SHETLAND ISLES, Scotland _ The ponies, shaggy and barrel-bellied, came up right to the car window. They seemed to be welcoming us but were probably expecting a treat. They were Shetland ponies, which made sense: We were in the Shetland Isles, on the largest island of the archipelago, the third destination on a Viking ocean cruise that took us from London to Norway, with plenty of midnight sun on the way.
Viking is best known for its river cruises (hello, "Masterpiece" fans); the company has added ocean cruises and does them very well, with new, comfortable and relatively small ships. They carry a maximum of 930 passengers and have witty lectures by academics in place of casinos.
Viking offers lots of excursions, but for Shetland, we hired a private guide. One of my ancestors, Charles Edmondston, emigrated from the Shetlands to Charleston, S.C., in the late 18th century, and I wanted to see _ and learn _ as much as I could.
Shetland is part of Scotland, but culturally it's more like southern Scandinavia; the local summertime celebration is called "Viking Days." It's almost equidistant between northwest Scotland and western Norway.
On an unusually sunny morning in July, the Viking Sky docked in Lerwick, the capital of the Shetlands, on the largest island, known as Mainland. We met our guide, Jeff Goddard, and headed south.
Goddard, a native of southern England, is married to a Shetlander. A thoughtful man with a fine sense of humor, he'd researched the Edmondston family (of Scottish mainland descent, they were a litigious clan, prone to suing the neighbors and one another), and packed a lunch to save on time.
Our immediate goal was to reach Jarlshof, at the southern tip of the island, before the tour buses did. Misnamed (Jarlshof means "earl's house," but there's no evidence that a Norse earl ever lived there) by Sir Walter Scott, the site has archaeological remains from Bronze Age inhabitants in 2500 B.C. up to the 17th century.
Goddard took us where we could see seals basking in the sun and to a bird sanctuary rich in puffins, to historic lighthouses and the north coast. We learned about the island's geology and history, drove past the Broch of Mousa, the best-preserved example of those mysterious round Iron Age stone towers; we took a walk along a cliff with a precipitous drop to the sea on the peninsula of Esha Ness, and saw the tiny island of Dore Holm, which looks (if you squint a little) like a horse taking a drink.
Shetland was a high point of the cruise, but there were more adventures to come, from a visit to Orkney and its Neolithic standing stones to crossing the Arctic Circle.
