Mysteries of the Faroes (and Shetland)

by Alistair Blackett 

My friend Martin and I were catching the sleeper service to Aberdeen before heading off for the Shetland Islands, Britain's most northerly land mass, then on to the Faroe Islands a neighbouring country that relatively few Britons visit and some have never heard of. The Faroe Islands are loosely connected to Denmark, being independent and not a part of the EU. However, Denmark oversees external relations, defence and other matters, a relationship similar to that between the Isle of Man and the UK mainland.

As usual I slept very well on the sleeper although Martin did not. He was later to remark on my ability to sleep almost anywhere. However, I had a rude awakening as, due to locomotive failure, we were obliged to "detrain" at Arbroath very early in the morning. Never having been to Arbroath, I took the opportunity to have a quick look at the High Street. On arriving at Aberdeen, there was time for tea before setting out to explore the city. We did a little shopping and had more tea before enjoying a mini pubcrawl of the city centre, which has many fine pubs. There was time to break up the drinking with an excellent Italian meal before heading down to the harbour and catching the ferry. I can't remember its name, but it was operated by P&O and was a real ferry - not one of those catamaran things that are becoming quite common elsewhere in the British Isles.

The sailing was enjoyable. I spotted Pittodrie, Aberdeen's football stadium, as we left harbour. There wasn't much to see en route but we enjoyed the facilities i.e. the bar and the restaurant. It was an evening sailing and as usual I slept like a log. We arrived in Lerwick early in the morning and got a taxi to our guest house which was run by a friendly Shetland couple. Having settled in to our accommodation, we had a look round Lerwick, which is a pleasant, grey stone town. We decided to see as much of the Islands as time would allow and took a bus ride to Sumburgh Airport at the Southern tip of the Shetland mainland Island. This was quite a long run and took us over some pretty bleak and inhospitable looking moorland. The airport terminal itself was similar to many others but we enjoyed a cup of coffee before returning to Lerwick.

The next morning, we took the short ferry ride to the Island of Bressay, where we did some walking and of course visited the Island's only pub. On returning to the Shetland mainland, we visited a floating museum on board the visiting Swedish ship the Westland of Visby. The museum was devoted to life on various Northern Islands including Swedish Gotland, Danish Bornholm, The Shetlands, The Faroes, Iceland and other islands in the Baltic. The exhibition featured many photographs of island life and a number of small boats and artefacts used in fishing, farming and household life on these various islands.

The next day we went for two bus rides. First to the village of Walls where there was very little to see but we did have an interesting chat to a man from Sussex. Later we went to Scalloway, which seems to be the Shetland's "second city" it boasted at least two pubs, which were rather basic, and a hotel, which had a comfortable bar. It was a fishing port and also had one or two shops. We returned to Lerwick and dined in an excellent Chinese restaurant that sat directly above the bus station.

The next day was to be our last on the Islands and we decided to visit Unst, which is the northernmost of the Shetlands. The bus timetable allowed us to get there, but not to return the same day! However investigations revealed that we could fly back so we decided to do that. An interesting bus journey through the Shetland mainland then by ferry to the Island of Yell where we changed buses then another interesting run until we caught another ferry to Unst.

Unfortunately we weren't able to go all the way to Haroldswick, home of the UK's most northerly post office, but we did go to Baltasound, the settlement nearest to the airport. We stumbled upon the Valhalla brewery, the country's most northerly. Being keen members of the Campaign for Real Ale, and having drunk Valhalla beers in Lerwick, we decided to investigate. We disturbed the two brewers at their labours (the brewery is very much a cottage industry, what is known in the trade as a microbrewery), but they were happy to chat for a few minutes and gave us a quick tour. They also had some connection with the airport and advised that we might have a problem with our flight.

We decided to go to the airport to investigate and found the whole place locked up and deserted. There wasn't even a payphone that we could use. We decided to wait for a while. We waited over an hour and no one came so we walked to Baltasound village and found a payphone. We were told that the flight had been cancelled. We were stranded on Unst!

We went to the local shop to ask if there were any taxis on the island. There was a taxi and he agreed to drive us to Lerwick. This was a long journey around 60 miles of road and two ferries easily long enough for a sleep! However I woke up to see the remnants of construction workings from when the Sullom Voe oil terminal was built and more pleasantly some nice scenery. Our driver showed us parts of the Mainland we had not seen. He took us on a circuitous route but we weren't on the meter and the fare had been agreed at the outset. We subsequently got our flight fare reimbursed, but got no contribution to the cost of the taxi.

The ferry departed at around 2am, late. We hung around in a warm comfortable bar of a nearby hotel until well past closing time, but eventually had to adjourn to the rather basic and cheerless terminal building, where we consumed machine coffee to keep us awake. Eventually we were able to board the very well appointed MS Norrona. The Norrona boasted a large bar cum nightclub. The bar gave us our first taste of Faroese beer, which was excellent. Eventually, around 04:00 when we just had to hit the hay. The cabin was basic but comfortable and I slept like a log before awaking and partaking of a hearty breakfast.

It was cold on deck, but we enjoyed the sea air, looking for the occasional passing ship until eventually we caught sight of land. Martin also managed to catch something on his radio that excited him. He found a commercial radio station on the islands, which rejoiced in the name of Atlantic Radio. According to our reference book, the only station on the islands was the national broadcaster, which had the snappy name of Utvarp Foroya which, roughly translated, means Faroese Radio.

