As mentioned before, the Saksunarvegur route eventually leads to Saksun and while on the face of it, Saksun might sound like your regular tint little village, once you arrive here, you soon realise why it’s so special and unlike any other village you’ve ever visited.
Reason – the view here is absolutely incredible!
We’re talking towering mountains, draped in rugged grass, which dips into a lake (of sorts), laced with a beach and fed by the sea. If you’re even lucky, it might be foggy (or even snowing) when you visit which only makes it more incredible!
The most ‘famous’ building to see here is down at the old farm and is one of the most photographed sights on the islands.
There’s barely anyone in sight here, pretty much zero phone service and it truly feels like a perfect place to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life.
Moving on from Saksun, we made our way over to Eiði (I can barely pronounce it – it sounds kinda like “Ah-e-yeah” if you say it really fast). This wasn’t actually planned but seeing as we’d had a picnic packed for lunch, it seemed as good a place to stop as any.
If you drive further up the road here, you even find a picnic spot boasting some spectacular views across the islands and even a gigantic stone chair and table set!
Lunch over and done with, we headed off in search of Gjógv, a village named after the sea-filled gorge in it.
The only thing with this though is that you have to drive way into the mountains before slowly descending to get to it so, despite the fog lifting slowly, the climb into the mountain slowly leaves you surrounded by nothing but fog as far as you can see.
You get a few sheep to start with of course…
…though once you find yourself in deep fog, you’ll probably notice a considerable temperature change. How Game of Thrones hasn’t been set here, I have no idea! (As I wrote this, I quickly googled it just to be sure and as it turns out, quite a few GoT scenes have been shot here).
^ Wow! Talk about an unflattering jumper! I look like I’m hiding several sheep underneath that thing. Still, it’s fairly warm and, as I keep telling myself, that’s what really counts. 🙂 😉
By the time, we arrived in Gjógv, the fog had cleared a lot more and we got to explore the reason behind the name of the village!
We also got to make friend with a rather friendly and very well trained local sheep dog. Seriously, this little fella could turn anything into a game. He’s pick up stones and drop them at your feet, just waiting for you to play in a game of fetch. As it turns out, every person (and animal) on the islands has resourcefulness built into them (even the sheep walk effortlessly up almost vertical mountain drops to graze and relax).
Eventually, it was time to say farewell to our new friend and make our way back to Torshavn.
Not before an important stop though! Again, totally unplanned (but absolutely necessary to see when you’re in the Faroe Islands) is Fossá – the islands highest waterfall.
When you visit, you need to park slightly up the road and walk back to towards it as there’s no parking right exactly where it is. The walk is only like 2 minutes so it’s not a major hardship, by the way.
Arriving at the waterfall reminded me again of how amazing these islands are (not that I needed much reminding to be fair).
If you’re feeling like something of a sure-footed mountain goat, you can even make your way closer to the waterfalls though it’d be safe to say you should exercise some common sense and caution should you decided to do so. 🙂
Much as we could have spent quite a while longer taking in this amazing view, dinner was calling back at Torshavn and so we hot footed it back to the capital city, in search of food!
It’s gotta be said though, despite the increasing lack of time to make it back to the city for our dinner reservation, no journey in the Faroe islands is every straight forward as you’ll always find some reasons to stop and take in another amazing sight/view… It’s truly one of those things that makes these islands so special.
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