Faroe Islands, Day 3 — Vestmanna & Viðareiði

After a sleepless Saturday, we woke up late on Sunday and felt like taking some time before going out. I made breakfast and Alex finally managed to install the sim cards. Our schedule indicated that we should go to Vestmanna to take a boat trip to nearby bird cliffs. This is a must-do sightseeing in Faroe Islands, but I did not have high expectations about the trip because I have not found any good photos from other people who took that trip. Anyway, as tourists, we must see must-see places. That’s the rule. 🙂

We reserved the tickets on the web because we figured that on Sunday during the high season the boats will be packed. We were right, the boat was full of people and quite small, so we were seating close to other tourists who were very excited and eager to take pictures of… the puffins. They just could not stop talking about it. I so wanted to tell them that with their cameras and the shaky boat and small and fast puffins so high up these really high cliffs they have no chance of taking good puffin pictures, or any puffin pictures for that matter, but then I thought: what are we doing here, why are we taking this trip? I knew that we came here to see bird cliffs, so if we are not here for the birds, then we are here for the cliffs. So here they are, the cliffs.

The boat was shaky and it was very difficult to take decent pictures (and its antennas were often in the way of our shots). All of my close-ups are not sharp, but I love them anyway.

Actually, the Vestmanna cliffs are very impressive. There are a lot of birds there for sure, but the cliffs themselves are glorious. I was so glad we decided to stick with this tourist attraction.

After the tour, we browsed the souvenir shop located inside the Tourist Tnformation Center and had lunch at the restaurant located there as well. A buffet-style lunch cost the two of us $82.

Our next destination for the day was a small village of Viðareiði on the island of Viðoy, the northernmost settlement in the Faroe Islands.

We were going to hike up the Villingdalsfjall mountain. The hike is rated as moderate by the official Faroe Island hiking brochure, but I would personally rate it as difficult. The slope is quite steep and, in many places, rocky and difficult to navigate. We have not been able to hike all the way to the top, mostly because of the thick cloud that covered the top of the mountain and my complaints about vertigo.

On the positive side, the hike is well marked by blue plastic tubes (well marked hikes are a rare treat for Faroe Islands tourists 🙂 ). Also, the view from above is spectacular. I guess the view from the very top should be even better, but there was no incentive for us to climb further because of the thick cloud cover. Nevertheless, Alex complained that we did not get to the very top. “We’re only 60 tubes up!”, he exclaimed in frustration as we started on our way down.

We finished the hike after 9pm, so all of the restaurants were closed. However, we found that Faroe Islands gas stations serve hot food. We bought some chicken, a couple of sandwiches and a doughnut for dinner. Everything was tasty and not very expensive. By the time we got home, it was past dusk (around 11:30pm), but we still spent some time enjoying the view onto Tindhólmur from the porch of our cottage.