Iceland, Faroes and Northern Isles Cruise
08:00–14:00 Tórshavn, Faroe Islands
Excursion Details
Kollafjørður & Kvivik
Date of Tour:
06/06/2016
Country:
Faroe Islands
Port:
Tórshavn
Excursion Code:
300001A
Excursion Duration:
3hrs 30min
Departure Time:
09:15
Return Time:
12:45
Adult Price:
£46
Tour Description
You travel up to the scenic, ridge-top road that runs along the southern part of Streymoy Island, pausing above Tórshavn for a photo stop at a viewpoint overlooking this colourful capital city.
In the green, sheep pastures above Tórshavn, be on the lookout for stone cairns, which marked the footpaths between villages in olden times. Further north views of Kaldbak and Kollafjørður fjords open below you – a perfect photo opportunity. Your coach winds its way down into a valley leading to Leynar.
Arriving in Leynar you may choose to visit the local woodcarver and watch him work or take a walk on Leynar Beach during a short stop. Afterwards a short drive will take you further west where you can discover the colourful village of Kvivik situated in a beautiful broad valley, running from the high mountains down to the sea. Explore the ruins of a well preserved Viking farmstead dating from the 10th century. Traditional stone fences still mark the boundary between infield pastures and the wild reaches of the mountains above, and an attractive stream runs through the middle of the village.
You then continue to the village of Kollafjørður, which lies along a broad fjord and is home to many salmon farms. Step back in time with a visit to the old Lutheran Church built in 1837, constructed in typical Faroese style with black-tarred wooden sides and a turf roof and white bell tower.
Important Notes
By coach/on foot. Min 40/Max varies.
Please note: Depending on the ship’s berth, the tour may operate in a different order to that described. Flat, comfortable footwear is recommended. This tour involves approximately ½ mile (1km) of walking, over mainly flat and gravelled ground, with 10-15 uneven steps at the wood-turner’s home. The shop at the wood-turner’s home accepts Euros and Sterling for any purchases. There is a steep hill to negotiate if you wish to visit Leynar Beach. It is necessary to drive through tunnels on this tour, the longest of which is approximately 1½ miles (2½ km). Refreshments are not included in this tour but may be purchased during the stops. Please remember to take local currency. The area is popular with tourists, so the towns and shops may be crowded.
“Your daily programme”
Janet’s alarm clock went off a little before “7am”, as we thought. She got out of bed
“ca.7.10am”. About the same time there were sounds of machinery running and clangs, and
Janet looking out reported that we’d “parked”. When I got up, a look out of the window revealed a town on the other side of the harbour from us built on low hills, the tops of which were hidden in grey mist. By the dockside were industrial buildings, one painted green with a tall chimney. I’d just started to use the bathroom when the announcement came for people on the “Scenic Faroes and Pancakes” excursion to go ashore. This was scheduled for 8.45am, so while I was shaving and showering
Janet went and asked one of the cabin stewards what time it was: 8.30am! Our excursion was scheduled for 9.15am, so we weren’t desperately short of time to get ready. Indeed, as soon as I was dressed I went down to the Waldorf Restaurant and was finishing a bowl of Rice Krispies and a glass of orange juice when the announcement came for the “Kollafjørður and Kvivik” excursion. I went back to the cabin and
Janet and I descended to Deck 5, to the gangway ashore. We joined one of the coaches that were parked there.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 09:11:54
From the Marco Polo to the waiting coaches
Monday 6 June 2016 — 09:12:02
Boarding one of the coaches
Monday 6 June 2016 — 09:13:56
The Marco Polo seen from the coach
Our guide was a bearded young man, who had done media studies in London and was seeking to start a Faroese film industry. Shortly after we set out, we stopped at a viewpoint overlooking the harbour before travelling to our first major stop at Kvivik.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 09:37:26
From a viewpoint overlooking Tórshavn harbour
Monday 6 June 2016 — 09:37:48
From a viewpoint overlooking Tórshavn harbour
Monday 6 June 2016 — 09:38:18
From a viewpoint overlooking Tórshavn harbour: the Marco Polo
Monday 6 June 2016 — 09:40:32
From a viewpoint overlooking Tórshavn harbour
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:04:12
From the coach: mountaintops hidden by low cloud
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:04:34
From the coach: mountaintops hidden by low cloud
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:08:34
From the coach
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:10:28
From the coach
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:10:38
From the coach
