Up North...

By David Gourley

Cathy and I have had two memorable holidays in Norway, each taking us right up to the North Cape.  This is generally regarded as the northernmost point in mainland European albeit it is on an island, Mageroya (the comparatively unknown Cape Nordkinn, a few miles to the east, is the actual northernmost point in the mainland).   On both occasions we enjoyed the spectacular scenery in what in our view is one of the nicest of countries. 

On the first occasion we travelled from Oslo to Helsinki taking as it were the scenic route via the North Cape.  Mostly this journey was by coach but there was a short stretch on the Hurtigruten, the renowned shipping service which operates along the coast of Norway.  This has the vital function of transporting goods and people between coastal communities, many of them quite remote.  Nowadays it also caters for tourists and our second trip took us the entire length of its route, from Bergen to Kirkenes and back.  On the return journey one calls by day at the places stopped at during the night on the way up. 

Bergen is one of Europe's loveliest cities.  The visitor does have to be prepared for the probability of rain: on average there is in any given year rainfall on 231 days.  We were lucky as we had a full day of sunshine, enabling us to enjoy to the full the magnificent view from the top of the Floibanen funicular railway.  Right at the other end of the voyage, Kirkenes is close to the Russian border.  The region was thus of strategic importance during the Cold War, as it was one of just two areas where a NATO state bordered the Soviet Union (the other being at the opposite end of Europe where Turkey adjoins Armenia and Georgia).  A shore excursion took us to the Storskog border crossing.  Although Norway is not in the EU, it has signed up to the Schengen Agreement so one can move freely across the borders with Sweden and Finland.  But woe betide anyone who tries to saunter across the border into Russia!

Having made it to the North Cape we hankered to go still further north, to Svalbard, often referred to as Spitsbergen, which is actually the largest island in this archipelago.  But the tours there seemed rather pricey.  Then we discovered a comparatively inexpensive cruise aboard the Marco Polo.  This vessel gets mixed reviews.  Our review would for the most part be favourable.  It is really a matter of expectation: if one is looking forward to five-star luxury one is going to be disappointed.  It looks though like 2013 was the last year in which it offered a cruise to Spitsbergen. 

The cruise started from Leith, the port for Edinburgh, and we had to arrange our own travel up there.  Rail travel in Britain can be very expensive but one can get very good bargains.  By booking well in advance on the internet, and getting single tickets either way, we got first class tickets for less than standard class would normally be.  And one is well looked after if travelling first class with East Coast Trains as food and drink are complimentary.  So on the way up we had a good breakfast and later on a late morning snack with, in my case, a glass of Argentinean red (at weekends the offering is downsized so only snacks and non-alcoholic beverages are complimentary).   Sadly however this complimentary service for first-class passengers is a result of the discontinuation of that once loved feature of rail travel, the restaurant car.  If one is travelling in standard class one either takes one's chances on the buffet, or brings one's own.  

We took advantage of the four-night add-on in Scotland, comprising two nights each in Edinburgh and Pitlochry, Perthshire, that our tour company was offering prior to the cruise.  We were attracted by the fact that, in Pitlochry, we would be staying in the Atholl Palace Hotel, where we had last stayed nearly thirty years previously.  On our full day in Edinburgh we had, in the morning, a walking tour along the Royal Mile with an excellent blue badge guide.  We were just over a year away from the Scottish referendum on independence but our guide eschewed this topic, other than to mention that 2014 was going to be a busy year for Scotland what with various events due to take place.  Thus was the possibility of her country becoming independent equated with the hosting by Gleneagles of the Ryder Cup!  She also pointed out the Canon's Gait, the pub from which Nigel Farage had recently been forced to flee by hostile demonstrators.

As an Englishman I was with David Bowie on the question of independence, wanting Scotland to ‘stay with us’.  But I would readily concede that, had Scotland become independent, it would have had as its capital a world-class city, fully able to hold its own with other European capitals.  Certainly it is one of Europe's loveliest cities.   The afternoon was our own.  We had stayed in Edinburgh a few years previously and on that occasion had visited what might be described as four set piece attractions: the Castle; Holyrood Palace; the Scottish Parliament; and the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is berthed in Leith.  Now, following a good lunch at the Scottish National Gallery, we visited some lesser known attractions. 

We started with the Museum on the Mound.  This is housed in the impressive former headquarters of the Bank of Scotland and thus recalls the days before Fred the Shred, when banking in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, was a respected profession.  It is devoted to money and finance.  The exhibits include £1m worth of individual pound notes.  No point in anyone trying to steal these as they are suitably endorsed!  We then visited two contrasting National Trust for Scotland properties - members of the south of the border equivalent have reciprocal visiting rights.   Firstly, in the Royal Mile, Gladstone's Land.  Nothing to do with the Victorian Prime Minister, albeit he was for a while a local MP, conducting his celebrated Midlothian Campaign.  This Gladstone was a seventeenth century merchant, his 'Land' being his house.  In the elegant New Town we visited the Georgian House.

