More traditional stone houses with turf roofs.

Waterfalls two days in a row. This is Goðafoss, with its Niagara-like horseshoe shape.

Beautiful botanical garden in Akureyri.

okey dokey

Now at our first stop in Iceland, Vopnafjörður. Don’t ask me to pronounce it, I’m not entirely sure it can be done. When we got out of the car and started walking, this really didn’t look like waterfall country (as a matter of fact, it seemed perfectly reasonable that early moon astronauts trained here, in preparation for lunar topography). Then we came around the bend.....Dettifoss claims to be the “most powerful waterfall in Europe”

Typical Faroese construction, black walls with red windows, and a turf roof.

Throughout the Highlands and the Orkney and Shetland islands, we’ve seen these majestic cattle. The locals say something that sounds like “hay-lan coo”, which translates to American ears as “highland cow”. Both males and females have those great horns, and despite a formidable appearance, they are said to be wonderfully docile and sweet.

hmmm. Not sure about this storefront window.

We’re docked in Tórshavn, capital & largest city in the Faroe Islands. A look out the glass doors of our veranda...ten minutes earlier, it looked like the second pic.

Scalloway Castle, c. 1600, also on the Shetland islands.

Typical appearance of the Orkney & Shetland Islands.

One of the ponies accidentally ingested some British food. (Hi, Rob. 😎)

This little guy got tired, all this posing for the tourists. Eventually he said, “aww, screw it, I’m takin’ a nap.”

They say “blondes have more fun”.

We’re in Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands. Usually, when one thinks of “Shetland”, most people finish the phrase with.... “pony”.

btw, for the last several days.....people around here talk funny. 😎

Some time around 1,100 CE the cairn was looted by Vikings, who left runic carvings on the interior stones, some of the earliest known graffiti.

Maeshowe is an unassuming-looking hill in the middle of the fields in the Orkney Islands. Beneath the peat is a chambered cairn built nearly 5,000 years ago, around 2,800 BCE. The 35-foot entry passage is less than 4 feet in height, so you can imagine the awkwardness of entering for a taller than average guy. The large vertical slabs on either side of the entry are actually not weight-bearing supports, giving rise to speculation that they first existed as freestanding stones, and the rest of the cairn was subsequently built around them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maeshowe

Around Inverness.

Went into a wonderful bookstore in Inverness. Just opposite another site of note.

So, we visited Urquhart Castle, quite impressive ruins which happen to be on the banks of Loch Ness. I looked and looked, as I was assured we’d see Nessie, but imagine my disappointment when we did not.

This ‘n that.

Alan, our guide for the day. He was quite a character.

Once out of Oban, the picture-taking was considerably more justified.

Well, the last 2 days both started miserably but ended quite nicely, weather-wise. It went from this to this to this, in short order.

It’s raining buckets this morning in Ullapool. We were to have gone on a long tour of the northern Scottish area, but I don’t know....

Looking around the internet, apparently this is what we would have seen today, around Am Baile and St. Kilda. Instead, we’ll try our luck prowling around the Isle of Skye.