Thursday, September 1st, 2011: Torshavn, Faroe Islands
Bob: I was excited to reach a totally new set of islands, the Faroe Islands, which belong to Denmark. By the time we awakened, the Crown Princess had already anchored a quarter mile or so from the inner harbor to Torshavn (English: Thor's Harbor), which is the main city of the small archipelago. We could see the peninsulas on either side of the harbor out of our window up in the bow of the ship when we opened our curtains in the morning. But the tendering process didn't start until after 9:00 a.m., so we had time to have a leisurely breakfast, don our gear, go to Deck 5 amidships to get our tender tickets, and still get the first tender onto shore. As usual, using the lifeboats to tender ashore was fun for me. We sat on the top of the lifeboat and therefore had the opportunity to photograph from our lofty perch both the ship as we departed and the shore as we approached. Once on shore, we were told of a free shuttle bus up to an arts and crafts fair. Since the bus trip led straight up the valley we had intended to climb, we took advantage of the offer and rode up the hill the easy way. Once on top we did look into the arts and crafts fair, and it was the real thing. Local artisans and craftsmen were selling a wide variety of hand-made goods at kind of an indoor flea-market, but with a centralized cashier and a lot more class than "flea market" would imply! There were a lot of very nice knitted pieces, clothing of all kinds but especially wool, and handmade jewelry. We bought a three-piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of a sheep for our grandson Emmett, I bought a couple post cards and some leather coasters, and Monika found a quite unique pendant made of polished sheep horn that we also took with. The prices, however, were rather steep and we later found out when wandering around the city that high prices were a general characteristic of every shop in Torshavn. In fact, prices were 3 to 5 times higher than for the identical item back in the U.S. To give a concrete, everyday example, a 1.5 liter bottle of Coca-Cola was roughly $5 whereas back in the U.S. I would expect to pay no more than $1.25 or so for it. But we were happy with our purchases by the end, although I would have also liked to buy a handmade wool cap for Monika, but it turned out she just didn't like it. |
Monika: Torshavn was another tender port and we took the earliest possible tender in so as to spend as much time as possible in the town. When we got to the pier there was an offer of a free shuttle to the top of the town to an arts and crafts fair. Now this sounded like a pretty good deal to us, and we immediately went on the bus where they also had a very good map of Torshavn. The fair was in an auditorium with the different artists exhibiting their wares and one central point collecting money. This worked perfectly since the central point also excepted credit cards, always better than depending on the locals for exchange rates. So we made one complete circuit and on the second time around picked up a few things we thought we would enjoy. Nothing too heavy or large. |
Bob: We started our walk back to the center of town along a stream that went through a small grove of trees. Trees do not grow naturally in the Faroe Islands, but with a bit of protection from the elements and herbivores such as sheep some tree species can survive. The local folks grow trees in special areas such as the public parks and I would infer that the experience of walking through a natural forest such as we have in Virginia would be very unique for them. We, in turn, enjoyed walking through the tree-lined path in the park until we reached the central business district of Torshavn. |
Monika: We started walking back down to the town through a park that had a little pond in the middle with a lot of ducks and a few seagulls hoping for handouts. The park also had a few very odd trees that we could not identify. In the middle of the park was a statue of a seaman, a memorial to the men lost in World War II. From the top we also had good views of the town and the ship anchored in the bay. Once through the park we were close to the shopping mall our driver had pointed out on the trip up. I was curious to see what a shopping mall in the Faroes was like and we both wanted to check prices. The mall looked rather unattractive from the outside, but inside it was most charming with flowers and artistically designed stairs. At the bottom of the mall was a large grocery shop and I picked up a couple more packages of licorice. At the top two floors we saw mainly clothing stores. |
Bob: By then it was already getting on 11:00 and we were thinking about lunch. But the prices for meals in restaurants were simply horrendous! For example, the price for an "American Style Burger" with French fries was $22, or about four times what we would expect to pay back in the U.S. So we either had to use an ATM to get a lot of Kroners, the Danish currency, for lunch or simply return to the ship for a free lunch, and we decided on the latter. Fortunately there was no waiting queue for returning to the ship and we could refresh ourselves in our stateroom, have lunch in the buffet on the Lido Deck, and plan our afternoon sojourn into Torshavn. Monika wanted to see the old fort and lighthouse on the peninsula to the right of the main harbor, and I wanted to see the Natural History Museum situated on the peninsula to the left of the main harbor. As it turned out, we ended up seeing both although our feet were quite sore at the end of it all! We took the tender back into Torshavn and curled right to the old