around. My wife has a thing for puffins, but because this wasn’t Puffin Time she was happy to hang around near the bottom while I clambered up for some views around and to check out some of the defensive structures placed on the island during both of the twentieth century’s world wars.

Something struck me while I was up the hill – figuratively, not literally, despite the gulls – and that was that I had a very clear view all around the island and along the Forth, and the boat was due back in the next five minutes or so. Only, there was no sign of the boat. I headed down to where everyone on our tour was gathering.

“No sign of the boat,” I told my wife, nervously. She did not look happy.

We weren’t the only people to notice no boat but we were the only people there with a time pressure on us as we were the only people who’d arrived in the area aboard Regal Princess. An announcement was made that confirmed, yes, the boat was late but that it was on its way. So we waited. And waited. And wandered around a little to see if there were any sightings of the boat. And waited.

The boat arrived around half an hour late and I’d like to say that it motored its way back to the port to make up for it but it actually slowed several times to see if it could spot any seals on rocks in the area much to our continuing mild panic. However, I did have a nice chat with one of the guides and learnt that part of the problem had been that one of their boats had been damaged while assisting in tendering operations for our cruise ship. This at least gave me some hope that I might have a good case for blaming Princess if the ship was held up waiting for us to get back. Assuming it waited at all.

We sailed back under two of the three bridges, docked at the marina, and set off at a brisk pace back through Queensferry and to Hawes Pier to catch a tender boat back to the ship. Not only were we back in plenty of time before the last boat was due to leave, we had to wait quite a while as several busloads of cruise passengers arrived back just before us. We were rather relieved.

Minor trauma at the end aside, this was a fabulous way to spend a few hours at this cruise port, especially as it had been a Sunday so the main draw of Edinburgh wasn’t quite as appealing due to how many things of interest there might have been closed. The island and abbey were gorgeous and the mix of wildlife-spotting and immersion in history was perfect.

In the next post in this series it’s the penultimate day of this British Isles cruise and the last sea day on Regal Princess.

• We could have booked an excursion with Princess, but these were horribly expensive for what they were offering.
• We could have booked an excursion with a private company, but there weren’t many options here and the addition of a tender port into the mix adds a timing complication to consider as Princess will prioritise getting its own excursion passengers off first. Although, we’re Elite level so we could have jumped the queue. It’s a perk!
• We could have tried to get a taxi from the port but we suspected they would be somewhat inundated with similar requests so this might be tricky.
• We could have run the fifteen or so kilometres from the dock to the city but not in this universe.
• We could have taken the train to Edinburgh. Cheap, quick, looked simple enough.

We’d decided that we were going to do the lattermost thing of tendering ashore, walking to the train station, then spending the few pounds that it would have cost to head into Edinburgh.

And then we changed our minds in the morning over breakfast. We’re like that.

We enjoyed the views of the Forth Bridges from our balcony when we woke up and there were already tender boats shuttling across the water for those with early and probably long excursions planned for the day. As I started to peruse the local area on my phone’s map to confirm train times I saw that there were a couple of local boat tour operators in South Queensferry. Since we’d had a planned boat tour cancelled on us at the last minute when we visited Lerwick we decided that we’d see if there was the possibility of booking a trip once we were on land. If not then we could still always head into Edinburgh but at the back of our minds was the thought that it probably felt like a city that could do with longer time visiting to really appreciate it.

We jumped on the next tender boat ashore – that Elite perk I mentioned – and a short trip that included passing under one of the three Forth Bridges took place before we stepped ashore at Hawes Pier. This was the spot from which the ferry service used to cross the water until the bridges were constructed. Queensferry gets its name from the ferry service being established in the eleventh century by Queen Margaret.

We had a lovely view of Regal Princess at anchor in the Firth of Forth between two of the supports of the Forth Rail Bridge under which we’d just travelled. At the time of its opening in the late nineteenth century it was the longest single cantilever span bridge in the world although it’s now in second place.

We found a tour boat operator and made some enquiries but were told the place we needed to go to in order to buy tickets was about one and a half kilometres to the west of where we were, located in the marina. We had plenty of time before any trips would be setting off so we casually headed off in that direction and enjoyed the pleasant weather and some of the charms that earned South Queensferry an award of prettiest Scottish town in early 2025.

A seal sculpture represents the sort of wildlife you can see on Inchcolm Island and that would be the place we would end up taking our boat trip to later in the day. Spoiler.

There were plenty of photos taken along the shoreline walk whenever any of the three bridges made for an interesting or just pleasing composition.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the tiled sculpture of a sea serpent in South Queensferry is the Loch Ness Monster but this is actually the Guardian of the Forth and was designed by schoolchildren.

