I have not seen or heard of any wild animals on the islands. No foxes, no snakes, no wolves or anything. I don\u2019t think they even have ticks here J)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead,\nyou didn\u2019t forget, did you? There are about 80,000 sheep on the Islands. When\nyou have insomnia, at least you have enough to count…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The number of sheep is\nexceeded only by the number of birds. There are about 110 species of birds.\nMany people think that the national bird of the Faroe Islands is the puffin<\/strong>, but I\u2019m trying to be all smart\nand I say that it is certainly not, as I went to Iceland, where the puffin is\nthe star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, the national bird is haematopus <\/strong>(oystercatcher in English, tjaldur in Faroese and… I have no idea how to call it in Romanian…). I took photos of\nit in several places, as it flew free, with its orange beak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also came across some\npigeons, seagulls and even crows. But back to the animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They have cows<\/strong>. 1,000 dairy cows, which are\nenough, I understand. Half of them are Danish and half, Norwegian. They also\nhad local cows, but they were smaller and didn’t give much milk, so they slowly\ngave them up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a village I came\nacross these beauties! If they were stuffed, I would have bought them right\naway!J<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Scottish Highland <\/strong>calls this\ncow muuu. It is a Scottish breed of cattle, which takes well the weather\nconditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At home, the Faroese also have\ndogs <\/strong>and cats<\/strong>. I say \u201cat home\u201d because I haven\u2019t seen any community dogs or\nstray cats on the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some 500 horses <\/strong>in the\nFaroe Island. A Ferrari, right?…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of\nthese horses are brought from Iceland, other horses from Norway and a small\npercentage are Faroese horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I haven\u2019t\nseen any in my travels. But what do you think my first question was when I\nheard about horses: \u201cDo you eat horses?\u201d Hihihi. What could I do, I ate horse meat\nin Iceland, so I was entitled to ask. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No, in the\nFaroe Islands, the horse is not food. But the whale <\/strong>is…<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the way,\nwhat do the Faroese really eat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lamb<\/strong>!!! Everywhere I went to eat, they had lamb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the supermarkets I saw large pieces of lamb in the refrigerators. And at souvenirs the lamb seems to be on top as well, only you can\u2019t eat it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am not a fan of lamb, but I\nalways try local food when I go somewhere. So I ordered a specialty that my\nrestaurant neighbors craved for when the waiter brought it: \u201cshoulder of lamb\u201d,\nthe menu says. It was good, no doubt!<\/p>\n\n\n\n With all the sheep they have\non the Islands, I was surprised to find out that they still import sheep meat.\nFrom Iceland and New Zealand. Why? Because they eat a lot of mutton and lamb, I\nwas told. Ok!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I will immediately get to the\nwhale, but let me tell you something: if you are a fan of fast food, choose\nanother country. No sign of McDonald’s, KFC or I don\u2019t know what other fast\nfood where usually there is a queue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are only two\ninternational fast food chains in the Faroe Islands, each with a single\nlocation, that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the capital there is a\nsmall mall and there I came across Burger King <\/strong>and Sunset Boulevard<\/strong>. I haven\u2019t heard of the latter yet, but I’ve read\nthat it\u2019s a Danish chain that has 42 restaurants in Denmark, one in the Faroe\nIslands and one in Greenland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah, now, that I remembered, speaking\nabout Greenland: I also wanted to go to the only 2 Michelin star restaurant <\/strong>in the Faroe Islands, located on the Streymoy Island<\/strong>, but they closed it,\nleaving for Greenland, to open one there, right in the town where I was 6 years\nago! Bad timing, I could say…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Koks <\/strong>is the name of the Faroese restaurant, and when I stopped the car, I saw it across the water, somewhere hidden in the mountains. You don\u2019t see it, do you? Then let me zoom a little bit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a typical Faroese house \u2013 painted black and with a grassy roof, the restaurant is a cool place. I say that \u201cit is\u201d because it is temporarily closed in 2022-2023. Then it will reopen. I don\u2019t know if it will be in the same cool location. But they would be fools to move it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t get to the\nrestaurant easily. You come in your car to the area, you park next to this\nhouse which is a kind of valet house and from here you are taken to the\nrestaurant in a 4×4, otherwise you can’t get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How cool! And how sorry am I\nbecause I didn\u2019t find it open!