We transferred to and from Pitlochry by rail.  I am a great advocate of travel by rail rather than road.  Even so, a side of me regretted that, rather than have our cases loaded for us into a coach, we were having to lug them on and off trains, an easier task in Edinburgh, the terminal, than in Pitlochry, a brief stop on the way to and from Inverness.  At Pitlochry it was raining, not what we wanted when we were straight away heading to the Queen's View.  Would there be a view?  Luck in fact was with us for it stopped raining and the view over Loch Tummel was magnificent.  It is widely supposed that the Queen in question is Victoria but it is more likely that it was named from Isabella, the wife of Robert the Bruce.

The Atholl Palace lies high above the attractive resort of Pitlochry.  The view from our room was splendid.  The hotel had, in no unpleasant way, a bit of a dated feel.  We had a second tour, which was to the Edradour Distillery.  This is a David among Goliaths for its survival as one of the smallest distilleries in Scotland, producing in one week just twelve barrels of whisky, is somewhat against the odds.

Preserved steam railways abound in England and in Wales but there are hardly any in Scotland.  Our included tour the next day was to one of these, the Strathspey Railway, which takes one through beautiful Cairngorms scenery on its journey from Aviemore to Broomhill via intriguingly named Boat of Garten.  The rail company makes much of the fact that Broomhill was 'Glenbogle' Station in the BBC series Monarch of the Glen, something that was rather lost on us as we have never watched this programme.  Aviemore is a surprisingly dull place.  Its main centre brought to mind somewhere in a new town.  Yet this is Britain's foremost ski resort and on the continent such places as Kitzbühel in Austria where we once had a week's holiday, can be charming. 

We joined our vessel the next day.  We had a good first impression of the Marco Polo: a friendly and remarkably quick boarding process which compared favourably with that of the Hurtigruten, which in this respect was more bureaucratic.  We also liked the fact that the Marco Polo has a 'no children' policy.  We do in fact like to see children taking part in, and hopefully benefitting from, travel if they are reasonably well behaved.  But sometimes they aren't.  On our Hurtigruten vessel, our sailing from Bergen was marred by children messing around.  We complained to their parents who were annoyed - with us.  And, yes, we can tell the difference between high spirits and bad behaviour.

As said, my review of the Marco Polo would generally be favourable.  Not five-star luxury but pleasant, spacious and always kept meticulously clean.  For the most part staff were friendly and helpful though poker faces seemed to be the order of the day for the East European waiting staff.  However in the evening our Ukrainian waiter revealed his sense of humour.  Meals were good, with the ability to choose between a buffet and more formal waiter service; as a rule we went for the former at lunchtime and the latter in the evening.  There was a varied programme of entertainment.   Making hessian bags is not really our thing but we enjoyed some of the shows, one of which comprised Russian music, maybe in deference to the captain.  He informed us that he was from that country and had been born in the Crimea.  Doesn't that belong to, er, Ukraine?

There were four stops in mainland Norway as we travelled north to Spitsbergen.  The first two, Molde and Andalsnes, were quite close, being at either end of the Romsdalsfjord.  There was the option of travelling between the two by coach and it was reported to us that the scenery was marvellous.  But we enjoyed sailing along the Fjord.  We had shore excursions in both places.  Scheduling on this tour was tight and, except in the Svalbard capital, Longyearbyen, going on an excursion meant having no time to look round the towns where we stopped, though one was driven through them.  Molde rather blurred into the great number of stops, over thirty, on our Hurtigruten cruise though I remembered its distinctive Rica Hotel, shaped like a huge sail.  It is known as the Town of Roses.  Our excursion was to the Atlantic Road, a striking series of bridges spanning a number of small islands. 

Andalsnes, or NATO Harbour to use its nickname, is a very small place so I don't think we missed out on much by having no time to look round.  We would though have liked the chance to look inside the old railway carriage which has been converted into a chapel.  We would thus have upped our tally of places of worship in unusual buildings: the church in a rock in Helsinki, the church in a cave in Budapest and, a bit closer to home, the church in a windmill near Reigate.  Our tour took us first to Trollveggen, Europe's tallest vertical, overhanging mountain face and then up the scenic Trollstiggen, a road which winds its way up almost vertical mountainside and has eleven hairpin bends. Viewing platforms at the top afforded fantastic views.  Two doughty members of our crew jogged right the way up the road and then down again.

