Below are links to a few pix from my 17-day ferry trip across the North Atlantic in
August of 2005, from Iceland to the Faroe Islands (Den.) and on to the Shetland Islands (U.K.)
and eventually on down to Scotland.
ICELAND
Most of the pictures I took in Iceland were a waste of film, as it was raining so hard most
of the time I was there. But a few of them I've linked to below will give you a bit of the
flavor of the place, which is delightful, and must be very scenic during the more normal
(sunny) summer weather. It was apparently beautiful and sunny all week until the morning
I arrived, when the rain clouds moved in, after a few hours.... (Grrrrr....)
Iceland is not known for its forests. The only "forests" we saw were recently planted ones,
and looked more like Christmas tree farms to me. One of our tourguides posed this question
to us: What do you do if you're lost in a forest in Iceland? Answer: You stand up. Or, as
the saying goes among American servicemen who are stationed at our airbase in Iceland,
referring to the extremely high percentage of births out of wedlock there, "In Iceland you
can find a virgin behind every tree...."
Iceland was the northernmost part of my journey. The northern parts of the island are
almost exactly on the Arctic Circle. Interestingly, Iceland owes its status as an
independent country to Nazi Germany, which occupied Denmark in 1940, enabling Iceland to
finally declare its independence from the Danes. (But they were soon occupied by the British,
and then the U.S. occupied Iceland in 1941, before we entered the war, as a pre-emptive
measure, to keep the Nazis from getting a foothold there. Sort of like Iraq, but it was
O.K. back then, since we didn't have a Republican president. But despite our unprovoked
aggression in '41, they don't seem to resent Americans, since we built the Keflavik
airport/airbase and much of the country's infrastructure, which was pretty primitive
before we moved in and occupied the place. We still have a large Air Force base at Keflavik.)
1. Off to a wet start, at this Icelandic church,
the 13th built on this same hilltop site, since about 1050 A.D. (Persistent devils, these Icelanders!)
Later on that day tour: Shots (one and two)
of the Guilfoss waterfall in Iceland, the largest in Europe. (It looks dark, but this was about
noon, during a rainstorm and 60 mph gale -- almost unable to stand up!) The waterfall is a lot
bigger than it looks, as it drops into a deep chasm below, with the bottom obscured by a heavy
mist on this day.
2. At Geysir National Park (where the word "geyser" came from) -- as a geyser began to erupt, I
caught it just as a big glob of water formed, like a bubble: Click here.
3. This is at Thingvellier National Park, where the oldest existent European parliament first
met in Iceland, in around 930 A.D., sort of an open-air park in a bowl ringed with mountains,
with streams running down into it from all directions, and into a large nearby lake.
Must be beautiful when it's not raining.... Iceland has the oldest continuous parliamentary
democracy in Europe, and this is where they met, outdoors, in the summer, until some
time in the 19th century. Click here.
4. My hotel, the Hotel Seydisfjordhur, in the quaint little village of Seydisfjordhur,
up on the far NE corner of Iceland, at the end of a 17-mile long fjord. This part of
Iceland is practically on the Arctic Circle. My room was the window on the 2nd floor,
on the right -- about the size of a closet, but pleasant and sunlit, and with a
balcony outside the window, where I spent the afternoon reading and basking in the
sun -- for the only time while I was on this trip.
Click here.
5. One of several waterfalls that tumble down into the fjord, at the village of
Seydisfjordhur. Click here.
6. Looking down the fjord, at Seydisfjordhur, where I was to catch a ferry across
the North Atlantic to the Faroe Islands the next day: Click here.
FAROE ISLANDS
The weather was on-again, off-again in the Faroes, but generally much better than in
Iceland. The Faroes are part of Denmark, but semi-autonomous, with their own (Faroese)
language and currency. This group of islands is located in the middle of the North Atlantic,
about halfway between Iceland and Norway, not quite as far north as Iceland, but with a
similar, fairly mild climate, as the Faroes are also located in the gulfstream, which has a
pretty constant water temperature here of about 45 degrees, year-round. Delightful place,
wonderful people, and much great scenery. Never saw even one American or Canadian here --
all the people I encountered were Scandinavian tourists, except one Brit and a couple of
Italians. Well off the beaten track, at least for non-Europeans.
7. Two days later, after an all-day and night ferry ride from Iceland to the Faroes, I took this
at the harbor in Torshavn, the capital (pop. 18,000) of the Faroes. Click here.
8. A rare, somewhat sunny day, in Torshavn, from a little park at the highest point in town, not
far from my hotel. Click here.
9. Grim weather on a tour of a nearby island, Eysturoy - or perhaps on Streymoy,
the main island, before taking the bridge over to Eysturoy. Beautiful scenery
everywhere, but overcast -- but at least it wasn't raining very much here.
Click here. (But I can only imagine
how this must look on a clear, sunny day.)
Better weather, on the north end of Eysturoy. (Feel that breeze!)
