The beautiful paradise for walkers you'd never thought to visit.

Until recently the village of Gasadalur (pictured) had no
road access and getting to it meant crossing a
1,300ft peak from the adjacent settlement of Bour
CREDIT: ISTOCK

It was the British Army’s Royal Engineers who put an airport beside the large freshwater lake on Vagar in 1942. Until then, the only air access to this and the other 17 Faroe Islands was via flying boat – and the notorious North Atlantic seas made landing anywhere else virtually impossible. Today, the modern air approach from the west still takes you over the lake, called Leitisvatn, offering views of offshore islands and the lush, green hills and sparkling fjords that resemble a giant jigsaw puzzle – as long as it’s not raining too hard. 

Walking here is a joy, like the best of the Lake District without the crowds, and I am slowly ticking off the 340 named peaks on this archipelago halfway between Shetland and Iceland. It doesn’t get as cold here as in Reykjavik, say, and serious snow is confined to winter. But the Faroes have what is optimistically called “changeable” weather, meaning regular doses of rain and some ferocious winds – especially in winter. In 2016 the Faroes clocked the highest wind speed ever recorded in Europe: 166mph, which is definitely a hurricane.

By Tim Ecott.

Full story at The Telegraph.