A great wee museum - well worth the visit. It has a fascinating display of old radio equipment,…read moreinformation, etc. The museum is manned by a friendly and knowledgeable bunch of volunteers who can regale you with tales from Orkney's recent past related to telecommunications. A lot of the contents of the museum are related to Orkney's wartime history - don't miss out on finding out about it. Orkney (and Scapa Flow) played an important role in World War 2 and you'll find out more about it here. The museum may not sound like it's going to be interesting, and may not look like much from the outside, but it is worth the visit, especially for historians.

As above - this place is brilliant and gives you a real insight as to how people lived years ago -…read morein fact maybe not even that long ago! The smell of the peat fire is gorgeous and makes you feel at home instantly....so many nooks and crannies to explore and rekindle days of of yesterday. Another place is Kirkbister Farm Museum - very similar and well worth a visit.

A brilliant wee farm museum. And it's FREE! Stunning value! There's usually kittens, ducks and hens…read morearound - and there's several building to visit. There's a peat fire lit in the main room, and often there will be a kitten asleep in the cradle beside it. Cute. The custodian is a real character and extremely knowledgeable - try to have a chat with him if you can. Make sure you explore every nook and cranny - and if the kids don't like that sort of thing they can just play with the kittens.

My wife loves fossils and I love my wife... which is why I visited this museum. I was astonished at…read morehow great this museum was. There is something for everyone, from a terrific WWII diorama to a brief history of Earth, to a mesmerizing collection of Zippo lighters (WHO KNEW?). It's small enough that you can't get lost and dense enough to get real value for your admission ticket.

Cool island only reachable at low-tied with some ~1000-year-old ruins and a lighthouse. Fun, but…read morenot the most amazing example of any of the three. So, the coolest part about this is that it's kind of a magic island that you can only get to for about an hour either side of low tide. That's just really cool and appeals to kids especially. It's basically a secret island. Beyond that, there's some ruins of a church and settlements that go back, but they are far from the most interesting such ruins on Orkney. There's also a cool old lighthouse, but again, probably not the coolest lighthouse and you can't go in or tour it. Lastly there's some sea cliffs and rugged Scottish coast, but again not the best you can find--even on Orkney. You can combine it with a visit to the tea room (which has a view of the Borough) and wander around the Earl's palace ruins, which make it a more full outing, but the key thing is whether you like the idea of a secret island you can only reach a low tide or not.

The Brough of Birsay (pronounced broch by the way) is a tidal island. There's various remains on it…read more- all in the care of Historic Scotland. The archaeology dates from a number of different periods and includes a Pictish symbol stone (or a replica of it, the original is in the museum). There's a wee 'hut' run by Historic Scotland which has information panels in it about the archaeology and history of the island, and there's one or two interpretation panels amongst the remains too. The 'opening times' vary with the tide times - and the tide times are announced daily on Radio Orkney in the summer and on The Orcadian website. The causeway over to the island can get quite slippery at times so you do have to take care - and you really have to be aware of the tide times as the tide comes in and covers the causeway much quicker than you might think. Away from the archaeology, you can walk across (or around) the island to the lighthouse. There's several colonies of nesting seabirds there too - and if you're lucky you might even see puffins. Just don't get so engrossed that you forget about the tide though!

This is an amazing site. In addition go a small museum with background material on the settlers at…read moreSkara Brae, there is a replica residence since you can't enter/destroy the actual Neolithic site (although you can view it from above). You can take a public bus from Kirkwall that will drop you at Skara Brae for about an hour before continuing on to the Ring of Brodgar.

This is situated in the west mainland of Orkney - not in Kirkwall…read more A fascinating site - a real must-see on a trip to Orkney. The visitor centre and audio-visual display are good. There's plenty of activities to try - such as the interactive reconstructing a pot or building a Skara Brae house. Outside there's a replica house which you can go into. Then you walk back in time, past man on the moon, past the pyramids, stonehenge and back to Skara Brae (the timeline walk has stones alongside telling you what date/event you are passing). You can't go inside the village - and one of the houses now has a turf roof to protect it, but you can look down into the rest and try to imagine life in Skara Brae - and wonder why it was abandoned Make sure you take a warm top - it can be pretty windy (and cold) at the Bay of Skaill). Parking, toilets and cafe are all available at the site too.

I'll not say anything that the previous reviewer already said, but will add that you no longer need…read moreto pay to see the gallery of tapestries. In fact, there's an extension being built right now to house even more, plus art from Leila's daughter. The gallery now sells a huge selection of prints, as is, mounted or framed, plus 'hand tufted' rugs with designs from some of the tapestries. Definitely worth a visit if in the South Isles, though only really possible by car unless you want to spend the best part of a day walking there & back from St. Margarets Hope.

This is a lovely well gallery. It's a bit 'off the beaten track' but is signposted from the village…read moreof St Margaret's Hope. The views from the gallery are stunning - and you can continue on to Hoxa Head and see the remians of wartime buildings. Inside the gallery you can watch Leila Thomson working creating one of her huge tapestries. If you pay to go into the gallery you can see more examples of her work hanging - it's stunning. She sells postcards and prints of some of her tapestries so you can take a memento home - if you want to but a tapestry I believe you have to commission one and ther's a waiting list - yes, she is that good.

Okrney and wine? I'll wait until you finish chuckling…read more Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Orkney Wine Company doesn't actually make wine, per se. That is, their "wines" are not made from "grapes." Because "grapes" don't stand a snowball's chance of growing in the Orkney terroir, lovely as it is. Rather, Orkney wine is made from native plants like elderberry, blackcurrant, bramble, cranberries, wild sloe, rhubarb, gooseberries and root ginger. I'll wait until you finish chuckling. Because they're really not as bad as they sound. I was afraid all the wines we sampled would be cloyingly sweet and lack any sort of depth when we pulled in to parking lot, lured by the promise of a "wine tasting." We were certainly treated to possibly the most *unique* tasting I've had the privilege of undertaking. We were told, basically, we could sample whatever we wanted, we just had to ask; the Wine Company doesn't do organized tastings exactly. So husband and I sampled away, trying the Orkney White (interesting, dry and herbaceous) and the Orkney Red (dry and jammy) blends; the Gooseberry (floral nose, smooth finish); and the Taak Hid Sloe (the sweetest we sampled). We ended up purchasing a bottle of the Gooseberry, just for the novelty of it. The "wines" themselves were fine. But what set Orkney Wine Company apart, for me, was the boutique attached, stocked entirely with Orkney merch: Westray pottery; sheepskins, hats, scarves and cushions made from North Ronaldsay wool; Orkney cheeses and game charcuterie; jewelry from local artisans. Everything is superb quality, making Orkney Wine Company the ideal place to pick up a one-of-a-kind souvenir. All five of us did.