Click here. (My tour guide, a nice guy named Samuel,
caught me unawares with this picture, and e-mailed me the picture he took with his
digital camera, along with his demand for blackmail money.)
10. Taken on a day tour of Eysturoy, a scenic island in the northeastern
part of the Faroes, where a British geophysicist and a Swedish woman and I
spent a nice day touring with our Faroese guide, Samuel. The small fjord
in this picture ends just to the left of the picture. It used to be a good
boat harbor, until a huge storm in the 1800s filled it with so much sand
that it is no longer navigable. Click here.
11. View from window of my hotel room in Torshavn, the delightful little 4-star
Hotel Hafnia. Click here.
12. Three pictures of the little hamlet of Skopun, across the straits from
Torshavn, on the beautiful island of Sandoy in the southern part of the Faroes,
as the morning fog began to burn off. We landed here after a short ferry ride
across the straits from Torshavn. Click here,
and here, and here.
(The rest of our tour group was in the church, while I wandered about the village,
camera in hand.)
13. On the island of Sandoy, across the strait, south of the main island in the
Faroes. This is the world's largest mail box, supposedly, and you can actually post
letters in it. (Outside of village of Skopun.) The woman and the cow in the picture
give you an idea of how large the mailbox was. Click here.
14. Fine example of an old Faroese church, with black walls and sod roof, in the
main Sandoy town (about 1000 pop.) of Sandur, in the middle part of the island of
Sandoy. Click here and here.
15. My "economy class" accommodations on Sandoy. Click here
(Actually, those are ancient Viking ruins at Husavik. The town was abandoned in
1350, when the entire population died of the Black Death. The area was later re-occupied
by the Dame of Husavik.) Note the sod roofs, which are traditional in the Faroes, still
growing more than 650 years later.
16. Bus window view down the 1500-ft. cliffs on the scenic south coast of Sandoy.
Click here
17. Bus window view as we descended from the Sandoy cliff road down into a cove,
to visit the quaint little village of Dalur (pop. 45), in a spectacular setting.
Click here (The streaky light is from the
sun hitting the bus window, which detracts somewhat from the way it really looked.)
18. Two pictures (taken from the concrete pier) of the little village of Dalur, looking
like scenes right out of an Ingmar Bergman movie:
Click here and here.
Sparse. Spare.
19. Looking out of the harbor, taken while standing on the beach at the hamlet of Dalur:
Click here
20. Photo stop along the cliff road, after leaving Dalur, on the south coast
of Sandoy, a southern island in the Faroes. Pictures with
and without yours truly in them. Those are sheep, scattered
everywhere. They even lower the sheep in harnesses to slopes below (not visible), so no grass
grows ungrazed upon in the Faroes....
21. With part of our tour group, about 19 of us, all from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and
Finland, except for me and two guys (gays, I think) from Italy, one of whom spoke good
English. Seen waiting here in Skopun for our ferry back to Torshavn, after a full day of
seeing Sandoy island. The woman with her glasses on the end of her nose was our Faroese
guide, Gudrun, a very sweet lady, who did the announcements in Danish. Our other guide,
Samuel, did the English part. By the end of the day, everyone in the group was speaking
to me and each other in English, which they seemed eager to try out on me; except for a
brief (very brief) conversation I had in Russian with a pretty Finnish gal who knew
about as much broken Russian as I did .... (Not much, after studying Russian in
college in the 'Sixties.)
Click here
The whole tour group of us who toured Sandoy, back
on the main island of Stremoy, near Torshavn.
SHETLAND ISLANDS
The Shetland Islands lie in the North Sea, southeast of the Faroes, and were a full day's
ferry ride from Torshavn to Lerwick. The Shetlands are part of the U.K., and are about 200
miles or so north of Scotland, so they are still quite far north, at 60 degrees N. latitude.
Settled by Vikings and owned by the kingdoms of Denmark or Norway for most of their history,
before becoming part of the U.K. a couple of centuries ago, many of the place names in
the Shetlands reflect their Scandinavian heritage. (Lerwick was Lervik, etc.) These islands
are only slightly closer to Scotland than to Norway.
22. Two days later, in the Shetland Islands, after an all-day ferry ride, smooth as
glass, from the Faroes. (I was lucky -- the North Atlantic is usually some of the roughest
water in the world, and proved it, in spades, shortly after I arrived in the Shetlands.)
These are shots of the old fort at the Esplanade, right next door to my (well-defended)
hotel, the Grand Hotel, in Lerwick, the main town in the Shetlands.
Click here and here.
23. Looking back (landward) from the Esplanade, towards the "battlements" of
my fine old hotel, the old but appropriately named Grand Hotel.
Click here
24. View of the harbor at Lerwick, and some of the oldest buildings in the
Shetland Isles (Lodberry houses). Click here
and here. They build houses to last
in the Shetlands. Anything else here would be blown away by the weather in a
few years....
25. Looking back at old Lerwick, from down by the harbor, at the end
of Commercial Street, a short shopping street where my hotel was located.