At the western end of the main street of the town there were a couple of points of interest very close to one another. A stone drinking fountain had been erected in honour of John Reid, provost for Queensferry for the last decade and a half of the nineteenth century. The small garden around it was very nice and we particularly liked the modern bird sculpture mounted on the railings nearby.

Next to the garden was the unmissable sight of the Jubilee Clock Tower atop Rosebery Hall. The hall was formerly the town’s tollbooth dating to around the start of the seventeenth century and in addition to collecting taxes it served as a court and small jail too. A steeple and clock was added to the building in the eighteenth century but a new one replaced it to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.

Not long after this, after walking beneath the Forth Road Bridge, we reached the marina. More photos of the three bridges were taken because the moment demanded it, and we had a clear view of the newest Queensferry Crossing Bridge too now.

At the marina we found the boat tour company’s office and bought tickets for the next sailing. We still had some time to kill so ended up seeing what Scotts Bar was like. Unfriendly, confusing, a bit up itself, but convenient for us.

In the next post we hop on a boat tour to Inchcolm Island to look at the abbey ruins, encounter angry birds in real life, and only slightly panic when our boat ends up being very late coming back for us.

We didn’t have any plans to look around Invergordon at all prior to visiting, knowing that other than being the home of the Stoltman brothers – we do like strongman competitions – there didn’t appear to be much to do or see there. I’ve mentioned already that some of the excursions on this cruise seemed to be far too expensive – perhaps a reflection on having lots of Americans on the ship and them really not knowing any better so being easier to fleece, but also perhaps Britain just not being a cheap place to visit when the only people getting subsidised by taxpayers are the already-wealthy and corporations or entities that prioritise shareholders over the public good (always with the politics, Mark) – so we ruled out trips with specific purposes and picked a drive with free time to explore around nearby Inverness instead. You can read that here: Inverness And The Ness Walk. Spoiler: we loved Inverness.

However, as our bus took us from the cruise port on the short drive to the lovely city to the south we passed through the outskirts of Invergordon and I spotted some street art. I like street art. So, upon our return, and having a bit of time before everyone needed to be aboard, I headed into Invergordon alone – my wife wanted to get back to the room – and had a short stroll to take some pictures.

A lot of Invergordon’s buildings can be dated to the latter half of the nineteenth century when the town began to expand around the harbour. The town hall and parish church were both erected within ten years of each other during this period.

Later, just prior to the First World War breaking out, a naval base was built in anticipation of what was to come and it featured during both global conflicts of the twentieth century. More interestingly, the base was the site of the UK’s last naval mutiny in 1931. The base closed down in 1956 but the deep water port that had been in use during that time is still in use, and we know that because that’s where our cruise ship docked.

Invergordon’s street art is called the Off The Wall mural trail and was officially opened by Princess Anne in 2007 although the idea for the public artwork came about five years earlier. In addition to the pieces that are properly part of the trail there were some other smaller works that were just as enchanting.

Invergordon is not a large place at all and if you’ve got an hour to spare then you could easily walk most of it and find all the street art. I didn’t quite find them all but I also wasn’t using a map for this and just simply wandered around at random. This wandering around did lead to an interesting encounter (at a distance) with one of the locals on the other side of the street. Fairly young, pink lycra, smoking, walking several dogs on leads, and generally shouting her head off at everybody and nobody in particular. Head down, Mark, don’t make eye contact.

I headed back to the port at this point and spent a small fortune at the gift shop before boarding. After that it was just a case of relaxing on the balcony and then watching the Scottish landscape drift slowly by as Regal Princess made her way out to sea, passing by a couple of large platforms: the Stena Spey and the Well-Safe Defender. The Cromarty Firth is often used as a parking lot for these sorts of rigs or for those awaiting removal to be scrapped.

In the next post in this British Isles cruise travelogues series we’ll reach the penultimate port of South Queensferry which is often used by cruise ships looking to disgorge their passengers on Scotland’s capital of Edinburgh. That wouldn’t be what we ended up doing on the day, though.

Our bus ride was pleasant enough with some scenic views of the Scottish landscape and it wasn’t too long before we were dropped off outside Inverness Cathedral where we’d need to return to later in the day for the return trip to the cruise ship. The cathedral is a late nineteenth century building in the Gothic Revival style popular in Victorian Britain and the reason for the square towers rather than spires as you might expect is simply that they ran out of money to complete it. Some lovely decorative work, though.

Across the water of the River Ness from where the bus had dropped us we could see Inverness Castle. It’s another nineteenth century construction in similar red brick to the cathedral although it is situated on the site of former fortresses going back to at least the eleventh century. We’d wanted to visit it because we like castles anyway but also because it’s one of the settings used in Shakespeare’s Macbeth so it would have been the second such castle we’d have looked around after our trip to Kronborg in 2017. However, the castle was still undergoing renovation work at the time of our trip.

