Sunday - Day 24 - Runavik, Faroe Islands

We arrived at Faroe Islands early on Sunday morning. It was foggy but Jai, our cruise director, indicated that it might get sunny later.

Off our balcony -- looking south...

... looking north...

... looking east (straight ahead)

The tourist office had brought a small building on skids to the pier so they could tell us about tour opportunities.

A couple of the buildings we could see... we had learned on Iceland that "Budin" meant store, and although the main language on Faroe Islands is Faroese, followed by Danish, evidently "Budin" still means store. The yellow building is "RadioBudin" (aka RadioShack? -- electronics store). Across the street is "Farhat'Sa Pitsa" -- obviously a Pizza place!

When we got off the ship, we stopped at the temporary tourist office -- they told us about a bus trip that they were offering. We had wanted to go to Lake Toftavatn as we had heard there may be puffins there. The tour would go by there, but the fellow from the tourist office let us know that was not a place to see puffins, they are more in steep cliffs. We decided that it might be a good idea to take a bus trip since Carl was still not at 100%, and this would allow us to see things without a lot of walking.

Photo op at the Port of Runavik

We caught the bus at the Tourist Information office in town. This is the approximate route we took.

View of our ship out the window from the bus -- our ship's travel guide Gage was also on the bus trip (he is on the right in the picture).

Entry to the tunnel coming up (we would go around a roundabout to turn left onto that road)

At the Jellyfish Roundabout 

Jellyfish roundabout video: https://youtu.be/VMQYnFx0lAE 

We had a stop scheduled to see a sheep dog demonstration -- the buses that we were on were large van-type vehicles, small but comfortable. Unfortunately, we were in the back and it was tight.

Farmer and one of his dogs (and the three demonstration sheep)

The other dog that he would be using in his demonstration

The farmer told us about how well suited the border collie is for herding sheep. He also told us about two upcoming contests his two dogs will be participating in -- both in other parts of Europe. I think he said that Faroe Islands was sending three dogs and two of the three are his two dogs. You can also see some of the countryside (including the local church) and fjord out beyond the field, and the farmer's young daughter to the right.

Looking out over the scenery

Sheep farmer working with his herding dogs: https://youtu.be/cnCZtPrOgag 

If you'd like to follow them on Facebook or Instagram, the QR codes are on the poster.

Farmer and daughter waving as we left

We then drove to Lamba -- just seeing some of the farms and land -- there were a couple of horses down in that more yellow area of land.

A house with grass on the roof -- I think the guide said that this started during WWII as a way to prevent bombers from knowing where buildings were.

The other bus that was traveling with us -- you can see how narrow the roads were.

We had driven across the island to another part of the fjord where there were salmon boats and salmon farm in the water (we couldn't see the salmon farming pens from our perspective).

Coming back down toward Runavik where we got off of the buses

It was rainy and cold, so we decided to head back to the ship. Joe stopped to see if he could figure out what the price per KWH was at the car charging station (the cost wasn't displaying on the station).

But we did figure out the price for diesel and gasoline -- a little less than $10/gallon. Whew! Glad we're not fueling Gracie here!

The town had done a great job having folks out to help direct us where to go and what to see -- with bright vests and "ask me" signs!

It was a very friendly town!