Travelling Hopefully - Copenhagen Briefly

Despite fog and a seething mass of humanity at Sorvagur airport my flight took off on time and even more fortunately I was on it. This wasn’t guaranteed and I stood in the queue for the Faroes only metal detector in a frenzy of impatience as I watched the time until departure tick steadily away.

It had been raining in the Faroes but the weather in Copenhagen was more accommodating. I had a ridiculously long layover in Copenhagen and had decided to get out and see a little of the city while I waited.

I had a walking tour for 8pm but I got out of the airport so quickly that I found myself in Copenhagen with a couple of hours to spare. I was due to meet my guide next to a statue of Bishop Absalon, a10th century cleric who was almost certainly not the founder of Copenhagen. The statue depicts Absalon in a typically devout pose; on horseback, dressed in mail wielding an axe. The church did things a little differently in those days.

On the metro into town I was approached by what looked like a street thug (metro thug?) and I prepared myself for fight or flight. Well flight or whimpering for mercy if you must know. Just as I tensed my knee muscles for the grovelling to come he indicated he was there to check my ticket. Weeping with relief I waved the little cardboard slip and sank back to recover my composure.

I stumbled across the Danish royal palace or rather I encountered four of them clustered around a square decorated with a statue of what I presume was a prominent  previous member of the Danish royal house. He was on horseback too so It’s entirely possible it was another psychopathic bishop. I went and saw the little mermaid because one does this when one is in Copenhagen doesn’t one.

With that out of the way I made my way to the bishop’s statue. I sat on the axe free side just in case. My guide met me and ushered me through the gathering darkness and occasional flecks of rain. He appeared knowledgeable easily identifying various structures as they loomed out of the gloom. Of course he could have said anything, I didn’t have the knowledge to challenge him.

I also learned that while Danes are a pleasant, peaceful people for some reason the blood of their Viking ancestors comes to the surface the moment they get on a bicycle and they charge across Copenhagen like the raiders of old. I cringed on the far fringes of the footpaths, on a couple of occasions I attempted to climb the walls to get away.

With Copenhagen thoroughly explored and death by bicycle narrowly avoided I returned to the airport which would be my home for the next thirteen hours to discover that the airport lounge I had hoped to bunk down in closed at 10.30. I roamed the corridors of the airport like a sleep deprived ghost waiting for sunlight or at least an indication that the lounge would be opening soon.

I have now been awake for over twenty eight hours and I’m not entirely certain whether I’m typing a blog entry or scratching markings into the airport wall with one of my own finger bones.

Travelling Hopefully - Puffins!

All week our tour guides had been lowering our expectations for puffin sightings. It is late in the season, most of the puffins will be gone back out onto the ocean where they improbably lead their lives. It was definitely with a sense of foreboding that I dragged myself from bed in preparation for the journey to Mykines. 

Mykines is one of the most westerly of the Faroes Islands giving puffins easy access to the open sea. We had to drive to Vagur and then hop on a quite small boat for a slightly bouncy trip out to sea.

The island of Mykines is quite small. One doesn’t realise at first glance how small. There is a tiny harbour and steps that lead up to the obligatory picturesque village. Behind the village the land rises to a ridge. And that’s it. On the other side of the ridge is the ocean which can be conveniently accessed by losing your balance and plummeting to your death.

Along the aforementioned ridge seabirds nest. Gannets, fulmars, skuas and if the whim takes them, puffins. The whim takes the puffins each breeding season as they seek a home where their egg won’t immediately sink to the bottom of the sea. Once the product of said egg is more or less functional they have no reason to stick around.