We didn’t have much of a plan for Inverness but one possibility we’d considered if the weather was good enough was doing some of the Ness Walk, an easy riverside walk up and down the banks of the River Ness which flowed through the city. The weather was gorgeous so that’s how we started our time in Inverness. Fresh air, pleasing views. Lovely.

There were a couple of little points of interest very close to one another along the walk south on the west side of the river. The first of these was a wooden dog sculpture with the name “Breac“, the Gaelic word for speckled trout. It stood very close to a curving concrete viewing point jutting out over part of the water, named the Gathering Point. It turns out that the former is a protest response to the latter with some locals finding the concrete construction an eyesore and wanting to put something pretty up instead. I’m not a dog person but I do like modernist and brutalist construction so that puts me firmly in opposition to the locals here but it’s nice that there’s place for both types of artistry to co-exist.

Our walk brought us to the Ness Islands at which we crossed to them and walked through to the other side of the river using some footbridges.

We quite enjoyed spotting some nicely-sculpted benches of all different designs in the quiet, wooded area of the islands and we even sat down for a rest for a bit and to enjoy the sound of the water trickling past nearby. A beautifully tranquil spot in Inverness.

We passed a couple of points of interest as we made our way northwards now on the eastern side of the River Ness where the Ness Walk apparently becomes Ladies Walk for some reason.

The first of these was the Forbes Fountain, classified as a listed building. This functional granite sculpture (dating from the late nineteenth century again) was once situated in the city centre where it formed a central focus point although was not universally loved by some who felt it got in the way of public events. It was moved to its current location during some road-widening scheme in the 1950s during which time the tall spire that had once adorned it was damaged beyond repair and removed.

A little further along the riverside walk we reached the bronze and red and yellow sandstone war memorial, erected originally in 1922 to commemorate those lost in World War I but later rededicated to include those from later conflicts.

The statues of Faith, Hope, and Charity below used to grace the top of a store in the city centre but fell into private ownership hands when that building was demolished, only returning to public view to be mounted together along the bank of the River Ness in 2011.

With our Ness Walk concluded we next headed into the more commercial part of the centre of Inverness although it wasn’t shopping on our mind but rather a visit to the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. It wasn’t a very large museum but that suited us fine, and some of the pieces on display were very good indeed.

Back outside in Inverness we had one more place we wanted to visit before heading back and so we wound our way through the streets, past a few sculptures, and found the Black Isle Bar where we took the weight off our feet then put the weight on our waists with some pizza and a few of the locally-brewed beers. Great location, great food and drink.

And that brought our time in Inverness to a conclusion, leaving just a short walk back to the Ness Bridge and a casual stroll to the cathedral again to wait for the bus to return.

We had lovely weather for our somewhat casual few hours in Inverness but there was plenty there to see and it’s one of those cities that just left us feeling that yes, this is the sort of place we could live in. We’d not hesitate to return.

In the next post in this British Isles cruise series we return to Invergordon and I head off alone just to take some photos of the place along with its street art before returning to the ship and sailing off towards the penultimate port of call.

We made our way to Fort Charlotte. This would have been more prominent on the shoreline when it was built in 1781 (and named for Queen Charlotte) but land reclamation has since pushed it back to a less imposing position. In its current incarnation the fort never saw any action but previous fortifications on the same spot were involved in battles during the Anglo-Dutch wars of the seventeenth century.

The final bit of culture we took a look at in Lerwick was the Shetland Museum. As you’d probably expect this wasn’t a huge museum by any means but it was a nice building with some interesting things on display and it was lovely to get out of the cold for a short while.

That mostly covered the places of interest within walking distance around Lerwick so we filled the rest of our time ashore by doing some shopping – loads of locally-made soaps were purchased because we have a fondness for soaps – and we checked out a couple of pubs – the Douglas Arms and the Lounge Bar – so that we could try some of the ales produced by the local brewery on the island.

In the next post in this British Isles cruise travelogue series we’ll head back to the ship and start some southward cruising down the east coast of Britain where we’ll be treated to some aurora action.

This post will mostly just be photographs of the Broch of Clickimin since our experience – and that of most people visiting it – can be broadly summarised as we walked to it, we walked around it, and we walked inside it.

To start with, though, “What is a broch?” might be what you’re wondering because I know I was. There’s actually no consensus on this. Early archaeological thoughts had them as defensive locations but later ones questioned the lack-of-strategic positioning; other thoughts were that they were status symbols for wealthy or important people but the high number of them in this part of the world for the time period brought that into question; there are those who think they were centralised farmsteads; nobody really knows, in other words.

