Day 1: Narrated by Alaina

There is nothing better than a flight taking off at night and arriving to your destination in the early morning. Then you plan some activities to avoid napping and pass out at 9 and jet lag is over, voila!

Well, the issue that we didn’t account for is that the Iceland flight is only five hours which got us in at 4:30 AM their time, 1:30 AM our time. Somewhat brutal. Especially when we forgot our plane pillows to boot. Life is so hard ;-).

Arriving to a new country is always so exciting. When the wheels hit the tarmac, the adventure officially begins. Iceland was our stopover to the Faroe Islands and the pilot warned that it would be windy coming in. We had the pleasure of sitting next to one of the flight attendants and she shared that when the weather acts up many flights tend to divert outside of Iceland, but their WOW pilots can land in anything (that made us feel slightly better). She then asked where else we were going and when we told her the Faroe Islands her reaction was priceless “why would you want to go there?” After explaining, I think we had won her over. Then I immediately asked her where her favorite places were in Iceland so we would have the inside local’s scoop. We have our list ready to go.

Arriving in Iceland, we had to pop over to the domestic airport, so we explored the Keflavik airport and all its offerings (yay duty free and DUNKIN DONUTS!!!)

We then hopped on a bus to the other airport. I will admit, the drive was a little bit scary! The wind was so strong, I felt that the bus could actually tip over. We arrived to the bus station and then hopped in a minibus and because we had a few hours we happily told the driver he could drop us last. Mini tour around Reykjavik for us! I am so excited to go back to explore the city, it seemed so cool and laid back.

We finally arrived to the Reykjavik airport which makes the Portland Airport look like JFK. Saw several propeller planes take off and finally hopped on ours which was a jet (thank goodness).

This was it… the final flight to get to the place I had been dreaming about. From miserable weather in Iceland to blue skies as we began our descent. And there it appeared, the western most island, Mykines. I had been studying the map for so long I spotted it immediately and then we landed. We had arrived!

Tackled duty free first (when traveling to these countries it is strongly recommended to buy duty free as alcohol is extremely expensive). Hopped in our rental car, Ladybug, and we were off!

The airport is on the island Vagar and there were two major things I wanted to do right off the bat. Here is a map of the Faroes to give you a better idea of the 18 Islands.

The first was visiting the village Gasadalur and seeing the famous waterfall that falls into the sea. I was amazed we had blue skies for this moment considering the Faroes are known for their moody weather. The waterfall was everything I had imagined and even Mike did well with the cliffs! There was one really creepy staircase near the viewpoint which was terrifying but I stayed back (the DO NOT ENTER sign was also a hint). I expected the waterfall to be beautiful but what surprised me were the other views and cliffs in that area, it was stunning. There is something about fiords that just gets me giddy.

 

Finally dragging myself away, Mike and I popped into a grocery store to get some food before our first hike in the Faroe Islands. The largest lake, Sørvágsvatn, is also located on Vagar and there is a hike around the lake that takes you to a vantage point where it looks like the lake is almost the same height as the ocean as seen here (not my picture):

What people don’t know is that you have to walk to the edge of a cliff that is hundreds of meters high and contend with the swirling winds. We enjoyed the hike to the ledge, but I didn’t dare go close to the edge. I like my life and really don’t want to die by falling off a cliff.

We continued around the lake to where a waterfall drops into the ocean but couldn’t get a shot of the waterfall as you had to cross the river and it was way to deep for our boots.

It was climbing to this area where I realized that the years of growing up on the beach and climbing rocks has benefitted our travels. I find such fun in bouncing over rocks, figuring out the best path and then finally getting to my destination. Pure bliss.

We sat on the rocks for some time watching the water flow over the edge into the angry ocean. The ocean swells were massive and it reminded me that we, as humans, are so small in this world in comparison to the sea.

On our way back we skipped rocks, Mike had fun spotting the cairns and sheep houses and did we mention we only saw two people on this five mile hike? This is why we wanted to visit this magical place before it’s officially discovered by the masses.

Completely exhausted, we began the trek to the other side of the Faroe Islands. We went through two sub-sea tunnels (how cool is that?) and our jaws dropped at every turn. We passed out at 9 p.m. knowing we were on yet another adventure!