Birds there were aplenty as we made the climb. Even the occasional puffin teased us by flying past too distant for a decent photo. Puffins don’t hang elegantly in the air like other seabirds incidentally. They barrel through the sky like miniature torpedoes, wings threshing like mad. By the time you see them they’re gone. I reluctantly accepted that this would be the closest I would come to a puffin. I traipsed along the cliff top glumly when suddenly there was a puffin directly in front of me. My girlish squeal frightened it away but fortunately others were made of sterner stuff. I photographed and gurgled in delight in about equal quantities as puffins posed for photos, landed in the grass in front of me and generally behaved like extras in a David Attenborough documentary. And just when I thought I was satiated with puffins suddenly there were more and I went into avian induced ecstasies once more. We walked the length of the ridge, snobbishly ignoring the other birds that desperately tried to attract our attention. Finally when we could take no more we repaired to the tiny village for seafood soup. Carrot soup was provided for those of us with a fish issue.

On the journey home the sea was a little rougher (ie still pretty calm for the Atlantic Ocean). We clutched desperately to  convenient pieces of boat. Meanwhile our guide, a former sailor, stood unaided on the deck despite knee braces and a walking stick and wondered what all of the fuss was about.

This was a near perfect end to my trip. My puffin cup runneth over and with the Faroes well and truly visited I could leave happy. The only thing that could have made it better is if I had seen a whale but if I had I would probably also have had to watch as my guide ran it ashore and killed it.

Travelling Hopefully - Suduroy

 Suduroy is the southernmost of the Faroes and some distance from the rest. While most of the northern isles are connected by tunnels and in some cases bridges the only way to get to Suduroy is by boat. Or at least it’s the only way for a budget conscious tour guide with two minibuses and a dozen random humans to transport.

We piled onto what was either a large ferry or a small liner and set out across the ocean wave. Fortunately the ocean wasn’t waving too vigorously and the passage was mercifully vomit free. Along the way we saw other smaller islands most of which were inhabited although not necessarily by too many people. There were sheep of course even on the most inaccessible.

People are a bit different in Suduroy. At least our guide assures us this is the case. The people are blunter, more earthy with a rather distinct way of speaking. Our guide (not from Suduroy I must point out) mentioned the case of a man from Suduroy who was arrested for calling a police officer “a hellish dick licker”. The case was thrown out of court because “that’s the way they speak down there”.

People from Suduroy refer to anyone from any of the other islands of the Faroes as “Northerners” no further distinction being necessary. Strangely we hadn’t come to interact with the locals. We had come to visit garbage dumps.

In days long (our guide assures us) past the Faroese disposed of their garbage by taking it to the most picturesque piece of coastline they could find and dumping it in the sea. Fast forward what I hope is a reasonable period of time and minibus loads of foreigners are driven to the locations to take photos.

There wasn’t actually any rubbish there of course. It had no doubt washed up on a random beach half a world away many years ago. All that was left was a couple of atmospherically rusting car wrecks drowned by the tide and some spectacular scenery. Nowadays of course the Faroese don’t dump their rubbish at sea, they either burn it or send it to Denmark.

Not bad as rubbish dumps go

Once we had exhausted the photo opportunities afforded by rubbish dumps it was time to dine like a local. You know what this means. For some reason tour guides have an absolute fetish for digging out the most dubious aspects of their culinary history and encouraging foreigners to eat them. Possibly they’re taking bets on who will throw up first. The Faroes version was better than many insofar as it was presented as snacks with the promise of a proper meal later.

So the Faroese delicacies? Dried fish, fermented lamb and potato slices accompanied by whale meat and blubber. I begged off from the fish for dietary reasons but nobly took part in the rest. The fermented lamb was quite enjoyable but the only thing I can say about the whale is I can’t believe anyone who’s ever tasted it would want to do so again. We had it with Faroese beer which is excellent although I would probably have drunk urine to get the whale taste out of my mouth. Strangely urine wasn’t on the list of Faroese delicacies.

On the ferry returning to relative civilisation in Torshavn a pod of pilot whales was spotted not too far from the ship and apparently half the population of the Faroes took to their boats and gave chase. Sadly for the islanders but happily for the whales they didn’t catch them.

Disclaimer: At least one fish, one sheep and one whale were killed in the making of this blog entry but from the taste not recently.

