Standing Stones, a Broch & Blackhouses

 Day 26 Saturday 11th May

Lovely day today so we set off to the Standing Stones at Calanais. Calanais Standing Stones

The visitor centre is closed at the moment but the shop and toilets were open and it was free entry. There was a food van selling Scotch pies so we got some for lunch. Also bought 2 caramel flapjacks for later 😋

We all set off up the hill to where the stones were located. It was wonderful to see, so many stones and the views all around were great. Some of the stones were huge. I thought it was more impressive than Stone Henge (spoilt by over commercialism) and Avebury. There were quite a few visitors here but I was able to get photos without too many people in them (apart from me and John 🤣)



















































There were some stone circles nearby. The standing stones were more in a Celtic cross formation. We could see one of the stone circles in the distance.





We went to look at a Broch we had spotted earlier, Dun Carloway Broch. Unfortunately Dex not allowed and John had done enough walking so I went up alone.



The views were amazing from the top and you could see islands in the distance. 











I climbed up the stone steps













After we headed for the Blackhouse village at Gearrannan.
Basically this village had been restored and part of it was now a museum and some of the houses were converted into holiday lets. It was really interesting. One house had been made up as it would have looked in the 1950s. Apparently they filmed a Christmas special of Call the Midwife here! There was a guide who explained that the last inhabitants were sisters who moved out in 1974. They were called black houses as originally no windows so very dark inside. 









The peat fire smelled wonderful.







In the room next door where in the old days they would have housed their cow, there was an old working loom and the guy was demonstrating it for us. It was really noisy. 





































After dinner we sat outside and watched the sunset and waited for the Aurora Borealis. We really hoped to catch it! 




Unfortunately not this time 😢



Comments

  1. Steph11 May 2024 at 23:12

    Fab photos & great that you managed to get to the top...that view was amazing 🤩
    The facts about the houses were really interesting, imagine a house with no windows, those sisters had a tough life. Funny I recognised the hot water 'bottle' as my Nan had one! Now I feel old 🤣
    Shame you didn't get to see the aurora, thought it would have still been ok last night up there. 😘xx

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