We docked in Thorshavn the capital and main port for the islands. It was a lovely sunny July day and quite warm. The town looked pretty with its multi coloured buildings, which sat against a mountainous backdrop. We did not see much of the sun after this indeed the weather was wet miserable and cold for most of our stay.

There are only a few hotels in Thorshavn and I had booked us into a guest house called Skansin which was clean warm and near the town centre. Having washed and changed we explored the centre of Thorshavn. This did not take long as it is a small town (population around 15000) but it is the nearest thing to bright lights that the Faroes have.

Thorhavn does have several agreeable restaurants where you can also enjoy a drink. It was to one of these that we adjourned and had an excellent Italian meal, washed down with several beers. We then went to the Hotel Hafnia, a plush town centre hotel (one of the few) only to be told it had no bar! We could however have a drink in the restaurant and enjoyed some more "Foroya Bjor" as the beer is called. For the enthusiast they produce an excellent Pilsnar, a stronger Gull (yellow or gold) and at least one dark beer resembling strong stout.

We left the Hotel Hafnia and found The Café Natuur, the nearest thing Thorhavn has to a British pub. It was packed and attracted all kinds of clientele. The beer here was especially good and the bar staff always seemed pleased to see us. They were to see rather a lot of us over the next few days!

The next day we took a bus north over the bridge that separated the main island of Streymoy on to the second largest island of Eysturoy and on to the little port of Leirvik then by ferry to Klaksvik, the Faroes second city on the island of Bordoy. It was shut! All the cafes were closed (it was around 2 in the afternoon and a Thursday!) We tried the hotel, hopeful that there may be a bar. It was closed. Eventually we managed to find a shop that was open. So we snacked on biscuits and fruit.

As there seemed to be little else to do in Klaksvik, a town of around 4500 people (a similar size to Ramsey Isle of Man but very much duller), we caught a bus that took us over the causeway to the island of Vidoy. The bus ride took us close to the northernmost tip of the islands. We had a brief leg stretch in the village of Vidareidi before returning to Klaksvik and then back to Thorshavn.

The roads on the Faroes are excellent and the National Bus Company's (Bussferdir) vehicles are generally modern and comfortable. A feature of the roads is the numerous tunnels some of which are lit and some are not. The inter-island ferries are mostly quite small and lacking facilities however the journeys are short. The exception is the MV Smyril, which sails to the southernmost island of Sudoroy. Like most of the others it is ex Danish but is the size of a small cross (English) Channel ferry with facilities to match. A helicopter service also links many of the islands.

On the Friday we went on an organised tour round the main island of Streymoy. We travelled up into the mountains stopping off to enjoy the view (in between showers) we visited a traditional old farmhouse, a small church (with grass on the roof, in the Faroese style, it helps keep the heat in) and an Viking settlement. We also stopped for an hour at Thorshavn's main museum. On the trip I spoke to the Faroese guide who was pleased to see visitors from England. She told me many interesting things about the islands e.g. only 6-7% of the land is cultivated. The 2 main crops being potatoes and rhubarb.

 On return to Thorshavn, I dragged Martin (who is not a sports fan) along to the national sports complex where there are 3 mini stadiums. A number of footballers were training, I was fascinated and took photos accordingly. Football is popular in the Faroes and their national team have pulled off several shock results. We had an enjoyable walk back to central Thorshavn through the main park.

 On Saturday we took the MV Smyril to the southernmost island of Sudoroy. It started well enough we even had a beer on board and a pleasant snack. Our objective was the southernmost tip of the Faroes, Akraberg. Apart from spectacular cliffs Akraberg boasted the main transmission facility of Faroese national radio, a marine beacon transmitting facility (being radio amateurs and broadcasting enthusiasts these things interest us!) and also a lighthouse.

We enjoyed the bus ride to the southernmost settlement of Sumba, then walked for a mile to Akraberg. It was an enjoyable walk although rather misty. Rather scarily I nearly fell off a cliff peering over a wall that was no more than 9 inches high. I thought it was some sort of old gun emplacement, it was a sheer drop of about 500 feet! Having seen the "sights" we retraced our steps to Sumba and it started to rain. It continued to rain for the next 3 hours and I got saturated. In common with most Faroese settlements the café was shut, there was no bar and neither could we find any shelter at all. It was awful!

Eventually, the bus came and took us to the ferry where we had a hot drink and dried out. We treated ourselves to a pizza in the Marco Polo restaurant before adjourning to the Café Natuur for some beer.

Sunday was our final full day on the Faroes. A bus and ferry ride took us to the island of Sandoy. We landed in Skopun. As usual, everything was closed (it was Sunday) we explored the small town and walked a little way in to the country. When we returned Martin noticed that someone had written the following piece of graffiti on the sign that says "Skopun" when you enter the village. It reads "welcome to hell". This may be a trifle unkind but, suffice to say, diversions and activities were few.

We returned to Thorshavn and took a taxi to the Hotel Foroya, which overlooks the town from a spectacular vantage point. Amazingly it had a bar which, in true Faroese fashion, was closed. We managed to get a lift back to town on a private bus, from another friendly Faroe Islander. The people we met were mostly friendly and pleased to see visitors from Britain.

The next day we relaxed in Thorshavn including a farewell drink in the Café Natuur before catching the bus to the small airport on the island of Vagar and the plane onwards to Glasgow.

The Faroes are a fascinating place, the scenery is breathtaking in the mountains and the people are genuinely friendly. It is not recommended for a "stag" beer-drinking holiday but I will return one day.

First published in VISA issue 36 (spring 2000).