<\/p>\n\n\n\n No worries, I have good\nalternatives, even if without stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fish<\/strong>, for example. As they have plenty of fish… A lot of\nsalmon. And a lot of code. I ate both, not to miss anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, you can find it\nanywhere, at anytime. And you can fish for personal use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as in other northern countries I\u2019ve been to, these people let the fish dry. They leave it outside in winter-spring, but not in summer, because the birds come and are happy to eat it J.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In stores you can find a lot\nof dried fish, which is very healthy. A regular food on Faroese tables. I\nbought it from here and from other countries and… I gave it as a gift. It smells\ntoo much to tempt me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if they have so much\nfish, the fish market is expensive. They sell a lot and very well abroad. Fish\naccounts for, believe it or not, 98% of the Faroe Islands\u2019 exports!!! Cool,\nright??<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, if you want fish at a good\nprice, you get it either from private person or from the market stalls, not\nfrom the stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking about fish, while traveling\naround, I saw a factory that takes everything that is not eaten from the salmon\nand makes fertilizer out of it. It is then spread in the area. The grass grows\nvery green in these places. Sheep grazing here… imagine, are 2-3 kilograms\nfatter than sheep from other areas! Not to mention that they certainly taste\nlike salmon J)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next to any meat I ate, I\nreceived boiled potatoes and carrots in the first place. They are the most common\nvegetables here because the soil is good for them. For the rest, long live the\nimports!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only 7% of the land in the\nFaroe Islands is cultivated. That\u2019s it! And mostly with potatoes and carrots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo you eat whales <\/strong>here?\u201d I asked the guide. \u201cSure!\u201d\n\u2013 he answers me, as I would have answered about the pork meat at home. That\u2019s\nall I needed: I started looking for restaurants where they serve whale. Out of\nsheer curiosity. I\u2019ve eaten whale twice before (once in Iceland and once in\nGreenland) and I haven\u2019t been excited about it. I want to see, maybe it\u2019s\ntastier here…<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s just that all my attempts\nto find a restaurant serving whale have failed. I also ask the receptionist to\nfind out and… nothing, for two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have good news and bad\nnews!\u201d \u2013 he tells me on the third day. I say, let\u2019s start as usual, with the\nbad one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is no whale restaurant\nin town. But the good news is that we have whale meat in our family\u201d. Hihihi, how\nabout that…<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, as the world is so small,\nespecially in the Faroe Islands, I find out that the receptionist\u2019s grandfather\nis my guide! And this is how we get to stop on another island, during a tour,\nwe meet some relatives\/friends (I didn\u2019t ask any questions), and they put a bag\nfull of raw whale meat in our arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The guide\u2019s wife, a very kind woman, ready to satisfy this craziness of mine, invites me one evening to dinner, at their place, and she will be cooking the whale meat. Super cool!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I liked it this time. The\ntruth is that she cooked it very well, making a good sauce that went perfectly with\nthe steak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks for the meal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yes, the first impression I\nhad when I ate the whale elsewhere is still valid today: it\u2019s a kind of beef\nwith a liver consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ask them during dinner about\nthe whale-killing scandal, what I had read online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like any other nation, the\nFaroese have the right \u2013 regulated by laws \u2013 to use the natural resources at\ntheir disposal. Much of what they consume is not imported, but caught and\nhunted locally. The whaling is done according to some well-developed laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I read some recent data: the\npilot whales population in the eastern part of the North Atlantic is 380,000,\nof which 100,000 are in the Faroe Islands. In the last 20 years, the average\nnumber of whales hunted annually by the Faroese is 600.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m so curious when and how\nthey hunt them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll year round\u201d \u2013 S\u00e1mal, the\nguide, answers me. But it is proven that, for the past 450 years, most whales\nhave been hunt in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They don’t go whale-hunting\nlike I would imagine. They are waiting for them\u2026 When a school of whales\napproaches the shore, the people are notified and everyone leaves everything\nbehind: they leave work, home, church, wherever they are, to hunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They drive the whales into\nbays, where they are beached and killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a school of\nwhales is hunt, the catch is split after very clear, law regulated rule, so\nthat nobody leaves upset…<\/p>\n\n\n\n A whale is divided for free<\/strong> between the hunters who\nparticipated in its capture and the community where it was hunted. These people\ndo what they want with it. For example, they can give it to\u2026 me, to eat it\nhihi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not sold, that’s why you\nrarely find whale meat in stores. In the capital, there is in only one\nsupermarket. In fact, what I found, I definitely bought:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whale fat \u2013 blubber, sold in\nsmall pieces. And some sort of fillet, I guess. Hard as stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t like them, to be\nperfectly honest. But I really wanted to taste them. That’s after the seller\nwarned me not to eat the blubber like the pork fat, because it\u2019s not ok. It\nshould be cut into very thin slices and eaten with boiled, cold potatoes. Or\nwith bread, I fill it in and he doesn\u2019t say \u201cno\u201d, even though they eat it with\nboiled potatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But seal<\/strong>??