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We decide to go to South Ronaldsay today, and book a room at Burray Village which lies just before the last causeway to South Ronaldsay. On the way there, we pass one of the famous distilleries of Scotland, Highland Park, where they produce one of the very best single malt whiskies. There's a guided tour of the distillery just starting as we pass, so why not have a look at how whisky is made.
The distillery dates back to 1798 and the production methods do not seem to have changed much over the last 100 years. Very interesting to see that such a production is still viable, though they do tell us that only a minor percentage of the spirits produced are allowed to mature for 12 up to 25 years in wooden caskets (formerly holding Bourbon and sherry), whereas most of it goes after only three years to other distilleries where it is incorporated in various blended whiskies.
The causeways, of which there are four altogether, were built during WW 2 by Italian prisoners of war to protect the Eastern Approaches to Scapa Flow where a large part of the British Navy was stationed. These Italian prisoners built a Roman-Catholic chapel out of an ordinary Nissen hut which has since become a great visitor attraction known as the Italian Chapel. It's an interesting place, not so much for its artistic value, as for the story of its genesis: spiritually hungry prisoners of war constructing a place of worship out of the scrap materials at hand.