The day started with a 6km return walk to Klakkur. The track is located at the back of Klaksvik, the second biggest town on the Faroe Islands. Drive up the road that runs through the new housing estate (yep they have them on the Faroe Islands) and you'll eventually hit a gravel road. Follow that road right to its end and I mean right to its end. We didn't and had to walk an extra 500 metres!
The track is pretty hard to miss from that point. It gets boggy and quite steep at times, so make sure you've got some decent footwear and clothes that can cope with the Faroese mud. There's a couple of nice tarns on the way up that will distract you from the nasty stuff and the views just keep getting better the higher you get. There's also a good vista over Klaksvik pretty much all the way to the top. When you get to the cairn which marks the top you won't have any excuses for complaining about the climb as the view is stupendous. You'll see Kalsoy, Kunoy, Bordoy and I suspect you also get a glimpse of Vidoy. The pics below tell the story.
The trip back down the hill has its challenges, especially the steep, slippery bits. We stayed vertical and managed to get into a bit of a canter at one stage, just to prove we are not past it!
All that exercise worked up an appetite so we decided to head for Cafe Frida, which seems to have the reputation as the best cafe in town. The baked salmon and vegie burger proved the reviews right. Even more importantly, they serve beer from the local brewery. I had the dark one (slupp) and it was very good. I had started to think I was travelling through some kind of fascist theocracy until today. It's been near impossible to get my hands on a beer since we arrived on Tuesday night. The brewery, FØROYA BJÓR (apparently that means the Beer of the Faroes) was started by a local who went to Denmark in 1883 to learn the fine art of brewing. In 1888 he returned to the Faroes and set up his own brewery. It's been a much better place for his efforts.
After lunch it was onwards and upwards with a drive to Vidareidi on Vidoy Island. Getting there is more than half the fun. The Faroes are home to 20 tunnels; some go under mountains while others take you deep beneath the water to get you to your destination. The first tunnel we went through this afternoon is one of the older constructions. It's a single lane tunnel and fairly poorly lit, but traffic flow is controlled by traffic lights, so you can get stuck waiting for a while. A few travel bloggers complain about the single lane tunnels. They seem to expect the Faroese government to correct the problem overnight in order to make their life a little easier. May I suggest to those bloggers that places like Miami, Majorca and Surfers Paradise might be more to their liking for their next holiday. Make sure your headlights are on and proceed with care and you'll find the experience quite enjoyable.
Vidareidi has a cute church that dates back to 1892. Apparently the men of the town each had to carry 24 stones over a period of two years in order to build the church. They are pretty decent sized stones, so I hope they have found a place in heaven for all of their hard work.
There's two very popular walks that leave from Vidareidi. You can head up Cape Enniberg and Mount Villingadalsfjall. The locals recommend you employ a guide as the going can get tough. Apparently the cloud can literally come out of nowhere and turn a pleasant walk into a hellish experience. We didn't aim for the top, but we did manage to get a good vista of the village with about 30 minutes of walking along the track.
There's a small community store and a decent sized pub in town. Neither were open when we passed through, but apparently the pub sells good local fare.
It was time to conquer more tunnels, this time an especially tricky one way number which is not controlled by lights and requires you to pull over when vehicles approach. It's all quite orderly once you get the swing of things and presents no clear and present danger unless you do something really stupid!
This brought us to a beautiful town called Kunoy. Needless to say there was another great church. I'm a heathen, but the Faroes churches really are something special, not to mention photogenic. The village dates back to at least the 13th century and the locals derived their energy needs from peat until 1952, when electricity arrived. Checking the graveyard suggests that living in a village powered by peat did nothing to impact on the longevity of the locals. There's lot of near centenarians to be found. It must be all that great seafood and pickles.
Walk around the back of the village and you'll see a nice plantation that dates back to 1905. In 4 days on the Faroe Islands I've hardly seen a tree, but the Kunoy locals seem to be quite capable horticulturalists, there's a few specimens above 2 meters scattered around the place. They also grew quite a lot of grain here at one stage which suggests there's gardening in the genes of the locals.
For the James Bond fans, there's good views of Kalsoy Island. I must confess that apart from a vague interest in George Lazenby, the shortest lived James Bond, 007 doesn't really do much for me. However if you're a serious fan I'm told that Kalsoyarfjørður fjord was the scene of aerial filming for No Time to Die. There's also a tombstone for Bond in the village. To be honest, I didn't even know he was dead. Even if you don't care a fig about Bond, the view in the direction of Kalsoyarfjørður fjord is pretty spectacular.
This featured blog entry was written by djscooterman from the blog Europe 2024.
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