… <\/p>\n\n\n\n No way! First of all, I understand\nthat if they hunt any seals, the United States has threatened to stop importing\nfish from them. That\u2019s it, bye-bye!<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, above all, there is a\nlegend, one of the most important in their folklore!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the village of Mikladalur,\non the Island of Kalsoy<\/strong>, there is a\nlarge statue of a seal woman \u2013 \u201cselkie\u201d <\/strong>=\nthe Faroese, Icelandic, Scottish and Irish version of the mermaid<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seal women could come out of\nthe sea, \u201cstripping\u201d their sealskin and becoming human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legend has it that once a\nyear, before Twelfth Night<\/strong> (also known as Epiphany Eve<\/strong>), the seal women came to the\nshores of the village of Mikladalur and took off their seal \u201cclothes\u201d, becoming\nwomen. They danced and played all night on the shore and in the cave near the\nvillage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A young fisherman from the\nisland fell in love with one of them and stole the skin of this seal woman,\nlocking it in a chest. She could not return to the sea and she had no choice,\nshe had to stay with the man. He took her as his wife, had children and lived\nas a family until, one day, while fishing at sea, the man forgot the key to the\nchest at home. His misfortune…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The woman found the key,\ndiscovered the skin, put it on and… she left for the sea. There, she met a\nmale seal, her mate who had been waiting for her for years to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a while, the villagers\nstarted hunting the seals that were coming near the shore. In short, they\nkilled the male seal and the babies he had with the woman in the story. Then\nthey divided their prey and ate it, and so did the fisherman in the story, gosh…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The seal woman cursed all the\ninhabitants to die falling from the high cliffs or drowning in the sea \u2013 which,\nin the end, actually happened. Terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So clearly these people don\u2019t\nhunt seals!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, I also have a cool piece\nof information that I could not verify, but I will do it next time: the\nchildren on the island apparently have bigger skin between their fingers. Because\ntheir ancestors are seals\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sorry, I have to hurry, we\nlose the ferry, the only way to get off Kalsoy Island. But I\u2019ll be back with\nstories and great pictures!<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can travel by car on most of the islands, and it takes a very short time! Not to mention the scenery: you can drive for miles on the coast and you get a super view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the farthest points (except\nfor two islands) you can arrive in an hour, an hour and a half. Because the\ninfrastructure is great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n They have very good roads,\nthey have an excellent network of tunnels \u2013 20 in number, most dug in the\nmountains and 3 tunnels under the sea, for which you have to pay a fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To give you an idea, the longest tunnel is 11 km long and the shortest, 500 meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To two of the islands, located\nin the southern part of the archipelago, the access is possible only by water \u2013\nfrom the capital it takes 30 minutes by ferry to get to one and 2 hours to get\nto the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, what do you know, towards\none of them there’s already an underwater tunnel built, which will open in\n2023. So access will be much faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was impressed by a story: 12\npeople live on an island without road access. The simplest solution would have\nbeen to move the 12 from there to more populated islands. It\u2019s just that the\nFaroese decided otherwise: they voted for road access to the island, so a\ntunnel was dug in the mountains, despite the very high costs. Their policy is\nnot to relocate people, but to create access roads so that other people can\npopulate the place. Impressive, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I only realize when I am told about\nthis: I have not crossed any bridges<\/strong>.\nAt all. And that\u2019s because the Faroe Islands only have 2 bridges! That\u2019s it,\ntwo!