Travelling Hopefully - The Great Sheep Mortality

One cold day in the Faroes (ie any of them) in the early 1600s the locals woke up to a shocking sight. Sheep corpses stretched as far as the eye could see. Panic struck the people. Was this the wrath of God? A mass suicide attempt? A grim foreshadowing of the apocalypse?

In fear and trembling the population gathered often having to move a sheep corpse out of the way in order to do so. Agonised discussions followed. Had the community sinned? Was this the precursor to an invasion? Had someone decided to hit the Faroese where they were most vulnerable? As the extent of the ovine cataclysm became more apparent the discussions became more frantic. Local witches were burnt, desperate attempts were made to propitiate apparently irate deities, the oldest and wisest among the villagers took counsel desperately seeking the reason for the horror inflicted on their innocent communities.

Eventually they just put it down to one of those things, imported more sheep and got on with their lives. Oh yes and everyone ate mutton for a month. 

As near as we can tell it was the weather. After living on the Faroes for generations the sheep finally decided it was a bit too cold for them and turned up their woolly toes.

To be fair to the sheep there was a decided cold snap at this time and on the Faroes a cold snap is more of a snarl. Once things calmed down a little the replacement sheep flourished and their descendants remain to this day, living outside in Winter, clinging to the sides of mountains and steadfastly refusing to die despite all the opportunities to do so. This say much about the resilience of sheep and the inability of humans to learn from experience.

Travelling Hopefully - Cliffs and a Surprising Number of Trees

Once again I and a minibus full of randomly selected strangers headed out over the misty Faroese roads. We had  been promised sea cliffs and birds. At least one of these was guaranteed to be present. After a brief stop to enable the newcomers to enjoy the local prison we headed for the village of Vestmanna which had a harbour. At Veatmanna a modestly sized boat was tethered waiting for us. It turned out it was waiting for a fair few other people too. We were given a choice; did we want views and hypothermia or neither? If we selected option A then we might want to make sure we were first in the queue so we could get a spot on the top deck. Those who liked their extremities could stay below. Our guides had helped with the decision making process by making sure we arrived early but we almost blew it by lingering in the gift shop relishing the last shreds of warmth we would feel for some time.

Still we made it and I like most of my fellows clambered up taking a stranglehold on the best viewing positions. With little fanfare our boat headed along the harbour towards the open sea. Along the way steep sided hills sloped sharply down to the water. The inevitable sheep grazed there maintaining their balance presumably by having two legs shorter than the others. An unworthy desire to see one of the woolly steeplejacks tumble into the bay rose within me but fortunately for the sheep I had no means of initiating the process.

Once out of the bay (or fjord I should call it) the sea became wild and rough. Or to put it another way the Atlantic was perfectly calm but for people raised on dry land our inevitable capsizing seemed only a matter of time. We took a sharp right turn and skirted the cliffs. The cliffs were very cliffy indeed. They towered sheer above us and the promised seabirds swooped and circled in the sky around.

It was spectacular and not the mist or the drizzle or the biting wind or the bitter cold could; sorry I seem to have lost my train of thought. Anyway it was spectacular in a wild and lonely way. Apparently feeling we weren’t impressed enough our captain steered us directly towards the cliffs. We were impressed then a little concerned and then outright terrified as he weaved his ship through narrow, sea carved inlets with birds shrieking above us waiting to feast on any survivors. I said before that the boat wasn’t that large. Right now it felt like a battleship as it snaked its way through rock fissures only slightly wider than it was.

With towering cliffs on three and a half sides of us we gasped in awe and no little relief as our noble steed weaved gracefully through wave lashed rock stacks and finally back not so much to the open sea as to the less immediately enclosed sea.

I SAW A PUFFIN! It came barrelling out of some cliff and hurtled past us but I saw it plainly, stripy beak and all. I’m very pleased I saw it as our guides have been delicately lowering expectations for our trip to puffin island over the last few days. It’s the end of the season apparently and the puffins are disinclined to hang around. At least I have seen one close enough for a positive identification. With my cup running over and my eyelids freezing shut the boat turned its head for home. After which the tour owner took us home to meet his mother.

