Deen Finally Sees Puffins

Tuesday found us in The Faroe Islands which are located in the North Atlantic 600 km west of Norway and 310 km northeast of Scotland. They are closer to Iceland than Denmark. The Faroes are an autonomous country of about 60,000 people but have the Danish monarch as head of state. They also depend a lot on Denmark. There are 18 islands of which 16 are occupied. As you 'll see in the pictures below it is a very pretty country but not many trees.

The Faroes were first discovered by Irish monks about 650AD but in the 800's the Vikings moved in. The economy is fishing based and some tourism. Young people regularly leave the islands for higher education and rarely return.


Our tour with 2 other couples got off to a rocky start when our taxi previously ordered didn't show. Eventually a van arrived and a very pleasant and knowledgeable driver took us around two of the islands. There is an excellent road system and the islands are connected by bridges, tunnels and ferries. There are also tunnels through the mountains. We went to a little village called Saksun on the main island of Streymoy . After we went over to the island of Esturoy and the village of Gjogv on the north coast. More great pictures and finally, drum roll please, some PUFFIN sightings. Deen was in heaven!








We had lunch in the village of Gjogv and I had a Faroese beer called Foroya Bjor Pilsnar. Quite tasty. After lunch our tour continued and we went to another small village called Eidi. My keyboard lacks all the accents that many of these place names have. We returned to the capital city called Torshavn and had a bit of time for some wandering. The white building pictured here is the Parliament Building and the parliament here is considered the oldest known European parliament. I've also included a picture of the flag. The Greater Torshavn Area (GTA) as I call it has about 20,000 people.



Some other tidbits about the country. Gasoline sells for 11.15 Kroner which translates to about $2C per liter. The tallest peak is just under 900 meters and the temperatures range 10-20C in the summer and rarely below -5C in the winter. If they get snow it goes pretty quickly. Take my advice ,don't plan a beach holiday here- its not going to happen.

The puffin picture above shows Deen with a picture of a puffin and a small stuffed version. This was given to her by dinner mate Dianne of West Van. After dinner 5 of us from our table went up to the Crows Nest for some country music and line dance lessons. It was a lot of fun and I tried, without much success, a bunch of them. Even Deen got up for some.

We are now heading west to Iceland and the port of Seydisfjordur ( say that quickly 10 times). We also go back 1 hour on our clocks so we'll be 4 hours ahead of Eastern Time.

Location:The Faroe Islands