Click here
26. Looking down Commercial Street in Lerwick, quintessentially British,
towards my hotel (rising in the distance, center of picture):
Click here
27. My hotel (Grand Hotel), with its flag flying:
Click here and here.
The night I arrived on the Faroes ferry, around 10 o'clock, a nice Englishman, the
immigration agent at the ferry terminal, gave me a lift to the hotel, as no cabs or
busses were running at that time of night, but I arrived to find this little street
deserted, and the front door to the hotel locked tight. Fortunately, a fair young
Scottish lass opened an upstairs window as I stood there on the street with my bags,
wondering what I would do next, and called down to me, "Would you be a Mr. Jenkins,
sir-rr?" I would, and I was.
28. Old viking boat, in Lerwick harbor: Click here
and here.
(And I thought my ferry rides across the North Atlantic were tough!)
29. A small "loch" and farmhouses on the rural island of Yell (or possibly Unst?), in
the northern Shetlands. Click here. Ne'er do
you see a tree--just moors and peat bogs....
30. Three shots of an old, deserted castle or fort near the coast, on the Isle of Unst,
Click here, here,
and here.
31. The "Gnomes of Unst," protecting the one little store (not in picture) on
the island. Click here.
32. Shetland ponies, down in a depression, trying to take shelter from
a howling wind. Click here.
33. Inspecting my boat before sailing for
Scotland. (Not really -- a real-sized replica of a Viking ship, built in
Norway and sailed here, where it has been beached for the last 7 years,
with no funds to move it anywhere. It was too large to put it in a
nearby Viking boats museum, across the loch, so here it sits.)
Another view.
34. The northernmost house
in the U.K., on the north end of the Isle of Unst. Look closely, and you'll
see the second structure from the right has an old lifeboat from a sunken
British ship for its roof -- and an interesting history. German planes sank
a ship between Unst and a nearby island, and the crew escaped in the lifeboats
and were given food and shelter for several days by an Unst farmer who lived
here, until they were rescued by the British Navy. When they were leaving,
the grateful seamen asked how they could return the favor, and the farmer
("crofter") asked them for the well-made lifeboat, as a roof for a building,
since wood was very scarce during the war.
Interestingly, our driver and guide, a crusty old Scotsman, told us that
during WW II, the German pilots apparently didn't much like the idea of
bombing the Shetlanders, and often simply dropped their bombs harmlessly in
the lochs or fjords, so the Shetlands rarely sustained any major damage
from bombing raids. Not all the Germans were bad guys, it seems.
35. Near by the house and farm, a pretty beach cove.
One of an 80-year-old British couple I toured with ("the Bickersons") is in the
foreground.
36. Birds in a feeding frenzy, just off shore. (Too bad this isn't clearer;
the numerous white specks in and just above the water in the picture are some
of the dozens of terns and skuas that were hitting the water every second, as
they feasted on a school of herring about 50 to 100 yards off the beach, a
truly awesome thing to see, live, and not on the Discovery Channel.)
Click here
Shortly after this, as we got ready to take a couple of ferries back to Yell and
on to the main island, the winds picked up to 60 or 70 knots, and the ferries
stopped running, so we were stranded on Unst, and thought we would have to stay
overnight in the only little hotel on the island. So we sat in the hotel lobby
(we 5 were the only guests) and waited all afternoon for the winds to die down,
and like good Brits, when things got serious we did the only thing appropriate --
we had tea. Fortunately, the wind died down enough at about dusk that the ferry
captain called our guide to tell him the ferry would make one more run back to
Yell that night, if we got there in the next 20 minutes or so (from the other
side of Unst). We did.
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
I took only a few pictures in Glasgow, as the weather was very grim and drizzly the
two days I was there, and I couldn't find any tours to get me out of the city. However,
the central square, George Square, in the old city, was quite impressive, and I took
the following photos there. Being Scotch-Irish, I guess this is my ancestral homeland,
but I wasn't too impressed, though the natives were friendly. Scotland seemed rather
primitive and Third Worldish, after having spent a week in Scandinavian lands, and I
found it harder to understand the "English" spoken in Glasgow as a first language
than I did the English spoken as a second language (by almost everyone) in Iceland and
the Faroes. The average folks on the streets of Glasgow were a tough looking bunch,
too -- I came to the conclusion that the Neanderthals never really went extinct --
they just migrated to Scotland many eons ago....
36. This is a good view of George Square. The tall pedestal with a statue on top
is, I believe, of William Gladstone, one of the great British prime ministers of
the 1800s, during the long reign of Queen Victoria. Click here
He was obviously held in "high" esteem in Scotland. (Was Gladstone a Scot?)
37. The government building (city hall?) in Glasgow, a most impressive
structure, facing out on George Square. Click here
38. And finally, the Scottish war memorial (WW II, as I recall) in George Square.
Click here
SOUTHERN UTAH
39. Back home, warm and dry again, in the 'hood.
Click here and here.
