Day 10: St. Magnus Cathedral and Kirkwall

It’s difficult to fathom the depth of history, especially my own, once I get beyond the generations that are real to me. The people I’ve known, seen photos of, or heard talked about since I was a kid.

Our visit to St. Magnus Cathedral was awing and incredibly confusing. Built in the 1100s, it has spanned an incredible length of time. A visit later in the week to Skara Brae, a nearby prehistoric settlement, would give it more perspective—man on the moon, telegraph, American independence, Crusades, time of Christ, Giza, standing stones and henges, dinosaurs, fish fossils, etc. According to scientific research, our time in Orkney spanned more than 250 million years, although most of it was within the last 5,000 years. Even still. St. Magnus Cathedral was built just under 1,000 years ago, so the idea of 5,000 years ago is simply beyond me. Probably why I wasn’t a history major.

To calm my overactive brain waves, I settled in for some shopping at M&Co. just down the block from the Cathedral. While the town grew up around the Cathedral, it seems to have kept a respectable distance. (I was expecting something more like the Pantheon in Rome.) I bought 2 sweaters and a scarf, and Mom bought a sweater. Then we retired to the Peedie Hostel for hot cocoa and a long rest on a short bunk bed.