Back in Torshavn with a few hours to spend I decided to use them walking to the national museum (the Faroes are not technically a nation but don’t mention that). I set off following the coastline from my hotel. Shortly before I fell into the sea the road turned inland and I turned with it. The area started to look familiar and I realised I had actually walked back to the vicinity of our guide’s mother’s house. She had given us cake the first time we turned up but I couldn’t expect repeat performance so I carried on walking.

A stream ran through some rough ground covered in grass and wildflowers so I left the road and walked through that instead. There were also trees dotted about the place. I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that the Faroes were distinctly short on trees. I may also have made some smartarse comment about trees being especially grown so that children know what they are before they visit the mainland. Well it turns out the Faroese government is way ahead of me. All of the trees I saw had been planted by children as part of a specific government initiative. Even so most of what I walked through was heathland rather than forest.

I made it to the museum half an hour before closing time. Shall we say I wasn’t so much steeped in Faroese culture as lightly dipped. The one fact that I remember is that apparently in the sixteenth century there was a great sheep mortality and most of the sheep on the Faroes died. But I couldn’t find out why. The sheep one now sees covering every exposed surface are the descendants of the sheep imported to replace the dead.  There was also stuff on fishing, Vikings and a display of a couple of skeletons to prove that even converting to Christianity is no guarantee that some curious bugger isn’t going to dig up your corpse at some time in the future and put it on display.

Travelling Hopefully - The Old Hamlet

The next day I (along with random others) was picked up for the next tour. My status had obviously increased as our guide today was the owner of the company.  This guy deserves a documentary made about him. He served several years in the Danish army including at least one tour in Afghanistan, became a fisherman, had to be evacuated out of the north Atlantic when it turned out he had MS and then set up a tour company because “I have three kids so I can’t lie on the floor doing nothing’. He’s only thirty six. Having succeeded in making at least one of his clients feel utterly inadequate he proceeded to tell us about our day.

Having visited the isle of lakes and airports yesterday today would be a more gentle assignment being taken to a couple of spots on the island we currently occupied plus a quick visit to its near neighbour. So near in fact that there’s a bridge between the two which claims to be the only bridge across the Atlantic Ocean. Possibly true but it has to be admitted that the Atlantic is rather skinny here.

To understand Faroes scenery you have to know its history. They were raised above sea level by volcanic activity and were then scoured down to the bare essentials by glaciers. The result is a rugged and almost treeless terrain split by streams and with settlements clustered around those areas of the coast flat enough to drag a longship ashore.

Our journey today took in the Faroes highest waterfall, a black sand beach which is apparently the only surfing beach on the island and a narrow gorge open to the sea which has still blue, green water that rapidly becomes snarling white flecked grey the moment the gorge meets the sea.

Our journey also took in sheep. Sheep are difficult to avoid on the Faroes, they’re freaking everywhere. There aren’t any huge flocks rather there are just random sheep dotted anywhere there is some open patch of green. Most of the Faroes is an open patch of green and the fact that much of this open space is at a forty five degree angle doesn’t seem to bother the sheep too much.

According to our guide it is still legal to throw a sheep thief off a cliff “Although we don’t do that anymore.” One wonders when they stopped, last April? You can mull over the morality of that while dining on a meal of pilot whale and puffin; two local delicacies I have no intention of trying. You can ascribe my refusal to moral sensitivities if it amuses you to do so.

Sheep and seafood are the mainstay of the Faroese diet because the soil is too poor and thin to grow much. Potatoes and rhubarb are apparently the only crops one can reasonably rely on. Our guide cheerfully informed us that any vegans would starve.

Having gazed in wonder at the somewhat bleak but undeniably impressive miracles of nature (see below) we pointed the minibus in the direction of Torshavn in the middle afternoon.

Gorge

The minibus dropped me at Torshavn football stadium so I could get a team shirt and our guide suggested I walk back to town through the forest.  Forest?? It’s rare to see two trees together in the Faroes but this was actually a park with a creek and especially planted trees presumably so the locals can get familiar with them so they aren’t scared when they travel overseas.

