Stromness is the first sight of Orkney for anyone arriving on the ferry from Scrabster: a grey-gold town of local stone pressed against the western shore of its harbour, under the low hill of Brinkies Brae. The Vikings called the anchorage Hamnavoe, "haven bay". The town itself grew up in the late 17th century, when wars with France pushed shipping north around Scotland, and Hudson's Bay Company ships and whaling fleets came here for crews and fresh water. Captain Cook's Resolution and Discovery called in 1780 on their way home, after Cook had been killed in Hawaii.
The old town is one long, narrow, winding street, flagstoned and barely wide enough for a car, changing its name from Victoria Street to Graham Place, Dundas Street and Alfred Street as it follows the shore. Tall houses crowd both sides, many with their own small piers out into the harbour behind, and steep alleys with names like Khyber Pass and Puffer's Close climb up the hill or drop to the water. At the south end, Login's Well supplied the ships before their Atlantic crossings.
For a town of 1,700 people, Stromness is unusually rich in culture. The Pier Arts Centre holds a superb small collection of 20th-century British modernism, and the old-fashioned Stromness Museum is crammed with whaling relics, Inuit artefacts brought home by Hudson's Bay men, and the Arctic explorer John Rae, whose statue stands at the pierhead. The poet and novelist George Mackay Brown was born here and lived in the town most of his life — his poem "Hamnavoe" is set in its streets — he is buried at Warbeth, looking out over Hoy Sound. The Orkney Folk Festival fills the town's pubs and halls every May.
Stromness makes a quieter, more atmospheric base than Kirkwall for western Orkney. Skara Brae, Maeshowe and the Ring of Brodgar are a short drive away, the coastal path south passes the wartime gun emplacements of the Ness Battery, and small ferries cross from the harbour to Graemsay and Hoy. For food, Hamnavoe Restaurant on the waterfront and the Ferry Inn by the pier are the local standbys.