<\/p>\n\n\n\n One is in the capital, it\ncrosses a small river. Of course I couldn\u2019t miss it. I passed it by car very slowly,\nprecisely because it is something unique here…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second bridge seems super\ncool to me: it is the \u201cbridge over the Atlantic\u201d, as presented to me by the\nguide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, it\u2019s a bridge that\ncrosses\u2026 a part of the Atlantic, connecting two islands. Man, I want a Diploma certifying\nthat I crossed the Atlantic Ocean by car hihi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we stop to refuel, I find\nout that there are only two gas companies in the Faroe Islands, both of which have\nsimilar prices. The competitive system doesn\u2019t seem to be flourishing here, and\nthat\u2019s what I discovered not only at gas stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking continuously, we\nleave the pump without the guide paying, which he realizes after a few tens of\nkilometers. He looks for the gas station number, calls to announce about his\nmistake and assures them that he will pay as soon as possible, even though they\nare not on our way at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s not a problem\u201d, says the\nman on the other end of the line, \u201cyou can pay the next time you come to us.\u201d How\nabout that?…<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you don\u2019t have a car, if\nyou don\u2019t rent a car, you can go between islands by bus. Super civilized buses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in the cities, public\ntransportation is free. For everyone, whether you are a local or a tourist. It\nis free, no fee, nothing. You realize that I was amazed when I found out about\nthis and I started using their public transportation with great enthusiasm. I\neven took a but to the end of the line \u2013 on a hilltop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I told the driver that I was just\ntaking a tour around, he replied in an enviable English that I was doing very\nwell, but that I just had to wait for about 10 minutes for him to wash his bus.\nHe took a hose and washed the outside of the bus, moped it inside, then wiped\nit dry and we were ready to go back to town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Very friendly the public\ntransport drivers. I have to tell you about something: I was in a hurry to get\nto a station when the driver of the bus going in the opposite direction stops,\nopens the window and asks me where I wanted to go. \u201cTo the center\u201d, I answer, thinking\nI was in the wrong direction. He tells me to come up, because he was the one who\nwould come to pick me up from the station I was going to, as he was now\napproaching the end of the line. So there was no point in sitting in the cold\nwaiting for him, when I could sit down inside the bus, where it was warm. Speechless!<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are almost no traffic lights <\/strong>in the Faroe Islands! I had read that there are 3 intersections with traffic lights all over the territory, another site said 5. I saw more than 3, but certainly not more than 5…<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the capital I came across\ntwo intersections with traffic lights, that\u2019s all. And on another island I saw\na traffic light at an intersection where there was a school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to road and sea,\nthere is also domestic air transportation: they have helicopters which locals use\nto travel between islands, at very low prices (between 11.5 euros and 49\neuros). If you went shopping, to see a doctor or visit the relatives and you go\nback home, the helicopter is a good solution (but be careful, you are not\nallowed with the market cart inside the helicopter…). The price is so low\nbecause it is supported by the government, to facilitate access for those\nliving on remote islands. Not to mention that people over the age of 67 and\nchildren aged 7-12 pay half the ticket, and those aged 2-6 do not pay at all,\nbut they have a guaranteed place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, if you are a tourist\nand want a helicopter tour, this fad costs you 200 euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked everywhere to see\nbikes and scooters. Scooters I have not seen, bicycles, very rarely. I\nunderstand that in the mountains you come across some mountain bikers, but you\ndon\u2019t see many cyclists on the roads, because they are not safe on the coastal\nroads, the tunnels are not suitable for such a thing so on so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Man, where can I buy some souvenirs, because I don\u2019t see any shops with such things anywhere, as in other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGo to the bookstores\u201d, I am told. And, indeed, in the two bookstores I discovered, I could find magnets and some other objects. At the Tourist Office I found something too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Very expensive, though. A\nmagnet costs 6 euros, bro! And yet I take some…<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the souvenirs \u2013 a mug, a\nhat, a sheep-shaped kitchen cutting-board, a napkin, a wooden bird or others \u2013\nstart at 20 euros and keep going up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The prices are the same\neverywhere, I don\u2019t see any difference between stores. Just when I leave, I\nfind souvenirs in the small duty free at the airport, a little lower in price\ncompared to the city. I get some little things from here too, it’s a shame not\nto use the opportunity J.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As usual, from wherever I go,\nI send a lot of postcards (I know, this breakfast is not healthy at all hihi).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had already taken two\nbeautiful postcards from downtown, but, taking advantage of the fact that I had\nthe Post Office close to my hotel, I went to buy 11 postcards and 13 stamps to\nsend to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thought that the ceiling was\nfalling on my head when I paid for the 11 postcards and 13 stamps an incredible\namount of… 61 euros!!!!! God forbid! I couldn’t even give them back, because\nI had paid with the card and by the time I made the conversion to see the drama…\nthe postcards were already gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was going to find out some\ngreat information, related to philately: if fish <\/strong>represents 98% of the Faroe Islands\u2019 exports, the stamps <\/strong>are on the 2nd place! I would never have guessed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wait, now I understand: so\nthey export stamps, therefore the ones they still have for sale domestically\nbecome terribly expensive J.