On the sixth day… The weather still wasn’t great. It wasn’t raining much, but it was drizzly and misty. We decided to go to the capital for lunch, and then if the weather cleared up to hike up Klakkur in the afternoon.
It was a windy day as well, so the clouds and weather did in fact blow over somewhat.
However, unfortunately the weather didn’t blow over as much as I would have liked. But we still hiked up Klakkur.
After being really lucky with the weather, we were due a bit of rain. So we had a full day of it. We decided to drive around the northern islands and see how many little villages we could visit.
The weather stayed poor all day pretty much, there were occasional breaks in the rain, but it was very cloudy and overcast all day.
The little villages are well connected, and this was the first time we drove through longer single track tunnels. They were a bit scary at first, because they were so long, but once you’ve gone through once an gotten used to it hey are fine – you just have to follow the rules.
On this day we encountered a lot of animals blocking the road – kB had to get out of the car and shoo geese, ducks and sheep.
On the whole the sheep just moved out of the way, but there was one time where a sheep started licking/chewing on the front of the car. lol
On day 3 it was sunny sunny sun sun sun. We decided to drive around some of the towns on Eysturoy, following the buttercup routes that we didn’t do on day 1. We then drove to Streymoy an visited some of the towns on there, including Saksun (above).
Saksun has 8 people living there, and one of them is clearly annoyed by the number of tourists visiting – around the church there were signs saying that if you trespassed he would phone the police.
After visiting the two main islands, given the nice weather, we decided to do the walk to Sørvágsvatn. Which is another walk you have to pay to do. The temperature on this day was 20 degrees, and kB got a little bit sun burnt – even though he had suntan creme on.
Driving around the Faroe Islands is really lovely, there isn’t much traffic at all and the roads are in really good repair. The only problem (and I use that term loosly) is that everything is so spaced out!
As much as a lot more people are vising the Faroe Islands, it still isn’t busy by any stretch of the imagination.
Buttercup routes are the more scenic routes on the Faroe Islands. They are labelled with a little buttercup so you know where they are when you are driving along.
Due to a lack of water, the waterfall wasn’t at it’s peak!
But it was also the only day where we got to see the sun actually set, so that was nice!
On the second day we had paid to go on a hike to Drangarnir. This hike has been closed to the public by the landowner, and the only way to do it is to pay for an approved guide to take you on either Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday.
As we left the house in the morning it was very misty, but as we had paid we went to the meeting point. There were quite a few people there already and we parked up and waited for the guide to turn up. Rather un-optimistically the guide said that we would set off and “see what we could see”. He was optimistic that we would be able to see the sea stacks up close, but wasn’t so sure that we would be able to see the sea stacks from afar.
The hike across (You walk around the edge of the cliff rather than over the top) wasn’t too great in terms of views. This could have had something to do with the mist, or maybe not. However when we hiked up the first cliff and got to the top… We could see the sea stacks – hurray!
We had a mini break to take some photos and have a snack before carrying on the sea stacks.
The closer we got to the sea stacks, the more the mist cleared. Eventually a bit of blue sky broke through.
We got to spend enough un-rushed time around the main view point that we could grab photos and have a bit of a rest.
For the way back we got to go on a boat!
By the time the boat had returned to the harbour the sky was totally blue! We decided to go to try and see Múlafossur Waterfall, which was on the same island and only about a 10 minute drive away.
When we went through the tunnel and came out of the other side…. It was soooo misty! The rest of the Faroe Islands was bathed in sunlight!
At the start of August we went to the Faroe Islands for a week. We stopped in an AirBnB and hired a car to get ourselves around. The Faroe Islands has been on my bucket list since before it became an Instagram hotspot, and this was the year I finally got to tick it off.
On the first day we went around the top of Eysturoy. This is one of the middle islands in the Faroe Islands. First we drove to and hiked up the highest mountain in the Faroe Islands, which is called Slættaratindur. When we got about 2/3 of the way up it clouded over and we couldn’t see any of the views. Hahaha.
We then decided to drive around some of the villages on the top of this island.
I’m a sucker for a viewpoint, and it wouldn’t be a trip to Slovenia without a trip to Lake Bled (I guess?) so we hopped on the bus and off we went. We got off the bus and did the hike to this view point straight away.
We got a bit lost near the top as it was in forest and not well sign posted, but we made it and the views were spot on. There were some of the steepest stairs ever on the way up, and getting back down them was super hard – I had to walk down the sideways because my feet were too big to fit on them. Pretty sure the gradient was like 120% (Or at least it felt like it)
Lake Bled was nice, but not my cup of tea because it was quite busy. I was glad we’d not stopped there, as pretty as it was.
After tea there was another spot on sunset so I went down to Lake Bohinj and took some final sunset shots, as we were off early the next morning to make our flight.
Today we went on another trip around the Julian Alps. The weather was loads better and the views were great.
Given that we were getting up earlist anyway, I made the effort to get up a little bit earlier for sunrise and go down to the lake.
I had hoped for a sunrise, but mist will have to do! There was no one else around so it was very peaceful.
I got my flip flops and went it – the lake was warmer than I expected so it was actually quite pleasant.
After I went back somewhat soggy to the hotel, got changed and we went to breakfast.
I the spirit of using the free Bohinj card as much as possible, we went on the bus to the waterfall at the other side of the lake.
The waterfall was so powerful from the previous days rain that it was nigh on impossible to take a photo of it. It was funny because we got soaked trying!
We had an early tea and then hiked to Pec viewpoint for the sunset.
It rained all afternoon, all night and then all morning. To break the day up we went back on the boat for a round trip…
By the time the boat trip had finished it wasn’t really raining but the weather was still a bit glum. We had some lunch and the decided to go to Mostnica Gorge. This was a short walk from Lake Bohinj, and was free to get into because we had the Bohinj card (Which got us free boat travel).
The walk along the gorge was lovely and easy, just what we needed the day after hiking up a mountain. We walked all the way up to a cabin to have lunch, and this time I had deer goulash and blueberry tart – which was lush.
On day 2 we stopped around the lake, and went up the cable car. We had a free pass to go on the boat around the lake all week, so instead of walking we went on the boat. There was a man on the boat who gave us some Lake Bohinj info as we cruised along to the other side of the lake. Once we were across it we walked through the camp site and up to the Vogel cable car.
The weather looked pretty nice, and we decided to hike up to the top of the mountain and see the views.
As well as getting you up the main chunk of the mountain, the cable car also included the use of the ski lift – the kind where you have to sit on it whilst it is moving and pull the bar down. kB is scared of heights so he was nervous, but we both enjoyed being on it and looked forward to going back down on it as well.
When we got to the top the views were pretty sweet, but we could see some rather dark clouds in the distance and the weather forecast had predicted rain so we didn’t hang around for too long at the top.
As we walked down towards the ski lift there was a massive thunderstorm over the mountains but I didn’t manage to get a shot of lightening in a photo 😦
Just as we got back to the ski lift the heavens opened so they closed the ski lift down for a bit, and we decided to go into the cabin next to it to get some lunch. I had a soup with sausage and sauerkraut in it, and a raspberry schnapps. Unfortunately the rain kept up so the ski lift never reopened and we had to hike down to the cable car station in the rain.
We just about made it to the cable car and luckily, even though I had somehow lost my ticket, the man operating it left us jump on last minute so we managed to make it down to the boat for a return trip – rather than hiking back to the hotel in the rain.