Because he’d studied in England, the guide’s English diction was perfectly clear, though his vocabulary was sometimes a bit strange. We very quickly ascended into the low-cloud fog, so he couldn’t point out to us the three “windmills” (wind turbines), which supply much of the islands’ energy. We were up in the mountains, sometimes with a sheer drop to the right, sometimes in rolling moorland. We went through one or two tunnels. There are very few “assassinations” (murders) in the Faroes. Indeed, when police reports come on the radio, they’ll often be that “nothing happened”. The population is so low that all obituaries are even announced on the radio, which his mother listens to, to find out whom she knew, who has died. The population of the Faroe Islands is
ca.50,000, but there are at least 70,000 sheep (up to a maximum of 200,000). Industries are fishing (most income is from mackerel and salmon), IT, and— music bands. He named two or three of these — one a heavy metal band — none of which struck any note of familiarity. He pointed out a salmon ladder in one of the rivers that we passed. My notes say “fish farming — salmon, mainly” but I can’t remember whether we saw one, say, in a fjord that we passed. The Faroese are very social people, and enjoy “chain dancing” (two paces to the side and one pace back) and “stories told in song” (kvæði). We parked in Kvivik then walked down along the stream towards the fjord.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:19:04
Kvivik
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:22:06
Kvivik
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:23:16
Kvivik: View from the bridge over the stream
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:24:00
Kvivik: Church on the other side of the stream
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:24:54
Kvivik: View from the bridge over the stream, opposite direction to 10:23:16
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:25:28
Kvivik: Ruins of a Viking farmstead
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:32:58
Kvivik: Memorial to those who perished at sea in 1957
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:33:16
Kvivik: Memorial to those who perished at sea in 1957
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:39:30
Kvivik: Memorial to those who perished at sea in 1957. The youngest was aged 15.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:41:08
Kvivik
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:42:12
Views from Kvivik
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:42:38
Views from Kvivik
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:42:46
Views from Kvivik
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:43:04
Views from Kvivik
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:46:44
Kvivik: Yellow flower in a dry part of the stream-bed
Back up at the coach, there was a coach party of people, both young and older, with song sheets, and one had a guitar. They were singing a song as we left — unfamiliar, but fairly “ordinary”-sounding. I don’t know what I was expecting from Faroese song: something more “folk”-sounding, perhaps, “with a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no”.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 10:56:28
Kvivik: Faroese folk-singing group seen from the coach
From there we went on to Leynar, to visit the wood-turner’s shop — where he made wooden lampshades, of all things! It seemed a bit prodigal to turn a log on a lathe, without and within, till there was but a millimetre’s thickness left. He explained the lengthy process of conditioning the wood before it can be worked. Trees are scarce in the Faroes, so whenever one is cut down they give this man a call, for him to pick it up.
(Our guide also had mentioned the fewness of trees in the Faroe islands, because the Vikings cut them all down for houses, longships, and fuel. It struck me as odd, with all that stone around in the mountains, that they still prefer to build wooden houses — importing timber from Norway — albeit on bases, often the whole first storey, of stone or concrete.)
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:10:22
Leynar: In the wood-turner’s workshop
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:12:42
Leynar: In the wood-turner’s workshop
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:14:04
Leynar: In the wood-turner’s workshop
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:16:06
Leynar: In the wood-turner’s workshop — wooden lampshade turned so thinly that it’s translucent
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:20:04
Leynar: In the wood-turner’s workshop
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:22:10
Leynar: The wood-turner’s wares
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:24:50
Leynar: The wood-turner’s wares
We admired the lampshades, but thought the chances of getting one home intact were slim, so we settled on the purchase of a small wooden egg (laburnum?) for £5, for our souvenir cabinet.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:27:00
Leynar: The wood-turner’s establishment
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:28:00
Leynar: The wood-turner’s establishment
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:32:18
View from Leynar
Then we went to Kollafjørður, to visit the sod-roofed, wooden Lutheran church there. (We’d seen the occasional sod roof in Norway, but they were common here.)
