The Faroes are a small group of islands in the middle of the vast North Atlantic – for us on the way from Denmark to Iceland as a stop-over for 1 week. We have been here before, but in 2012 it was only 2.5 days and so we decided to take a longer break anyhow.

Weatherwise the Faroes are somehow extreme – you have beautiful sunny days and abysmal cold spells with loads of snow at the same time, just days apart.

Luckily when we startet we were blessed with sunshine, which was quite necessary after a 5 am wake-up call to leave the ship at 6 am. A little nap later the world looks a far better place than before.

Due to the volcanic origin around 55 million years ago the Faroes are quite young and therefore not very ground down by erosion, glaciers, etc. as can be ssen in the very typical shape of the islands with all the layers of the volcanic eruptions in between.

In principle the whole island was made when being over a volcanic hotspot and then, by moving away, the mountains built (there is around 3000 m below the surface as well) and the valleys were filled by the sea.

Most land is not arable so you have mostly sheep

Yet by the slow decay the stones look wonderfully – especially with a bit of mist and sunshine

The crater wall are often simply vertical and the shades of green phenomenal

Layer upon layer

many in north – south orientation

and often a rounded end

The horizontal stacking of the islands is quite nice, too

On Kalsoy (an island in the northern group) is a small hike which takes you along old sheep trecks to a lighthouse.

The stone along the way looks like a petriefied troll with hair still present.

Clouds came in – and this happens very, very fast. So for longer trips you have to be extremely well prepared as the temperature drops quite seriously as wel

Which does not deter the sheep in munching along the cliff edge

3 min later…

Quick – the cloud lifted for some 30 sec and you can see the giant cliff (around 240 m vertical)

Here the upper part of the mountain is still cloud covered

Yet you can catch a glimpse of the shape of an old crater

Which you could walk – and some people actually do it far too close of the edge

No, better turn around

another nice effect of the cloud is that every glows in an eery light

espcially when the sun shines on some spots