As our meeting time for our scenic excursion this morning wasn’t until 9.15am, we got up at eight and looked out of the window, to find ourselves docked in picturesque Tórshavn, capital of the Faroe Islands. We had been here twice before, in 2006 and in 2016, but it’s such a lovely place, all green rolling hills, valleys, lakes and waterfalls, that we were happy to be back.
After breakfasting in the Borough Market, we disembarked the Ambition and proceeded towards the waiting coaches; we were allocated coach #1. The weather was warm, but cloudy, and we hoped the sun would make an appearance soon.
We set off through the harbour then passed the way into the main town centre on our way out to the more thinly-populated areas. Tórshavn is a colourful place, as well as having a major harbour (Tórshavn translates as “Thor’s Harbour”) in which fishing plays an important part, there were lots of wooden buildings with turf on the roof, painted in bright colours.
We soon left the town behind as our coach took us along the winding roads into the countryside. All we could see were grassy hills with boulders and lots of sheep, not just white ones but some jet black sheep and even some with brown fleece. The sheep were very sure-footed, picking their way around the steep rocky hillsides while they cropped contentedly at the grass. Occasionally, a higher, rugged part of the hill or mountain would have a long waterfall trickling its way down the hillside, in a channel that had been formed over the years by the water. We saw many of these channels; some were dry now but several still had half-hearted waterfalls; I could imagine the rushing torrents that would occur after lots of rain.
Soon we came to an elevated position that afforded us a wonderful view of the valley and lake, with a cluster of houses nestling nearby. We alighted from the coach and searched for the best vantage point to get a photo. It was quite windy and the temperature was only about 14°C – this is about as warm as it gets in July, situated at 62°N.
We continued our picturesque tour, our guide pointing out anything of interest or telling us a little about the Faroes. Interestingly, we discovered that even though the Faroes are part of the Danish Realm, they are not in the European Union while Denmark is! This would probably explain why my mobile phone network provider had sent me a text this morning advising on the charges for using my phone; in Denmark I can use it as part of the “Roam around the World” package, but not in the Faroes! ☹
Our next photo stop took us to see one of the many cairns you can see in the Faroe islands. Walking over the mountains from one village to the next was a regular occurrence for the Faroese in days of old. However their trail would disappear, so there was no easily discernible footpath across the mountains to guide others. They therefore built cairns, visible rock pyramids en route, sturdy and weather-resistant, to help lead travellers the most sensible way. Every traveller would make sure that the cairns were kept in good shape, and indeed this is still the case today.
Our brief tour finished back at the cruise terminal (such that it was) around 11.30am, but we weren’t ready to go back on board yet. I therefore took the chance to get a few photos of the Ambition before we walked back around the harbour and into town. There were lots of shops selling hand knitted jumpers, hats and scarves in colourful Scandinavian wools, similar to the Scottish Fair Isle patterns. There were other local craft and outdoor shops, as well as supermarkets, cafés, seafood restaurants and bars.
The sun, by now, peeked out from the clouds and the weather felt quite warm. It was strange; if I kept my jacket on, I soon became too warm when walking, but as soon as I took it off, I felt too cold. 😊
We could see the spire of the an interesting-looking church, so we decided to have brief visit; according to Google Maps it was called Havnar Kirkja and was built in 1788; in typical Danish style, it had models of wooden sailing ships hanging from the ceiling inside. Because it has been the seat of the Bishop of the Faroes since 1990, it can be classed as a cathedral.
It was about 2.00pm when we made our way back to the Ambition for a late lunch. We didn’t have much to eat; when early sitting is early indeed at 5.45pm, we didn’t want to spoil our meal by overeating now. Instead, we had a couple of drinks then returned to 9187 where I did some of this blog before settling down for a half-hour power nap.
Then we just pottered around the ship, wandered out on deck (where the wind still felt a bit nippy) and passed the time in the usual pleasant way before it was time to start getting ready for dinner again.
I decided, however, that I’d done far too much eating and drinking this cruise (what’s new?!) so thought I would skip dinner and sit and do my blog in the Pendennis Bar instead, which is handily situated next to the Buckingham Restaurant. This would allow me to nip along and join the others at the coffee-and-liqueurs stage, which is exactly what I did. 😊
Then it was along to the Cavern bar for the quiz, where we formed a team with Paul and Carol once again. We hardly ever saw our other table mates, David and Chris, apart from in the restaurant. They did assure us, though, that they were thoroughly enjoying their first cruise.
The quiz questions, as ever, were pretty hard, and we looked around at the other quiz teams, some of whom consisted of eight players against our four. Some cruise lines, Fred Olsen for instance, stipulate a maximum of six team members to make it fairer – can you imagine a team of eight pitting themselves against a team of only two? However, on Ambition it seemed there was no limit to how large your quiz team could be.
When the quiz was finished and the question papers marked, we found out that we were the joint winners with 13/15, so it had to go to the tie-breaker, which our team won! Yes, we’d finally done it, even though our prize was one bottle opener key ring between four of us. We said Paul and Carol could have it, as we’d already got one (which was donated to me on the first night). 😊
After the quiz we made our way to the Palladium theatre, which was featuring the show company’s version of My Fair Lady, called “Wouldn’t It Be Luvverly?”. As ever, it was an original production with fabulous costumes, singing and dancing, and we enjoyed it a lot.
Afterwards we returned to the Cavern and met up with Paul and Carol for tonight’s game show, called “We Are The Champions”, which was based on the TV sports quiz called A Question of Sport. There were two teams, the “reds” and the “blues” and they had to answer a series of sports-themed questions. It was hilarious; whenever you heard the catchy tune Tom Hark (made famous by the Piranhas in 1980), beloved of football chants, everyone had to get up to do a “pitch invasion”, dancing around frenetically to the tune. 😊
It really was a great game show, lots of fun, and it was certainly different. We really enjoyed it.
Afterwards, Paul and Carol said their goodnights, but Trevor and I decided to finish the evening off in the Pendennis Bar, where Alex Dennis, one of the show company singers, was performing his tribute to Gary Barlow. We enjoyed a few more cocktails while singing along to a lot of the well-known songs, and it was after 1.00am before we returned to cabin 9187 after another lovely day. We had another sea day tomorrow, so a nice lie-in in the morning then. 😊