There was a full day of sailing before we reached our next port of call, Tromso.   There was little to see.  In contrast to the Hurtigruten, which hugs the coastline and thus affords continuous enjoyment of the coastal scenery, the Marco Polo is set on getting from A to B as quickly as possible.  We crossed the Arctic Circle.  Thankfully the Marco Polo does not replicate the ceremony held on the Hurtigruten in which 'King Neptune' puts ice cold water down passengers' backs.  We declined to take part in this.  If that makes us a miserable pair, so be it.

We had been to Tromsö on our two earlier visits to Norway and did not feel in need of an organized tour.  On our Hurtigruten trip, we had two visits, the second being to an atmospheric midnight service in the Ice Cathedral, the city's most distinctive landmark though it is not a cathedral nor is it made of ice.  Tromsö is a pleasant city though it does not strike one as meriting the soubriquet Paris of the North.  The name is maybe earned because its citizens apparently love to party, especially during the long dark winter nights.  A statue of Amundsen reminds the British visitor that the Norwegians got to the South Pole first!

Of the available options, we went for a visit to Polaria, a museum offering an ‘Arctic experience’ which is located in a strikingly designed building that replicates ice floes pressed up against the land.  Our view, shared by others on TripAdvisor, was that this was good as far it went, but one had expected it to go a bit further.  Of particular interest to us, given where we were heading, was the film depicting Svalbard as seen through the eyes of a little auk flying across it.

Our final stop in mainland Norway was in Honningsvag, the small town which is the base for visits to the North Cape.  Having been to the Cape twice, we decided against going again.  I hasten to add we had enjoyed our visits and it is certainly a place worth visiting.  There are various attractions but no tackiness.  These include a small Thai museum.  The reason for this is that in 1907 King Chulalongkom of Siam, as the country was then known - the young prince in The King and I - paid a visit.  There are also the rather moving Children of the World sculptures, seven semi-circles based on designs by children from seven countries.  They are intended as a symbol of friendship between the countries of the world.  They date back to the Cold War era so two of the sculptures are from the USA and the Soviet Union; the others span the continents: Tanzania, Brazil, Italy, Japan and, as might be expected, Thailand.

I feared that our few hours in Honningsvag might be a bit boring, but not so.  We went to the local museum.  This turned out to be a moving experience.  Honningsvag is located in the province of Finnmark where, towards the end of World War II, retreating German forces adopted a ‘scorched earth’ policy, thus razing towns and villages to the ground.  In Honningsvag the German commander evidently had something of a conscience for he spared the church, which we visited later on.  It might well be asked why, if he had a conscience, he didn't spare the whole town, but he would no doubt have been signing his own death warrant had he done so.  The Germans adopted similar tactics in the north of Finland and, in the town of Kuusamo near the Russian border, we were told that the German officer in question came back to the town after the war to help rebuild the church. 

But the story is an inspiring one for, after the war, the townsfolk returned and they are pictured rebuilding their town and looking as if they are relishing the task.  Honningsvag is once more a thriving and attractive town.  Finnmark was liberated by the Red Army who, here at least, really were liberators as they withdrew, Stalin having accepted that Norway was not going to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence.  Elsewhere in the country the German forces surrendered to the Western Allies.

We now set sail for Spitsbergen, soon seeing the North Cape as we had not seen it before i.e. from the sea.  There was a full day of sailing with just one sighting of land, tiny Bear Island.  We docked in Longyearbyen, which is named after an American,  John Munro Longyear, whose Arctic Coal Company started coal mining operations in the island in 1906.  I was somehow expecting Longyearbyen to be a ramshackle sort of place, a bit like Kotzebue in Alaska, our first foray across the Arctic Circle.  On the contrary it is a neat, well laid out town which even boasts a four-star hotel of international standard, the Radisson Blu Polar.  We went in there to get postcards and some stamps thinking that, as this was a Sunday, the downtown shops would be closed.  But they weren't: there were two cruise ships in town and the opportunity to make a bit of money was not going to be lost. 

In the geopolitical sense the archipelago has unique status, resulting from the Svalbard Treaty that took effect in 1925.  This granted sovereignty to Norway, but all signatory countries were granted rights to its resources.  Of these only Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, has taken advantage and there is thus a separate Russian coal mining settlement at Barentsburg.  The archipelago is demilitarized so NATO cannot conduct exercises there. 

Our excursion took us first to a husky farm on the outskirts of the town.  In his early days as Tory Party leader, David Cameron came to Spitsbergen and hugged some huskies.  Immediately beyond are signs warning of polar bears.  These do not venture into the capital, but otherwise there is the risk of encountering them and tragically they can and do kill human beings.  We were all right in a tour bus but otherwise the advice is to carry a powerful weapon, just in case one finds oneself up close and personal with a bear.  Coal mining continues to be one of the mainstays of the local economy, though a number of the mines have closed.  Our tour took us through wonderfully wild scenery to Mine No.7, which still operates. 

