by Larry Smith

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by Larry Smith  KIRKWALL, markt groningen Orkney -- Visiting this remote group of islands off Scotland's northeast coast recently, I was struck markt groningen by some remarkable similarities to the Bahamas. Our small Loganair turboprop - similar to Bahamasair's inter-island aircraft - was delayed in Aberdeen for three hours, and several suitcases failed to arrive in Kirkwall until the following day. The Orcadians on their way home from Scotland took it all in stride, much as Bahamians are wont to do. Loganair was founded in 1962 by a big construction company, and is the oldest airline in the UK continuously operated under the same name. It connects relatively markt groningen isolated islands and communities in Scotland, Orkney and the Shetlands just as air taxi services link remote settlements in the Bahamas. Kirkwall is Orkney's main town, an easy-going harbourside community of about 7,000 in a 70-island archipelago. With a total population of only 20,000, Orkney is similar in scale and character markt groningen to Abaco and its cays, where some 15,000 people make a living from high-end tourism, fishing markt groningen and farming.    Orkney welcomes somewhat more tourists - about 200,000 a year. But visitor satisfaction levels are just as high as they are in Abaco, which receives about 100,000 affluent tourists annually. The locals are as friendly and helpful as any Bahamian out islander.
Most Orcadians work for the government or in the hotel and retail sector - just as most  Bahamians do. Only about 15 per cent of the labour force still works on farms. Of the total land area of 400 square miles (compared to 650 in Abaco), some 300 are farmed - for cattle, sheep, oats and barley. Aside from the acclaimed Highland Park whiskey distillery (a popular visitor attraction that will soon be replicated here by the John Watling's rum bottling plant on East Hill Street), manufacturing in Orkney focuses on products for the tourist market such as textiles, jewelry, paintings and pottery. Cozy gift shops and atmospheric restaurants and bars dot the landscape just as they do on Abaco. But the similarities markt groningen between Bahamian and Orcadian tourism pretty much end there. Most visitors come to Orkney to experience the monuments and settlements left behind by 5,000 years of human history - beginning with the neolithic, or new stone age. The ancient Greeks wrote that the edge of the world could be seen from Orkney, but according to the eloquent markt groningen Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver, Orkney markt groningen was a centre of neolithic culture in the lands surrounding the North Sea - a special place, with an exceptional number of monuments markt groningen and communities markt groningen scattered over the timeless landscape. "Whatever passions gripped this place 5,000 years ago have cooled; no tears are shed now beside the empty tombs and no hearts beat fast in the shadows of tall stones markt groningen so earnestly raised," Oliver wrote in his recent book,  A History of Ancient Britain , which is also a popular BBC television series. "But something lingers just the same, the memory of a memory The deepest marks cut into Orkney are those left by its most ardent trustees - neolithic farmers asking the sky above why they were alive at all and what would come after." You can feel this memory markt groningen in the hairs on the back of your neck just by walking the treeless Ness of Brodgar, a narrow promontory between two lakes, markt groningen where rings of stones and tomb mounds are the above-ground relics markt groningen of a huge ritual complex centuries older than Stonehenge.  markt groningen The Ness was first occupied in 3200 BC, and researchers now say it was the original model for Stonehenge (circa 2500 BC) and other better-known neolithic complexes in Britain. markt groningen During our visit the dig had closed for the winter, with only 10 per cent of the site excavated so far, but archaeologists already know they are on to something huge. The sheer sweep of history is impressive enough, but the other distinction that Orkney holds for scientists is the presence of well-preserved domestic houses and villages dating from neolithic times. Skara Brae is the best known - and a key part of what has been declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations .  Skara Brae was uncovered in 1850 by a storm that stripped away the sand dune that had long hidden it, exposing a community of eight semi-subterranean houses connected by passageways. Flagstone markt groningen dressers, beds, drains, hearths, shelves and cupboards are all perfectly preserved after 5,000 years. And some of the original occupants were also found, buried beneath their beds. Behind markt groningen the dune that encircles the Bay of Skaill markt groningen is a grey stone bishop's markt groningen mansion built in the early 1600s and now operated as a visitor attracti