St Magnus Cathedral is built of red sandstone from the Head of Holland, east of the town, with yellow stone from the island of Eday worked in alongside it. It stands in the middle of Broad Street and it is the first thing you see and more or less the last. Britain's most northerly cathedral, and the oldest in Scotland, it was begun in 1137 by the Viking Earl Rögnvald in honour of his murdered uncle, whose relics it was built to hold. Rögnvald never saw it finished. He was killed by a rebellious Scottish chieftain in 1158, and construction carried on around him for another three centuries. Since the Reformation the building has belonged not to the Church of Scotland but to the burgh itself.
From the cathedral the town runs down to the water in narrow flagstoned streets. Harbour Street holds four pubs within a short stretch, all of them serving Swannay Brewery's Scapa Special. The St Ola Hotel overlooks the harbour and keeps a public bar you enter straight off the pavement; it was joint CAMRA Northern Isles Pub of the Year in 2018, has an extensive whisky range, and puts on live music from four o'clock on Sundays. The Torvhaug, the Shore Hotel and the Ayre Hotel make up the rest of the group. Helgi's, named in the Norse tradition, has a slate floor and wood-panelled walls.
For provisions there is the Brig Larder at Jollys, a deli of about ten years' standing selling fresh fish, Orkney butcher's meat, handmade fudge, oatcakes and farmhouse cheeses. Kirkness & Gorie, in the old heart of the town, stocks local produce beside marmalade, chutney and imported specialities. Argo's Bakery at 44 Albert Street makes Orkney Fudge to an original secret recipe in four flavours — vanilla, chocolate, hazelnut and stem ginger. Donaldson's and Flett's are the butchers, both selling Orkney beef and lamb, and the farmers' market comes round on the last Saturday of the month.
The walking starts at the edge of things. Wideford Hill rises immediately west, panoramic at the top and holding a Neolithic chambered cairn on its slopes. Closer in, the Peedie Sea is a small tidal lagoon with a walkable shore by the Pickaquoy Centre, which is where families end up on a wet day — two pools, a climbing wall, soft play, and Orkney's largest cinema. Scapa Beach, a sandy bay on Scapa Flow, is a short way south.
Highland Park distillery sits on the southern edge of town, founded in 1798 and traditionally linked to Magnus Eunson, remembered as "a butcher and church officer by day and illicit distiller and whisky smuggler by night."
There is no railway; the nearest is at Thurso, reached by ferry to the mainland. Flights go from Kirkwall Airport, a couple of miles southeast, and NorthLink ferries run from Hatston Pier.
Each Christmas Day and New Year's Day the town plays the Ba', a mass street game between the Uppies and the Doonies, decided by which side of the cathedral a man was born. It can go on for hours, and it comes back twice a winter whatever the weather.