Faroe Islands: Green paradise is still Europe's best kept holiday secret

If you could step off the northern tip of Scotland and swoop over the empty expanse of the Atlantic Ocean you'd eventually hit land, and find yourself on a wild archipelago all alone in the middle of the waves. Welcome to the Faroe Islands. Many of us only know this tiny, self-governing region of the Kingdom of Denmark as an area mentioned in the Shipping Forecast, and these 18 islands are definitely remote, perched so high up on the map that the Faroese refer to the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland, 200 miles below them, as the ‘Southern Isles’.

These wild islands are surprisingly easy to reach, however. The Faroes are just a 1.30hour flight from Edinburgh and are gems just waiting for adventurers - think vast swathes of wilderness, friendly fishing communities, miles of mountain hiking trials and a surprisingly exciting foodie scene (puffin and potatoes, anyone?). And while the islands the locals call Føroyar are now getting a name for themselves as an outdoorsy type’s dream destination, they still feel like a well-kept secret.18 islands make up this green archipelago, and are easy to hop between - most are now linked by undersea tunnels or roads cleaved straight through the mountainside, connecting remote villages that once were barely reachable even by neighbouring islanders. This is still a land of extremes – the Faroes have no trees, a total of five traffic lights, 340 mountain peaks and more sheep than people. Just 55,000 hardy souls call these islands home, but the islands have a strong culture of music, art and crafts (including the highest number songwriters per capita in the world and a wonderfully creative wool industry) and a deep connection to thousands of years of history, with many locals tracing their ancestry back to the Vikings who settled here in the 9thcentury.

If the Faroes can be said to have a bustling Metropolis, it’s Tórshavn – or Thor’s Haven, surely the most lyrical name for a capital cityanywhere on earth. The capital has apparently changed drastically in the last twenty years (there’s even a Burger King now) but when I visited it felt timeless and relatively untouched. Old wooden cottages with turf-clad roofs spill down to the harbour where fishing boats are moored and ferries leave daily for the outlying islands. The city centre is stuffed with cosy pubs and cutting-edgerestaurants serving dried fish, fresh sea urchin and other local delicacies, and you can stop for coffee in Paname Cafe or buy hikingguidebooks from H.N. Jacobsens Bókahandil, a 150-year-old bookshop.

This feels like a community built on trust, with miniscule levels of crime - perhaps because it’s all watched over by the Ting, one ofthe world’s oldest governments, which can still wander around freely today. Where else in Europe could you stroll right up to thePrime Minister’s office if you felt like it?

I’m here in June, when temperatures are at their warmest (a balmy 10°C) and the sun barely dips beneath the horizon at night. In January, darkness can fall as early as 2pm. But in any season, the Faroes see every kind of weather in a day, squally showers completely enveloping views of the mountains before being swept away suddenly by the shining sun. ‘We don’t have bad weather, just a lot of it!’ is a popular local saying. It’s hard to imagine how extreme life can be in the winter months, when darkness is near-total and snow can still cut communities off completely. The Faroese tell me the best times to visit are spring to autumn and around Christmas, when the islands feel impossibly cosy, the wooden cottages strung with fairy lights and sea shanties sung in the streets. Locals even club together to fly to Edinburgh to do their holiday shopping, then have gifts flown back en masse in time for Christmas Eve.

Traditions are strong in these self-sufficient lands, and there’s a wonderful one just for visitors – Heimablidni. Translated as ‘home hospitality’, it’s the act of opening up your house to newcomers for dinner. You can simply be invited in, or the tourist office can put you in touch with Faroese farmers and fisherfolk. In Norðoyggjar I have supper with Anna and Rógvi. Anna serves up a wonderful supper – just-caught shrimp and salmon, fermented mutton hung in the wind to dry. Her husband Rógvi tells mestories of deep sea fishing all over the Atlantic – his son is now following in his footsteps in an industry that has been the mainsource of income on the islands for centuries.

Hospitality is definitely strongly embedded with the Faroese. On the island of Suðuroy, Gudrun Rógvadóttir runs Heima í Stovu,an old-fashioned guesthouse kept almost exactly as it was in her grandmother’s time. Her cousin, Johan, (everyone on Faroes seems to be related, or at least to have heard of each other) offers to take me hiking around their home island and soon I’m trying to keep up as he strides along dizzyingly narrow sheep trails to reach the jaw-dropping Ásmundarstakkur sea cliff and Rituskor sea stacks, rearing out of the iron-blue and encircled by wild birds. We hike further south and soon are creeping quietly around a tall headland to a secret spot Johan knows, lying flat on our bellies to spot one of the Faroes’ best-loved visitors - clown-like puffins, popping in and out of their burrows with beaks full of fish.

On my final day there’s time to follow one another of the island’s best-known paths. The ‘old postman’s trail’ is a reminder ofhow challenging life here once was – this steep 5-mile route was used to transport supplies and even to carry coffins across theisland of Vágar. While the postman now has a tarmac road for his rounds, the old trail still sweeps past incredible views of thefjords and across to the island of Mykines, rich in birdlife. I stomp up steep mountain sides before reaching the tiny village of Gásadalur and its iconic Múlafossur waterfall, which tumbles and plunges for 30 metres down a sheer cliff face into the Atlantic.

Tú alfagra land mítt ("Thou fairest land of mine") is the motto of the Faroes, and it’s one that both increasing numbers of visitors and the next generation of islanders are championing, with new sustainable tourist initiatives, outdoor adventure companies and homestays springing up across the archipelago. But for now, I think it’s safe to still call these treasure islands Europe’s best kept secret.

Find out more about visiting the Faroe Islands at www.visitfaroeislands.com/en Sian stayed at the Hotel Føroyar, a great adventure base with views over Tórshavn, doubles from £77 per night (https://hotelforoyar.com/) and Heima í Stovu, a cosy, traditional boutique guest house on Suðuroy offering hiking and foodie experiences, rooms from £113 per night (heimaistovu.fo).

Atlantic Airways fly to the Faroe Islands from Edinburgh twice weekly from £140 atlanticairways.com/en