ANCIENT SHETLAND

Your tour guide takes you back through thousands of years of Shetland history - Mousa, Scatness, Jarlshof, Sumburgh. Starting with a 2,000 year-old Iron Age broch in the outskirts of Lerwick, capital of Shetland. ​From there we head south down through Gulberwick and Quarff to the old farming settlement of Fladdabister with its well-preserved dry-stone walling. ​Continuing past Catpund, where Neolithic people quarried soapstone for their cooking pots, we stop to view the island of Mousa with its broch. The broch is the best preserved in the world! Your tour guide will explain the significance of this building. ​It's then a short journey down from the Mousa viewpoint to Hoswick, with its Visitor Centre and café for tea and home-bakes. Nearby are two Shetland knitwear outlets, reflecting both traditional and contemporary approaches. Your tour guide will allow plenty of time for you to sample crafts and hospitality.

​Across to the west side of the island to watch Common Seals on the beach of Rerwick. ​We continue south to the Iron-Age village of Scatness, where your tour guide previously worked as a guide during the excavation of this site.

Then on to Jarlshof - one of the most important archaeological sites in Britain. Here your tour guide will take you on a walk to discover Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Viking, Medieval settlements and the house which gave Jarlshof its name - 4,000 years of history on one site! Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof are in the running to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site - the Crucible of Iron Age Shetland! Finally on to Sumburgh Head, which National Geographic has named as the best place in the world to watch puffins! From there your tour guide will take back to wherever you wish