Days 9, 10, and 11 — Traveling, Tórshavn, and a Tour of the Faroe Islands

day 9 was really just a travel day — lots of moving things around, checking in, checking out, following foreign words that vaguely resemble known English words, sitting in tiny quarters, and waiting in line in rental car lines. but at the end of it all was a beautiful drive from the Faroe Islands airport in Vágar to our guest house in Tórshavn, the capital. Tórshavn has about 19k people in its urban area, which makes up just under half of the total population on the islands. it’s a small place, but it’s very colorful and full of life. as with Iceland, i’d love to see what this place feels like in the Spring and Summer.

on day 10, we wandered around Tórshavn, hoping to get a feel for the city before the rest of the eclipse tourists flew in. the eclipse was allegedly bringing in an extra 10k people to the islands, which is quite a load for the tiny islands, and we wanted to spend as much time away from other tourists as possible (who do you think has more disdain for tourists, locals or other tourists?). it was a cloudy and rainy day (so obviously walking around all day was great for all of our ailments and sicknesses), but the town was very pretty. the houses all seemed to be painted with very bold colors, and the contrast with the gloomy day was striking. we also had a nice chat with a local named Errlander and checked out a cool lighthouse at an old fort at the edge of town.

my sickness had returned with a vigor on day 11, so i took it pretty easy and mostly chauffeured the others around on a tour of the islands (we have a manual rental car and i’m the only one who can drive one, so i’m driving all week…the roads are quite fun here, so it’s not as bad as you might think). since i spent most of the day driving, i didn’t get too many pictures from this day. the sights were pretty wonderful, though. these islands feel like something straight out of Middle Earth, especially with the fog that’s been following us around since we got here.