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Orkney & Shetland

Up here at Britain's top end it can feel more Scandinavian than Scottish, and no wonder. For the Vikings, the jaunt across the North Sea from Norway was as easy as a stroll down to the local mead hall and they soon controlled these windswept, treeless archipelagos, laying down longhouses alongside the stony remains of ancient prehistoric settlements.

The Old Man of Hoy rock formation on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Scotland.

©Justin Foulkes/Lonely Planet

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