The site of the Broch of Clickimin is also contentious with early declarations of a late Bronze Age settlement superseded by an Iron Age farmhouse then later defensive additions now being questioned following more modern archaeological interpretations. Sometimes science disappoints you.

Anyway, enough of the background to the place; on with the photos. You can see from them that the fog was still with us, still smothering a lot of the surroundings and dropping that temperature right down. In this first picture you can see the walk from the main road entrance to the ruins.

A narrow, low entry tunnel granted access to the interior of the Broch of Clickimin although this did involve squatting, checking to make sure nobody else was coming your way, then shuffling through. If you’ve got poor mobility then this is likely to be something you won’t be able to do although a sled, some rope, and friends to drag you along is obviously an option to consider. Accessibility wasn’t a big concern during the Iron Age for some reason.

We weren’t at the Broch of Clickimin long because it’s not a large site but it was very interesting and well worth looking around if you can. In the next post in this British Isles cruise travelogue series we’ll conclude our time ashore with more of a walk around Lerwick including visits to the museum, fort, and a couple of pubs.

But the night before we were due to arrive at Lerwick we received an email from the local company. Their boat had developed engine trouble so they couldn’t go ahead and were refunding our money. I won’t lie: our first thought was “Huh, I wonder if Princess offered them more to put on another boat for their passengers last-minute and they took the money?” but that’s just because I’m a cynical old swine. Anyway, booked plans scuppered we fell back to deciding we’d just have to take a walk around, knowing that there was an iron age ruin, a castle, some museums, and pubs that would likely more than satisfy us.

We awoke to thick fog around Lerwick. This was such a joy for us. Had the boat not developed a fault then we’d likely have been out on the cold water for several hours with visibility in the tens of metres. Instead, we were greeted by some atmospheric views of the town before we needed to tender ashore.

If the weather is nice then the first people to board a tender boat from a ship like to sit up top (if that’s an option). When it’s cold and damp then this isn’t the case, but there are still two good arguments for getting to the exposed part of the boat: firstly, you get fresh air and views without being shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers on decidedly uncomfortable benches with, if you’re lucky, a misted-up, water-splattered porthole to look out; secondly, you get off the tender boat first when it arrives at its destination. While my wife opted to sit inside for both trips between Lerwick and Regal Princess, I went for the chilly option.

Being first off the tender boat I had time to hang around and snap some shots by the pier at Lerwick until my wife emerged from her shelter. An interesting sculpture caught my eye – they often do – and this turned out to be the Diana Fountain. No, thankfully, not a memorial to the late princess, but rather one erected in 1890 for the whaling ship Diana which became trapped in Arctic ice for six months in 1866 leading to many deaths. The original water fountain was replaced by the overflowing metal chalice sculpture in 2000 by local artist Alan Hart.

Another sculpture stood out as we started to head off to where we first wanted to explore. This was Da Lightsome Buoy by Jo Chapman, a fairly new and fairly humorous piece of art near the water. If you visit then take a minute or two to read the various inscriptions on it out loud.

You can get a better feel for the fog levels in Lerwick during our visit there with this look back across the water to Regal Princess. Once again, some serendipity that our boat trip had been cancelled.

The first place we wanted to visit in Lerwick was the iron age ruins on the shore of Clickimin Loch, only about one and a half kilometres from the port area. This started out with a little more uphill-traipsing than we’d expected and neither of us are exactly fit.

We reached a convenient pausing point. Taking photos is a great way to force a rest on the pair of us when we’re out and about, especially for my wife whose old leg-related injuries can cause her some grief that she tries too hard to power through sometimes. This was St Columba’s Church of Scotland, a typically neoclassical piece of architecture dating from the early to mid nineteenth century. It is the largest church building in Shetland and its 1871 organ was only the second one to be installed in a Church of Scotland building following the end of a rule prohibiting them.

As the door appeared to be open we popped our heads inside and were greeted by the minister or a helper who ushered us in, had a bit of a chat with us, offered to get us some drinks (probably due to how flushed we looked from the steep walk in the chilly air), and was just generally really lovely. We’re not religious but it seemed to be a very welcoming place.

Suitably recovered we headed on our way, now hugging the coastline in a westerly direction. The views were moody and the going was far more level now making for a far more pleasant stroll. This coastline is known as Da Sletts.

One final piece of functional artwork to spot before we made our way inland towards the loch were the shelters installed by NHS Scotland using brightly-coloured upright boat hulls. These were erected in 2023 to be used by the nearby staff and patients of the Lerwick health centre as well as tourists walking the path. And we did, even though it wasn’t raining, just because we could.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll take a look around the impressive Broch of Clickimin.