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FYI: most stores close at 6\np.m. Just a few supermarkets and pharmacies remain open until later (22, 23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had read before I arrived to\nthese lands about \u201cSMS\u201d \u2013 a mall that existed in the capital of the Faroe\nIslands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I hadn\u2019t looked for it in\nthe city… I didn\u2019t know where it was hiding, in a place where you can\u2019t\nreally hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even when a gentleman showed\nme the direction, telling me \u201cit\u2019s right after that building\u201d, I still didn\u2019t\nunderstand which it was. I couldn\u2019t see any domes, I couldn\u2019t see multiple\nfloors, large windows, huge parking, and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine, the SMS mall looks\nlike a set of identical houses. It has a ground floor and sort of an entresol\nand the parking is like the one in front of my block of flats, but definitely\nenough for the clients who come here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can count the shops on\nyour fingers \u2013 a few selling clothes\/shoes, a pharmacy, a home appliance store,\na bookstore, a store selling glasses, one with household items, another with\nointments, one with watches, 2 fast food restaurants and a cafe. And that is\nall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the basement there is, I\nunderstand, the most important supermarket in town (the only one where I found\nthe whale products).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I like to walk through\nsupermarkets abroad and discover products that I can\u2019t find at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From what I see, it seems that\nthe stores have the same prices for products, according to the non-competitive\nprinciple that I saw in souvenirs too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I walk among the shelves and take\nnotes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is full of fruit and I\nunderstand that it is not expensive for them. They are brought from Denmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I see something else, rhubarb <\/strong>\u2013 a lot of rhubarb products:\njuices, cakes, sweets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t find alcohol in\nstores. At all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n You only find very, very\nlow-alcohol or 0% alcoholic beverages. It is forbidden to sell them in\nsupermarkets and I have not seen any small shops, like in Romania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want alcohol, go to the\nonly store on the island that has the right to sell alcohol. And that does not\nsell at any time, but only in the afternoon, to avoid the situation in which\nthe Faroese start drinking in the morning and are no longer good for anything\nduring the day\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seriously, it\u2019s no joke! In\nsome larger towns you have a store, a single store that can sell alcohol. From\nthere you can buy beer, wine or other alcoholic beverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now I understand what was the\ndesperate buying at the airport, in the duty free shop, where those who got off\nthe plane filled their bags with drinks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of drinking, I think\nI made you dizzy with so much information hihi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I spent 5 full days on the\nFaroe Islands and I never got tired of finding out new things. And, of course, of\nseeing a lot of places!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I tried to get to most of the\nplaces I had read about or learned from the few sources I had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can\u2019t wait to show them to you\nand write about what should not be missed in the Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can read the first part with what I found out about Faroe Islands here<\/a>. And the adventures at the beginning of this holiday, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you,\nS\u00e1mal Bl\u00e1hamar, for being my guide and telling me so much!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eyes peeled and ears perked \u2013 that’s how I spent my five days in the Faroe. Maybe it is a professional thing (I am a journalist, after all), but I enjoyed everything I saw and learned. ANIMALS AND BIRDS OF THE FAROE ISLANDS I have not seen or heard of any wild animals on the islands. No foxes, no snakes, no wolves or anything. I don\u2019t think they even have ticks here J)). Instead, you didn\u2019t forget, did you? There are about 80,000 sheep on the Islands. When you have insomnia, at least you have enough to count… The number of sheep is exceeded only by the number of birds. There are about 110 species of birds. Many people think that the national bird of the Faroe Islands is the puffin, but I\u2019m trying to be all smart and I say that it is certainly not, as I went to Iceland, where the puffin is the star. Here, the national bird is haematopus (oystercatcher in English, tjaldur in Faroese and… I have no idea how to call it in Romanian…). I took photos of it in several places, as it flew free, with its orange beak. I also came across some pigeons, seagulls and even crows. But back to the animals. They have cows. 1,000 dairy cows, which are enough, I understand. Half of them are Danish and half, Norwegian. They also had local cows, but they were smaller and didn’t give much milk, so they slowly gave them up. In a village I came across these beauties! If they were stuffed, I would have bought them right away!J The Scottish Highland calls this cow muuu. It is a Scottish breed of cattle, which takes well the weather conditions. At home, the Faroese also have dogs and cats. I say \u201cat home\u201d because I haven\u2019t seen any community dogs or stray cats on the streets. There are some 500 horses in the Faroe Island. A Ferrari, right?