Faroe Islands

Irish monks may have reached the islands first, but permanent settlement came with Norse farmers in the ninth century. The Faroese trace their parliament, the Løgting, to a Viking-age assembly at Tinganes in Tórshavn, making it one of the oldest in the world. The islands came under the Norwegian crown, and passed with Norway to Denmark in 1380; a royal trade monopoly kept them poor and isolated for centuries.

A national awakening in the nineteenth century revived the Faroese language, which had survived only in speech and ballad, and built a written literature and a movement for self-rule. During the Second World War, Britain occupied the Faroes while Germany held Denmark, and the islands governed themselves and flew their own flag — an experience that fed the push for autonomy.

In 1948 the Home Rule Act made the Faroe Islands a self-governing community within the Kingdom of Denmark, with their own parliament, government, flag, and control over most domestic matters; Denmark handles defence and, formally, foreign affairs, though the Faroes negotiate their own fisheries and trade deals and chose to stay out of the EU when Denmark joined. A modern fishing and salmon-farming economy, a tunnel-building programme that has knitted the islands together, and a fast-growing tourism sector have transformed life since.

Faroese culture is rooted in the Norse past and the sea. The chain dance (føroyskur dansur), performed to sung medieval ballads with no instruments, is a living tradition, danced at festivals and celebrations. Knitwear, turf-roofed houses, wooden churches, and the black-tarred boat sheds are part of the visual identity, and the national dress is still worn on formal occasions.

The islands are strongly Lutheran, with a significant Plymouth Brethren community, and Sunday is quiet. Society is small, tight-knit, and law-abiding, with a strong sense of community obligation and a dry humour about the weather.

The grindadráp, the communal drive hunt of long-finned pilot whales and dolphins that are then shared out among households, is a centuries-old practice that Faroese defend as sustainable and traditional and that draws sustained international criticism; visitors will see reference to it and may, by chance, encounter one.

About 54,000 people live in the Faroes, roughly 40 per cent of them in the Tórshavn area on Streymoy; the rest are spread through villages, many now within easy tunnel-commute of the capital. The population has grown in recent years, reversing long-standing emigration, helped by the strong economy.

That economy rests overwhelmingly on fish: wild-caught cod, haddock, mackerel, and herring, and farmed Atlantic salmon, which together make up the great majority of exports. Tourism, shipping, and public services fill out the picture. Incomes are high, unemployment is very low, and infrastructure — tunnels, broadband, a new hospital — is modern.

Daily life is shaped by the weather, the ferry and tunnel timetables, football (the national team has produced famous upsets), outdoor work and recreation, and close family and village ties.

Traditional Faroese food is preserved food, born of a place with little farmland and long winters: skerpikjøt, wind-dried mutton hung for months in slatted sheds and eaten raw in thin slices; ræst kjøt and ræstur fiskur, mutton and fish fermented to a strong flavour; and tvøst og spik, pilot-whale meat and blubber. Salted and dried cod and lamb, and garnatálg (a suet-and-innards pudding), complete the old repertoire.

Everyday cooking now leans on lamb, potatoes, fish, and imported staples, with rhubarb and a few hardy vegetables from the garden. Tórshavn has a serious restaurant scene, including the acclaimed KOKS, which has built a New Nordic cuisine from the islands' own ingredients — seabird, seaweed, fermented lamb, langoustine.

The Faroese brewery Föroya Bjór makes the local beers, and a home-distilled spirit and imported akvavit accompany festive meals.

The island of Vágar holds the most photographed sights: the Múlafossur waterfall tumbling off the cliff by Gásadalur, and Sørvágsvatn (Leitisvatn), the lake that appears to hover far above the ocean when seen from the right angle. Streymoy has the capital, Tórshavn, with the turf-roofed government buildings on the Tinganes peninsula and the old town of Reyn, plus the classic villages of Saksun, set in a tidal lagoon, and Tjørnuvík, looking out to the Risin og Kellingin sea stacks.

Eysturoy has Slættaratindur, the highest peak at 880 metres, the Gjógv sea gorge, and the "lake in the sea" village of Elduvík. Kalsoy, reached by ferry, is a long thin island whose Kallur lighthouse — perched on a spine of cliff — featured in a recent James Bond film.

Mykines, the westernmost island, is a summer seabird spectacle of puffins and gannets, reached by a weather-dependent ferry or helicopter. Boat trips run to the towering Vestmanna bird cliffs and to Drangarnir, a sea stack with a natural arch, and hikers cross the moors between villages on old postal paths.