The Faroe Islands

Day 4 in The Faroe Islands

The flight on Atlantic Airways to the Faroes took one hour twenty minutes. We were served a little lunch and refreshments and before we knew it, we had landed at Vagar airport. The blue sky and mild weather greeted us along with Danny, our van driver. He was a wealth of knowledge as he drove us 1 hour into Torshavn. We found out that on rainy, windy days, this little country of 49,000 Faroese citizens gets 90% of their energy from windmill and hydro-electric “green energy” sources. Evangelical Lutheran is the dominant religion. Danny also mentioned that this weekend was a culture festival. Perfect timing!  

We checked into the Hotel Hofnia and each were upgraded to single rooms. At 5 p.m., Barb began our tour of the downtown of this capital. She briefly explained that the early Faroese folks were displaced Norwegians. They left Norway because of religious persecution and they didn’t want to pay the tax increase imposed by the king. Now, however, the Faroes belong to Denmark. In fact, when we were down by the port, we saw what looked like a Danish coast guard ship.

We found a Viking sundial carved into the stone at the end of the oldest street by the port. Barb led us back into town because at 7 p.m. the party started! There were lots of people and music and a fashion show of the gorgeous traditional costumes. Down by the harbor, there was a fire truck with a large crane moving up and down giving the children a sort of carnival ride. Shops were open late and were offering snacks and drinks to bring in customers. One of the highlights of the evening was when we joined in with about 40 people who were dancing the circle dance and chanting their saga songs. It was great fun moving two steps left and one step right while holding hand and forearm with a complete stranger who was singing boisterously in Faroese. I tried to lip sync, but I don’t think I fooled anyone but myself.

Day 5 in the Faroes

We awoke to a misty morning in these quiet islands. Actually, the mist and fog were here, but once again there was activity. At 9 a.m. the song ” Never Wanna Let You Go” was blaring over a loudspeaker in the city center. It was the start of the island marathon. Maybe around 75-100 runners were in the street and …were off.  

The road was blocked off, but there was still a way to get to the yarn shops and that’s exactly where a couple of us went. The Faroese wool is a little coarse, but the roving (for spinning) seemed much softer . So I bought a bit of both. 

At around noon, we headed to meet our little bus that would take us to Kvikvik and Westmanna for a look at some Viking ruins and then the boat tour of the bird cliffs. I kept thinking that my grandma would have loved this trip. We saw a few puffins in the water. The are much smaller than I thought. Then we saw kittiwakes and guillemots, arctic terns and eiderducks. But the neatest thing was seeing the sheep grazing on the crazy steep cliffs. And the views were special in this remote part if the world. I chatted a bit with the boat captain about their annual pilot whale harvest coming up in August. That might be interesting to see and is their version of hunting camp for Yoopers. They subsist on lamb and whale meat throughout the year. “Imagine that one whale is the size of three cows,” said the captain. Interesting and, I guess, pretty bloody.

We arrived back at dinner time and, after gussying up a bit, went for a fine meal of Faroese salt fish, beef, and custard dessert. Another glorious day in the North Atlantic.