Faroe Islands Day 1: What the Sheep??

After our 24-hour Copenhagen whirlwind, we were ready to move on to our main destination: the Faroe Islands! Here's how the next leg of our adventure went with day 1... in which Gina tries to jam in as many adorable villages and cliffs as possible.

Tuesday

• After a dead-to-the-world, deep sleep in our fabulous Copenhagen hotel and some carry-on reconfiguration, we checked out to head for our next flight. While we didn't have much time to spare, we did make time to walk back to Nyhavn, hit up a bakery (Vedels Konditori), and eat some danish by the canal. A nice little breakfast before we were on the metro and then boarding yet another plane. (This time for a short two hour jaunt.)
• Flying into the Faroe Islands is like flying into Jurassic Park. It's absolutely amazing, and you're certain that people don't belong there, because they'll just spoil it. There's also probably dinosaurs there. Even if you don't see them at first, you just are constantly waiting for a fanfare of music and BOOM dinos! 

Sometimes you wanna go...

• Our plane arrived around 12:30 pm and I insisted we eat at the airport. There are not many restaurants on the Faroes, except in certain villages. While I had scheduled a grocery store stop for later in the day, the idea of not having easily accessible food meant that I was eating like a mama bear prepping for the long winter. This would prove a wise strategy given the crazy amount of steps we put on hiking.
• We strapped on our hiking boots and picked up the rental car (see tips for getting around the islands here!) and off we went! 
• For a plug-and-play adventure map, you can follow along right here. Looking at the map and seeing all the islands, you think it's a lot bigger, but everything was oddly close together. (No matter where you're standing on any given island, you're within 5k of the ocean!)
• First attempted stop: Kvívík, which Google Maps could not seem to find, so we didn't end up seeing (til our last day when we found it accidentally!). With the stress of me directing the beau to drive into a mountain looming, we took a little break to reset. Stopped alongside the road, I was thrilled by the random sheep hanging out just feet away, not realizing this would be commonplace the whole trip.
• A short time later, we tally-hoed onward. Taking under ocean and under mountain tunnels to go from the island of Vágar to the "big island" of Streymoy (total area around 144 sq miles - which is slightly smaller than the size of the city of Atlanta). Thank goodness I wasn't driving, or we'd have never made it anywhere. I'd have been stopping to take photos every five seconds. And with the beau at the wheel, that's just what I did - a nonstop stream of fabulous images and videos. It's so beautiful that even a photo out a car window is frickin' frame-able. 

Just a peak??  (bahaha, get it?! PEAK!)

• Our first real stop: Saksun! After a long drive down a one-lane road (with two-way traffic), we found a fork in the road with two areas to park: to the left or the right. 
• The left fork is what we took first. It was next to a trail that led down to a large tidal, seawater lagoon and a giant waterfall (both which fed into the ocean around the bend). This massive area looks up at the cliffside which the small village of Saksun is perched upon. The whole area is surrounded by mountains. Those picturesque little houses and a gorgeous church, overlook this stunning area, which is home to about a dozen people and a zillion lambs. Since it was low tide, we walked along the sandy shore of the lagoon around the headland to see the ocean. We made several failed attempts to scale up along the sandy slopes to get a few over the ravines edges of the surrounding area. Turns out, we're just not as nimble mountaineers as those damn sheep, because no matter how many of their trails I tried to climb in, I just kept sliding down! After my boots got entirely too full of sand, we followed the sheep back toward the car.

Staring out into the ocean, eating snacks: a still life of our trip.

• Since we'd seen the area below Saksun, we decided to take the right fork to go up into the village. The view from above was totally worth it. This was the first of many historical and well-placed churches that made me think, "Yeah, I could find God in a place like this..." The villages of the Faroes also tend to have one public restroom, indicated by a little WC sign plus arrow, that you follow on a fabulous scavenger hunt until you find something that looks nothing like a restroom. In this case, it was grass roofed and a really fascinating place to have a pee! 

I spent a good portion of the trip trying to get Saksun sand out of my boots
and looking toward the horizon #basic

• Next up was the renowned Fossá Waterfall. This giant waterfall is just there, hanging out on the side of a road. Because the side of the road in the Faroes, no matter which side of the road, is filled with majestic frickin' beauty. We lucked out and were having beautiful weather, so the waterfall was "low" enough that I could climb up around by it. (I've seen photos of it after a heavy rain and it's insane how different it looks!) This was a quick stop since our car was precariously parked and a group of we-have-fancy-cameras-because-we're-real-photographers people showed up and it made me feel bad about standing there gawking in the middle of all their shots.
• We continued driving up to Tjørnuvík - zipping around what the beau called the "death cliff" (hairpin turns on more one-lane roads). Also surrounded by mountains, this village is on the ocean. It's windy and exposed water apparently draws in a lot of surfers (#faroesbrah). From the edge of the village, you can see Risin and Kellingin (aka the Giant and Witch) - free standing rock pillars off the nearby cliffs. Apparently there is a trail between Tjørnuvík and Saksun (a three hour hike) that I'd have definitely had us do if I'd realized it was there in advance. (Next time!)

Hey there, Tjørnuvík, lookin' good.

• Finally, we were en route to our "hotel." With a very important stop made at Bónus Norðskála, a Faroese grocery store with a giant pig for the logo! Here we loaded up on a meat/cheese feast (Remember those lambs from earlier? Womp Womp!) and grabbed snacks for the rest of the days. This was brilliant to save money overall, but was also a godsend to prevent me from being whiny and starving on our coming days of hiking, where restaurants were few and far between! 
• We stayed at the Gjáargarður Guesthouse in Gjógv. Gjógv is absolutely splendi and is just on the edge of the world. I hate to overuse words like "idyllic" and "charming" but really, they're just so damn applicable! PLUS, our hotel had a heated floor in the bathroom and a picnic table patio area that overlooked all that frickin' splendor so it was literal heaven. 

Inappropriate footwear at its finest at the Gjógv gorge!

• After we checked in (at around 9:30 pm - because I kept making us stop to take pictures!), we explored the nearby cliff area and the gorge that the village is named after. We took the very well laid out and easy trail to a spot called Mary's Bænk (aka the Princess seat! Google it!) that overlooks the gorge. We went to this easy spot because my boots were drying on our heated bathroom floor after I attempted to scrub out that Saksun sand, so I was wearing tiny ballet flats for this particular cliff climbing excursion (sorry, mom!). 

With the sun not quite set, watching the clouds roll in to tuck the neighboring islands to sleep, perched up on a point just above the crashing waves... it was quite possibly a perfect day. Going to sleep in Gjógv, we still had several days of island hopping and grass-roof fangirl squealing ahead of us!

Don't know where it goes, but it's only me and I walk alone.