Once back in Torshavn I strolled through the old town. Here people still live in the fourteenth century homes of their ancestors. Well somebody’s ancestors anyway, it’s a safe bet they’re not around any more. It took me about thirty seconds to stroll through and then I turned around and strolled back through it again. It was more of an old village than an old town. Possibly even an old hamlet.

Travelling Hopefully - Spirits Rising

I woke the next morning somewhat surprised to have made it through the night. I pulled on the same mildly rancid clothes I had been wearing for forty eight hours and took the elevator of doom down to reception. To my surprise reception wasn’t littered with corpses. Even more surprising a thoroughly alive young man sat behind the desk giving every indication of being employed there.

He listened sympathetically to my tale of woe concerning lost luggage. From his attitude I could tell he had heard this story before. Frankly the fact that a taxi had been sent to the airport yesterday specifically to pick up luggage should also have been a clue. It would arrive he assured me. In the meantime I would just have to put up with filthy clothes. Or rather everyone around me would.

“Everyone around me” grew significantly larger just after 9am when a man with a minibus arrived looking to take me on a tour. There were four other passengers who crowded to the other end of the vehicle when I boarded.

Our journey would take us to the island of Vagar, I was already vaguely familiar with it as my plane had landed on it. It was fair to say I hadn’t been able to fully appreciate it at the time. Torshavn where I was based was on a different island. This would ordinarily involve a bit of sea travel but the Faroese have dug tunnels between the main islands so the chances of sea sickness are slight.

Vagar has one major attraction (if you discount an airport which has the world’s busiest lost luggage office). A lake which stretches to the ocean. The lake is prevented from being part of the ocean by the fact that it’s thirty metres higher and separated by a very narrow cliff.

Our journey took us past a low collection of buildings with a spectacular view of the harbour. This, our guide informed us, was a prison. A single low fence separated us from the no doubt desperate felons inside. I took a photo of their miniature golf course and we headed on. Our guide further informed us that serious offenders are punished by being sent to Denmark which probably keeps the crime rate low.

Of course we couldn’t just drive up to the lake. You have to earn it by traipsing through several kilometres of countryside first, oh the horror. Usually I’m keen for a walk through nature but usually I’m not wearing urban footwear designed for nothing more arduous than strolling around the shops. Nervously I enquired as to whether my shoes would be acceptable and received greasy assurances from a guide who had no intention of leaving me alone with his minivan while they did the walk.

We set off, our guide promising that the scenery was lovely. We had to take his word for it although the mist was very photogenic. There was a trail which was easy to walk except where there was mostly mud. I say “mostly mud” because the one thing you can’t get away from in the Faroes is sheep. Therefore there is a certain sheep component to pretty much everything you step in.

Slowly the scenery revealed itself and it was pretty impressive. Grey fields and a grey lake gradually took on colour as we advanced trying not to slip in the mostly mud. I photographed the scenery, sheep, the lake, sheep, rivulets trickling down the hillside, sheep and the occasional picturesque farmhouse.

As we progressed the weather got better and the thin clothing I was wearing shifted from inadequate to too much without any noticeable mean point. An aircraft thundered overhead. It turns out that if my pilot had overshot his landing we would have wound up in this very lake. Finally we arrived at our destination, the ocean all towering cliffs and shrieking seabirds. Cliffs and sea caves abounded and now we were able to see the full beauty of the lake, so close to the ocean they almost touch and connected by a waterfall which drops the thirty odd metres to the sea. 

Lake above, sea below

I was entranced, my issues with luggage forgotten as I took photo after photo until both my camera and my phone reminded me that my adapter plug was in my missing bag as well and they both ran out of battery.

I was delirious with delight or possibly sleep deprivation and returned to my hotel on a cloud. The helpful (and definitely not undead) man behind the counter informed me that my luggage had arrived, my day was complete. Also the Burger King in Torshavn shits all over the one in Edinburgh.