IMAGES: AWL IMAGES; ALAMY; GETTY
FAROE ISLANDS
began their heist under cover of darkness. The land didn’t move, but instead splintered, plunging the pair into the icy water below, where they remain now as twin sea stacks. I survey them later that afternoon from the tiny
village of Tjørnuvík. Another Buttercup Route (Um Eiðisskarð) has led me here, the single track swooping up and over crags to a desolate black- sand beach. Things are so quiet that the surf shop is closed, the doors of the church and public toilet are locked and the only person I see is an elderly gentleman walking his dog along the tideline. There is enough light left in the day to follow
Oyggjarvegurin, one last Buttercup Route, back to Tórshavn. Nowhere does rock formations quite like the Faroes and this empty mountain road offers a glimpse of two other islands, Koltur and Hestur. Together, their population wouldn’t fill a football team. The sky turns raven-black as I drive down to meet the bright lights of the capital.
Table talk Being among people feels bewildering after my
time spent in the mountains. At Roks restaurant, housed in a turf-roofed, tar-black shack in the cobblestoned old town, I sit surrounded by both travellers and Faroese. The room sounds melodious, with crab claws cracking, wine glasses and cutlery clinking and diners discussing what must be a piscivore’s dream menu. But the lure of the lonely roads is strong, and
the next day I set off in search of one of the islands’ most secluded communities, the tiny village of Dalur, via the country’s newest subsea tunnel from Streymoy to Sandoy. I’m here to eat at the table of Bødvar Hjartvarson and Helga Hilmarsdóttir. The couple are on a growing register of open-minded locals keen to break bread with visitors. Known
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as heimablídni, these intimate supper-club-style meals are a recent phenomenon and many take place in homes and farmsteads accessible from the Buttercup Routes. The hope: to have conversations that their secluded villages simply cannot supply. Inside the couple’s kitchen, with a view of a
forlorn church and a bay of washed-up stones, I experience this exchange first-hand. “My dream is to meet new people,” says Helga, who has lived in the same village of 25 houses for decades. “I live close to heavy waves, so my neighbours think I talk loudly, like the noise of the sea. Heimablídni is all about friendship for me.” Lunch helps focus our table talk, with lamb
from the family fold and coarse slices of skerpikjøt (wind-dried, fermented mutton). We discuss village life and I learn about the interaction of sea and land, time and survival. Meat sizzles, wine glugs, and outside the waves continue to boom. Before I go, Bødvar unbolts a door beside the kitchen larder, revealing the extraordinary family butchery known as a hjallur. “Every house has one. It feeds our family all winter,” he explains. Inside is a pungent, walk-in meat locker, with rattling wooden slats open to the wind and racks of fatty haunches of lamb swinging like pendulums. After lunch I stand outside in an oncoming storm,
looking towards the clouds rolling in above waves as dark as night. Hood pulled down tight, I watch the great ocean drama unfold. A waterfall across the bay blows itself inside out. A ferocious gust rearranges my hair. They say the wind gets into your senses in the Faroe Islands, but it’s more than that. The feeling of solitude gets under your skin, too. I wonder about the light and space of these islands, but also the freedom in which to get lost amid the clouds. This is a place to pursue awe, but also to turn your back on the world.
Clockwise from top left: Gjógv (‘gorge’) was named after a long inlet that runs north to the sea from the village; the lookout point by Múlafossur waterfall also offers a breathtaking view of the village of Gásadalur and the nearby island of Mykines; puffins can be seen on the Faroe Islands from April to September; the village of Sandavágur is postcard-pretty, with colourful houses surrounded by dramatic hills
HOW TO DO IT: Regent Holidays offers an eight-day Explorer Fly-Drive from £1,735 per person, including flights. Fly to Vágar Floghavn, the Faroe Islands’ international airport, with Atlantic Airways. regent-
holidays.co.uk atlanticairways.com
visitfaroeislands.com
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