Our vessel carried on overnight to Magdalenafjord.  There was no landing but according to our itinerary we needed to be on deck between 5.00am and 8.00am in order to enjoy the scenery.  I was not very pleased at having such early start and was at first inclined to leave it till later to get up, the assumption being that we'd still be in the fjord.  Fortunately I had second thoughts.  When we got on deck we found that we were halfway along the fjord and that the boat was already turning round, the captain having judged that it was not safe to go any further, given all the ice floes.  So we left the fjord much sooner than scheduled.  

It would have been a great shame to have missed out on the fjord.  Firstly it is beautiful.  Secondly it was the northernmost point in our tour and is thus the northernmost place we have been to.  In all likelihood it will remain so as it rather unlikely, especially with old age creeping up, that we are going to make it to the North Pole!

There was one more shore visit in Spitsbergen, this time to Ny Ålesund, which takes its name from the Norwegian town of Ålesund, one of the ports of call on our Hurtigruten cruise and noted for having been rebuilt in Art Nouveau style after the disastrous fire in 1904.  Its Spitsbergen namesake houses a number of research institutes.  It is wise to stick to the main pathway, which loops round the site, as otherwise the arctic terns, protective of their young, are liable to swoop down and attack, as in the Alfred Hitchcock movie.  We in fact saw a young couple being so attacked but they had strayed away from the path and appeared to be enjoying themselves daring the birds.  

We now left Spitsbergen for the long journey back to Leith.  There were two stops en route.  The first was in Thorshavn, the capital of the Faroes.  These are part of the Kingdom of Denmark but enjoy substantial autonomy, so much so that they were allowed to take themselves out of the EU.  To forestall a Nazi takeover, the British occupied the islands after the German conquest of Denmark in 1940.

We had booked a shore excursion, taking us through Streymor, the main island, to the neighbouring island of Vagar, which lies to its west.  This meant that we did not, as we would have liked, have time to look round Thorshavn and in particular visit Tinganes which is located on a small peninsula jutting out into the harbour.  This is the oldest part of the city, very picturesque with its stone-and-timber buildings.  The original Parliament met here, making this one of the oldest parliamentary meeting locations in the world, dating back to the ninth century.  

The scenery in the Faroes is superb and the infrastructure impressive: a tunnel took us across to Vagar.  The unemployment figures are one of the lowest in Europe, even so there is dependence, or over-dependence as some would see it, on the fishing industry.  Our guide told us that as a result Faroese sometimes get our fishing ports, Grimsby and Aberdeen, muddled up in their minds - not something a British person is likely to do!  We stopped in the village of Sorvagur and went inside its church.  Our end point was Gasadolur.  This is no more than a hamlet.  Nevertheless a tunnel has recently been built through the nearby mountain to connect it to the rest of the road network.  Before that the dutiful postman used to walk over the mountain in order to deliver the mail.

One of the houses in Gasadolur is built over a rock.  Our guide explained that the owner wanted to remove the rock before building the house, but the neighbours insisted that it remain as they believe that elves live there.  In Iceland too, which we visited in the 1990s, there is a widespread belief that elves really do exist.  But we have never seen any. 

Our final stop brought us back to Scotland and to the Orkney Islands.  This too constitutes a ‘furthest north’ for us, this time within the UK.  Previously I'd not got beyond Thurso, a few miles from John O'Groats.  Again we had a shore excursion so again there was no chance to look round the capital, Kirkwall, though we saw some of it as we drove through, including its impressive cathedral, St Magnus.    

Our excursion  here was confined to the main island, known simply as Mainland.  It took us through glorious scenery to the west coast, in the vicinity of which is the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, where we visited the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.  From the Yesnaby Cliffs we could just about see the Old Man of Hoy, beloved of rock climbers and abseilers. 

Certainly we would love to return to Orkney and carry on to the still unvisited Shetlands. There is a strong sense of independence here, but this doesn't necessarily translate into support for an independent Scotland.  On the contrary, rule from London is widely regarded as the better option, or at least the lesser evil, than rule from Edinburgh.  So it was no great surprise that, in the referendum, Orkney recorded the highest ‘no’ vote percentage, with Shetland not far behind.  Orkney and Shetland was also one of just three Scottish constituencies which didn't elect an SNP MP in the recent general election.  Maybe, if Scotland really did become independent, the islanders would prefer to rejoin Norway.  After all, in the case of the Shetlands, the nearest railway station is in Bergen!•

First published in VISA 122 and 123 (August-October 2015)

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).