North Sea Cruise - Lerwick, Scotland

Dear Family and Friends,

Our next port was Lerwick, Scotland.  Lerwick is the main port of the Shetland Islands, located off the mainland of Scotland.

Some of the ship passengers took a tour to see Shetland ponies.  This is where they originated.  I understand that once a person takes a pony from the Shetland Islands, they can never return it.  The reason is to keep the Shetland pony stock pure.

Chuck and I did not do the tour.  We decided to go into town and look around.

This is a photo I took from our ship before we got off.

We had to tender in and it was a rocky ride.  I hate having to tender, but if I wanted to see this town, it was the only way.

The old stone buildings were so interesting.  I made a lot of pictures to share.

The weather there is quite cool, even in the summer.  The winters are not too severe because of the ocean currents.  The only problem is that there is not a lot of sunshine and there is a lot of rain, over 200 inches of rain per year.

We walked to the marine museum and enjoyed our visit.  We then had what I had been anxiously waiting to have...a traditional fish n' chips lunch.

What to do with all those old UK telephone booths?  Well here is one use we found.

The next port we went to was Portree, Scotland.

This was a tender port also and because the tender into Lerwick was so rocky, I chose to stay on the ship and take in a movie.  No regrets...just needed a day without rock and roll.

My next post will be about Invergordon, Scotland, located in the highlands.

Love,
Nancy