After our visit to the Broch of Clickimin we returned to the more built-up part of Lerwick via a different route. The fog that had greeted us upon our arrival at the port in the morning had lifted but not completely vanished, but a deep grey sky still covered the sky and with the general architecture of Shetland leaning towards grey too this made for a fairly dreary view. I didn’t mind the quiet, cool, damp dreariness, though. It was still atmospheric.
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.