What an amazing place! What extreme landscapes! What a dramatic coastline! Where am I talking about? Well, it’s somewhere new to me - the Faroe Islands, where I’ve just enjoyed a walking and camping holiday.
I decided to go by boat, catching the ferry from Esbjerg in Denmark - and I think I made the right choice.
Arriving by sea is definitely the most exciting way of approaching some places, especially when the ‘place’ in question is a group of seemingly isolated islands in the middle of the North Atlantic.
I’d been walking on the Lofoten Islands before, high above the Arctic Circle on Norway’s north-western coast, and although those islands are quite magnificent, there was something even more appealing, even more exciting about reaching the Faroes.
Maybe it’s their location, half way between the Shetland Isles and Iceland; maybe it’s the friendliness of the local people who seemed genuinely delighted that we’d made the effort to get there; or maybe it’s the way sheer 1,000-foot cliffs plunge headlong into the icy waters of the ocean.
You see, the superb glaciated landscapes of the eighteen islands of this little-visited archipelago really are breathtaking, dominated everywhere by improbably steep slopes and very little flat land. There are no half measures - you’re either down by the sea or standing on windswept cliff tops amid the swirling mist while seagulls wheel and soar on the updrafts around you. What a truly remarkable place!
If Inntravel ever decide to organise walking holidays here, I hope my new-found ‘expertise’ and local knowledge will stand me in good stead when it comes to going back to walk the routes and write our notes!