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:51:46
Kollafjørður: Church
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:53:28
Kollafjørður: Church
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:54:26
Kollafjørður: Church — one of two model ships
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:54:38
Kollafjørður: Church
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:55:18
Kollafjørður: Church — balcony and organ
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:55:50
Kollafjørður: Church
I went up the wooden stairs to the balcony to get a view from up there.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:57:18
Kollafjørður: Church
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:58:30
Kollafjørður: Church — the second of two model ships
Monday 6 June 2016 — 11:59:28
Kollafjørður: Church — steps down from the balcony
Monday 6 June 2016 — 12:01:10
Kollafjørður: Church
Monday 6 June 2016 — 12:04:42
Kollafjørður: Church
Before going back to the coach I went just beyond the town limits for a closer look at the fjord.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 12:05:16
Kollafjørður: Views along the fjord
Monday 6 June 2016 — 12:05:30
Kollafjørður: Views along the fjord
Monday 6 June 2016 — 12:05:54
Kollafjørður
Monday 6 June 2016 — 12:15:26
From the coach
Because we’d been in a rush and Janet hadn’t had time to have a drink, as soon as we got aboard we went up to the Captain’s Club, and
Janet had two Coca Cola Light and I an “American” coffee (12:42). Then we went back to the cabin to deposit our things. We told Liudmyla about our being an hour late this morning, and she reminded me that she’d pointed out on “Your daily programme”: “Please put your watches and clocks back one hour
before retiring on the night of Monday 6th June.” “I do remember now,” I admitted. We went for lunch to Marco’s Restaurant. I had a couple of helpings of chicken tagine and some chips, and I had a 40cl glass of
Bitburger draught beer and
Janet a Coca Cola Light (13:24). After that we had a turn of Deck 10 before returning to the cabin. Back there I transferred 53 photos from the camera to the
WD Elements HDD (13:52–13:54), then rotated three that needed it (13:57–13:59). Then similar mechanical sounds to this morning’s were audible, and just afterwards I noticed that we were moving. I went out to take a few photos,
etc.
Monday 6 June 2016 — 14:04:18
Tórshavn: view from the port side
Monday 6 June 2016 — 14:05:44
Tórshavn: view from the port side
Monday 6 June 2016 — 14:08:48
Tórshavn: pilot vessel
At this point we were moving astern from the mooring, guided by a pilot vessel. Transferred the three photos and video that I took, on returning to the cabin (14:09–14:10).
Ca.2.45pm, we headed to the Marco Polo Show Lounge for the second lecture with illustrations and videos by guest lecturer Paul Twose (I missed the first, but
Janet attended it): “Land of Sagas, Legends, Trolls and the ‘Hidden People’”. He showed a 16th century map of Iceland, surrounded by sea monsters of diverse kinds, tacitly proclaiming, “Stay away!” or “Approach at your peril!”
In his lecture he mentioned: the draugar (Icelandic zombies); the thirteen Yule Lads, whose mother is the mountain troll Grýla, who visit homes during the last thirteen nights before Christmas Eve, leaving children gifts or rotting potatoes, depending on the their behaviour throughout the year; the monstrous Yule Cat, which eats people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve; and the “Hidden People”, because of whom building and civil engineering projects in Iceland are sometimes altered to prevent damaging the rocks where they are believed to live. After that we went to the Captain’s Club, where
Janet had two Coca Cola Light together and I two “American” coffees separately (16:12, 16:24).
Janet wrote, “We chatted to two lots of passengers” — that means that it was predominantly she who chatted, because I’m less able than she is to make small talk with strangers — “and returned to our cabin just after 5pm.” I changed into my suit and striped red shirt because “Dress Code”, according to
Your daily programme, was “informal (e.g. jacket and trousers with or without tie)”. We went to the Captain’s Club, where I had a
Campari and soda as an “aperativo” and
Janet had a Coca Cola Light (17:44); then at 6pm we went down to the Waldorf Restaurant for dinner, joining Jean and Keith as before. I chose from most of the courses, but can’t remember what they were, and finished off the bottle of wine.
Janet, on her diet, only had one course, so afterwards we went to Marco’s so she could select some fruit to eat. I had for a “digestivo” a
Grappa and
Janet had a Coca Cola Light (19:47). My notes here just say “Steve and Cola”, but
Janet’s journal supplies details: “It was around 7.30pm. We’d just sat down when Steve and Cola appeared. They joined us and we chatted until 8.30pm. They went off to a show and we returned to our cabin.… We’re now going to bed. It’s 9.20pm “real time”. [We’ll be putting the] clocks back (correctly!), so we’ve an extra hour in bed again.”
