Tórshavn

Late last night we arrived in the capital Tórshavn, which is on the largest island, Streymoy.

The Faroes are made up of 18 islands, all but one populated (one island only has 2 residents!). The major islands are joined together by 4 undersea tunnels, the smaller island are serviced by ferry, and the very small islands by helicopter.

In the morning we boarded buses and visited the village of Kirkjubøur, and the ruins of Magnus Church. The village, like many others and the capital has plenty of grassed roof houses.

Grass roofed houses are very common in The Faroes and are still being constructed. To make the roof, a layer of birch bark is traditionally laid over the roof beams, then a layer of grass upside down (ie grass down, roots up), before the top layer of grass is added right way up. The lower layer gives the roots of the top layer something to attach to.

We returned to Tórshavn and had a walking tour of the old town, before returning to the ship for lunch.

The afternoon was a walk on the adjacent island, from Nes to Æduvik. To get there we travelled through one of the undersea tunnels, 11km in length, and including the only undersea roundabout in the world, known as the Jellyfish Roundabout.

Our walk was described by locals as a "family walk". It was a challenging 4km walk across the peninsula, so more sore legs for us tonight! We walked 11km in total today.

When we returned to the ship we had some free time before dinner, so we went for a caching walk around town in drizzly rain and heavy fog.Read more