fort and lighthouse. The fort had been built in the 1600s to guard against raids by Turkish pirates, for heaven's sake, and I had a very hard time imagining Turkish pirates sailing all the way out of the Mediterranean Sea and then North into the North Sea to attack the Faroe Islands, but apparently they did. Four old muzzle-loading, smooth-bore bronze cannons (12-pounders I think) from that early period of the fort were on display on the ramparts. I was amused to find one of the cannon lined up perfectly with our cruise ship, because I suspect that some of the local Faroe Islanders regard the huge influx of tourists to be a bit like a plague of locusts that occasionally descends on them. Still, everyone we met and talked to, including an Irish nun who had spent her life teaching students at the local church, was extremely friendly to us. More seriously, two modern 6-inch guns, I think, were also on display at the fort. Those guns were part of the WWII "friendly occupation" of the Faroe Islands by the British. They were supposed to guard the harbor, but in my estimation two such guns would only have served to deter something like a German submarine attack or perhaps a small German patrol boat, but surely not anything more serious like the "Bismarck" or "Tirpitz" battleships. |
Monika: When we got back downtown it was lunch time. We had been discouraged from bringing lunch off the ship so we checked prices. They were higher than in Bergen! So we decided to hop a tender, have lunch on board, and come back to town for some more sight-seeing. We stopped at the pier to take pictures of the picturesques wooden boats that were moored in the harbor. After lunch, we took the next tender back to town. Once there we first walked over to the lighthouse that was right by the pier. There also were the remains of an old fort with 4 old bronze cannons pointed at our ship in the bay. There also were two much larger cannons, leftovers from World War II to defend against a German invasion. |
Bob: From the old fort we crossed back to the other peninsula and worked our way around another, smaller harbor that seemed to cater mostly to small sailing craft. We finally chanced upon the Natural History Museum and found that for old-age pensioners (such as we are), it was free! Whoopee! So naturally I had to go in and learn all about the volcanic and glacial history of the Faroe Islands. The islands are originally volcanic, being formed by the same hot spot that is still creating Iceland as I recall. But then the ice ages intervened and carved down the mountains into the peaks and valleys we saw during our visit. A fascinating story. I was also impressed by the other exhibits like a stuffed polar bear, and amazed by the huge skeleton of a head of what I finally identified as a sperm whale. It was absolutely enormous and had a very large toothed jaw, unique among the whales, that is uses to eat its favorite prey of giant squid. I had never seen it "up close and personal", however, and it was much larger than I had imagined. |
Monika: Across from the pier, we had seen several old houses with sod roofs. So now we took the opportunity to walk amongst them and take a closer look at them. This led us to the Lutheran church, which was of course closed, and to a marina. There also was a nice old store with a really old cash register that I would have liked to play with! We kept walking through town, I thought aimlessly, but Bob [the sneaky devil!] was armed with a map and his GPS, and was stealthily advancing on the town's museum. Once there we found out that "concessioners" (none dare call them "seniors", much less "old farts") could enter for free. Wow, a free museum! Of course, we had to take look. It had a very good exhibit on the geological history of the Faroe Islands, and also on the fauna and flora. |
Bob: We were very tired after the museum and headed back toward the tender embarkation point, but I stopped off at the Information Center and found that the local buses on lines 1, 2, and 3 were completely free, so we took some time to take a loop ride on Bus # 1, which gave us a short excursion out to the city limits to the North, not to mention a chance to rest our weary feet! That was fun and I wish we had had the time to explore some of the other bus routes that led to other parts of the island, but by now it was getting late and we certainly did NOT want to miss our ship! So we reluctantly got off the bus, walked back to the harbor, and boarded a tender back to the ship. There we kicked off our shoes and put our feet up for a bit before showering and dressing for dinner. Talking with Liz and Peter over dinner perked us up quite a bit, but of course when we returned to our stateroom we just collapsed and turned in early to get good night's sleep. |
Monika: We walked back with a couple from the ship who told us that the city buses were free, and one did a really nice round trip around Torshavn. Unfortunately, just as we were told, one of them passed us and we found out they come only every 30 minutes. So we walked back into town and talked to the young lady in the tourist information and she assured us that we would have enough time to take a ride on a bus. So we walked back a block to the nearest bus stop and a Route 1 bus came soon enough. We decided to go once around the town. When the bus started to go off into the boonies we got off and walked back to the pier feeling that we really had seen Torshavn quite well. |
| 3Previous Day |
| Next Day4 |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Drive in England | Map of Transatlantic Cruise | Epilog |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||