We’ve been having a fabulous time here in the Faroe Islands. The weather has been beautiful for an astounding five straight days. We met some Faroese tourists (visiting other parts of their own country) yesterday and they said that this kind of weather is a once every 10 years kind of thing. It’s been about 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit (since I’m writing this, Ian will just have to deal with the Fahrenheit instead of Celsius measurements — this is my form of rebellion against his tyrany) every day. Yesterday had some clouds, but all the other days have been clear blue skies. Children have been swimming in the ocean and in the streams that run down the steep hillsides through the towns. A picture of kids swimming was on the cover of the newspaper, so you know that it’s unusual.
We spent Monday in Tórshavn (the capital) which Ian wrote about briefly in the previous entry. It’s a much bigger town than we were expecting, with lots going on. It’s full of babies; they’re everywhere in this country.
On Tuesday, we picked up our car and drove up to Vestmanna, where there are giant cliffs that are very popular with seabirds. We had a 3-hour boat ride around the cliffs and into small caves at the base of them. Although a lot of the birds have departed now that summer is coming to a close, there were still lots of birds. We saw a few puffins, which was a lot of fun, but we hope to see many more in the coming days.
We then proceeded to drive up to two towns at the north of Streymoy, the island with both Tórshavn and Westmanna. Both were just beautiful, with grass roofed houses and steep sloped mountains rising out of the sea. Needless to say, we’ve been making good use of our new cameras.
On Tuesday night, we stayed in a hotel in Runavík on the island Eysturoy. The room faced west over the water and had the hot sun (that day was particularly hot, in the 80s) beating in from noon until 11:00. Since they’re not accustomed to hot weather, the room just had one small opening window in a bank of fixed windows. It was absolutely roasting in there. Probably 100 degrees. We opened the windows and went out to find some dinner. When we got back, it was still really really hot. It didn’t cool off until about 6am. Not our best night’s sleep ever.
On wednesday, we took the car ferry from Eysturoy to Borðoy, where the Faroes’ second biggest town, Klaksvík, is. We stayed north of Klaksvík in Viðareyði, which is actually on the island of Viðoy. Eighteen islands make up the Faroes, and you go from one to another quite regularly since many have bits that almost touch, so they can make little causeways that you can drive over. The really amazing thing is the tunnels. Since the islands are so steep, it would be impossible to make a road over the top. Instead, they burrow one-lane tunnels through the mass of the mountains, taking you from one side to the other that way. The tunnels are very small and have irregular sides. As the car in front of you goes through with his high beams on, it looks like a a science fiction movie would depict a creature from outer space with his own protective plasma bubble around him sliding through a tube. I (clearly) can’t do it justice with words, but the effect is eerie.
On Thursday, we had hoped to climb Enniberg, the highest sea cliff in the world (or so they claim), but the very top was in a cloud, so we decided to wait another day. Instead we drove out to the town of Kunoy on the island of Kunoy, which was only recently connected to the road system by a tunnel. There, we met a really nice farmer and chatted with him and played with his dog for a while. Then we went back to Klaksvík, where we proceeded to take a ferry to the island of Kalsoy, take a bus to the very tip of it (through four of the aforementioned tunnels), and climb up to the lighthouse. The bus dropped us and the four Faroese tourists, mentioned before, at the tiny village of Trøllanes at the northern tip of Kalsoy. It looked like 20 or fewer people lived there. The climb was very very steep, but grassy, so it wasn’t difficult to find your footing. We just had to be careful for holes. The grass grows so thickly on these hills that it covers holes and makes a sort of booby trap. Once we got up to the lighthouse, the view was fantastic, and a real surprise, as the books hadn’t prepared us. We could see Enniberg, the cliff that we had hoped to climb (still in the clouds), to the east, and lots of the other islands to the west. Hopefully our pictures will get close to capturing it.
We found out from the Faroese tourists yesterday that they were told that the Enniberg cliff walk required a guide to help you down if the fog rolls in while you’re up there. That information, combined with a look at the route with the binoculars and some wimpiness on our part, made us decide to skip the 6 hour hike up the cliff today. I think it would have been too hard for me.
Instead, we rode on the mail boat to the remote easternmost islands of Svínoy and Fugloy. We didn’t get off the boat to spend the day there, since the only option for the return trip was late this afternoon and we weren’t sure how much there was to do there. The ride was beautiful and we were the only tourists on the boat. When we got close to Fugloy, the swells got really big and the boat was bobbing around like a cork. At the dock, the boat can’t actually tie up due to the rough water (there’s no harbor) so the boat guys just sling one long rope over a winch and then hand the cargo up to the men waiting on the dock. The whole town comes down with their dogs (9 of them today) to watch the spectacle. A woman with two small children and a baby was getting off the boat. We looked on with quite a bit of anxiety as the boat guy held the baby out over the side of the bobbing boat and a guy on the dock tried to get a grip on him. It took several bobs of the boat before they had a good enough connection to pass the baby. The baby didn’t seem to mind at all.
We got back on dry land and decided to try a hike that wasn’t mentioned in either of our travel guides, but was in a small brochure put out by the tourist board. We weren’t expecting much at all, which made the phenomenal views at the top of the mountain above Klaksvík all the more of a treat. The weather was absolutely perfect (no clouds, no wind) and we had a great view of Klaksvík far below and a handfull of other islands. We took a ton of pictures, so maybe a few will come out well.
Okay, that brings you up to date. If anyone made it through all of this, I’ll be impressed.
I was wondering how the Faroese handled the situation when cars come through the tunnel in opposite directions–Are there turnouts for one car to get out of the way? Do they allow traffic in one direction at a time for certain periods? Are there signals at the entrances showing whether it is OK to proceed?
Sarah has already responded to the question I posed in a SMS message to the effect that there are, indeed, turnouts that allow one vehicle to proceed while the other pulls off.