Up Helly Aa - Winter Festival 2022

Coach pick-up points: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Kinross, Perth, Dundee or Aberdeen* TOUR CODE SP074 Departs 24 January 2022

A wander through the streets of Lerwick is normally a quiet, peaceful experience, but take a walk there at the end of January and it’s quite likely that you will bump into a squad of very large, very bearded Vikings, resplendent in gleaming chain-mail and winged helmets. Later, the Vikings and their fancy-dressed followers fill the narrow streets, their flaming torches illuminaঞng the dark winter skies, their boisterous songs filling the air. A 30foot Viking longship is carried alo[ before it is set alight with a thousand blazing brands. As the sky over Lerwick shimmers with heat and light, fireworks explode, brass bands play and the gloom of winter is li[ed for another year.

This is Up Helly Aa, the annual winter fesঞval of Shetland, which celebrates the lengthening of the days and the coming of another year, not to menঞon the chance of a good old knees-up. It’s run by Shetlanders for Shetlanders, but that’s not to say visitors aren’t welcome and the island hospitality will be as warm as ever.