Final site to (re)visit on my last day in Orkney - the Italian Chapel. It's a great sight to see, but it also tells the story of the strength of will of the Italian POWs who designed, built and worshipped in it, when they weren't busy constructing the massive Churchill barriers to block German naval access to the British fleet in Scapa Flow, between 1940 and 1944. Everything inside and around it was the work of Italian artists and craftsmen. As I shivered this week, I can hardly imagine what it must have been like for soldiers transported from their lines in the Libyan desert to the Orcadian winters. The pictures on the walls of the chancel are superbly executed, and even the walls of the nave can only be accepted as
trompe d'loeil images, and not actual tiles and wooden pillars, on close inspection. A moving tribute to the power of human endurance.
So who knew Orkney made rum? With imported molasses of course. As it's right next door as I left the Italian Chapel, I had to visit this tiny young enterprise. I don't drink rum, but I bought a bottle to send home as a gift. The famous Highland Park Distillery is more to my taste, but there were no tours or tastings available today.
So, back to camp for a visit from Kinlay Francis, who had conducted the tour with Cate in 2012, and we shared memories, and gave him a copy of
Ninety-nine-Days.
Fish and chips in Kirkwall was a fitting culinary end to my brief Orcadian adventure.
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