Experience the best of Lerwick

Lerwick is the only town in Shetland, built around a natural harbour on the east side of the main island. Its stone lanes and flagged main street, Commercial Street, run along the waterfront, and Fort Charlotte, a pentagonal fort begun in the 1660s, overlooks the harbour. The Shetland Museum and Archives tells the story of the islands from prehistory through the Norse era to the modern oil industry.

Each January, Lerwick holds Up Helly Aa, in which hundreds of men in Viking costume march through the streets with flaming torches and burn a replica longship. Prehistoric sites are close by, including the Broch of Clickimin on a loch in town and, farther south, Mousa Broch, the best-preserved Iron Age tower in Scotland, and the settlement at Jarlshof. Puffins nest on the cliffs of Sumburgh Head in summer.

Fresh fish, Shetland lamb, mussels from the voes and reestit mutton, a salted and dried traditional dish, are on local menus, with bannocks and tea. Shetland knitwear and ponies are famous. In midsummer the sky barely darkens, a twilight the islanders call the simmer dim, and winter nights sometimes bring the northern lights.