… Most of these horses are brought from Iceland, other horses from Norway and a small percentage are Faroese horses. I haven\u2019t seen any in my travels. But what do you think my first question was when I heard about horses: \u201cDo you eat horses?\u201d Hihihi. What could I do, I ate horse meat in Iceland, so I was entitled to ask. No, in the Faroe Islands, the horse is not food. But the whale is… By the way, what do the Faroese really eat? WHAT TO EAT IN THE FAROE ISLANDS Lamb!!! Everywhere I went to eat, they had lamb. In the supermarkets I saw large pieces of lamb in the refrigerators. And at souvenirs the lamb seems to be on top as well, only you can\u2019t eat it. I am not a fan of lamb, but I always try local food when I go somewhere. So I ordered a specialty that my restaurant neighbors craved for when the waiter brought it: \u201cshoulder of lamb\u201d, the menu says. It was good, no doubt! With all the sheep they have on the Islands, I was surprised to find out that they still import sheep meat. From Iceland and New Zealand. Why? Because they eat a lot of mutton and lamb, I was told. Ok! I will immediately get to the whale, but let me tell you something: if you are a fan of fast food, choose another country. No sign of McDonald’s, KFC or I don\u2019t know what other fast food where usually there is a queue. There are only two international fast food chains in the Faroe Islands, each with a single location, that\u2019s all. In the capital there is a small mall and there I came across Burger King and Sunset Boulevard. I haven\u2019t heard of the latter yet, but I’ve read that it\u2019s a Danish chain that has 42 restaurants in Denmark, one in the Faroe Islands and one in Greenland. Ah, now, that I remembered, speaking about Greenland: I also wanted to go to the only 2 Michelin star restaurant in the Faroe Islands, located on the Streymoy Island, but they closed it, leaving for Greenland, to open one there, right in the town where I was 6 years ago! Bad timing, I could say… Koks is the name of the Faroese restaurant, and when I stopped the car, I saw it across the water, somewhere hidden in the mountains. You don\u2019t see it, do you? Then let me zoom a little bit: In a typical Faroese house \u2013 painted black and with a grassy roof, the restaurant is a cool place. I say that \u201cit is\u201d because it is temporarily closed in 2022-2023. Then it will reopen. I don\u2019t know if it will be in the same cool location. But they would be fools to move it. You don\u2019t get to the restaurant easily. You come in your car to the area, you park next to this house which is a kind of valet house and from here you are taken to the restaurant in a 4×4, otherwise you can’t get there. How cool! And how sorry am I because I didn\u2019t find it open! No worries, I have good alternatives, even if without stars. Fish, for example. As they have plenty of fish… A lot of salmon. And a lot of code. I ate both, not to miss anything. Anyway, you can find it anywhere, at anytime. And you can fish for personal use. Just as in other northern countries I\u2019ve been to, these people let the fish dry. They leave it outside in winter-spring, but not in summer, because the birds come and are happy to eat it J. In stores you can find a lot of dried fish, which is very healthy. A regular food on Faroese tables. I bought it from here and from other countries and… I gave it as a gift. It smells too much to tempt me. Even if they have so much fish, the fish market is expensive. They sell a lot and very well abroad. Fish accounts for, believe it or not, 98% of the Faroe Islands\u2019 exports!!! Cool, right?? So, if you want fish at a good price, you get it either from private person or from the market stalls, not from the stores. Speaking about fish, while traveling around, I saw a factory that takes everything that is not eaten from the salmon and makes fertilizer out of it. It is then spread in the area. The grass grows very green in these places. Sheep grazing here… imagine, are 2-3 kilograms fatter than sheep from other areas! Not to mention that they certainly taste like salmon J)). Next to any meat I ate, I received boiled potatoes and carrots in the first place. They are the most common vegetables here because the soil is good for them. For the rest, long live the imports! Only 7% of the land in the Faroe Islands is cultivated. That\u2019s it! And mostly with potatoes and carrots. \u201cSo you eat whales here?\u201d I asked the guide. \u201cSure!\u201d \u2013 he answers me, as I would have answered about the pork meat at home. That\u2019s all I needed: I started looking for restaurants where they serve whale. Out of sheer curiosity. I\u2019ve eaten whale twice before (once in Iceland and once in Greenland) and I haven\u2019t been excited about it. I want to see, maybe it\u2019s tastier here… It’s just that all my attempts to find a restaurant serving whale have failed. I also ask the receptionist to find out and… nothing, for two days. \u201cI have good news and bad news!\u201d \u2013 he tells me on the third day. I say, let\u2019s start as usual, with the bad one. \u201cThere is no whale restaurant in town. But the good news is that we have whale meat in our family\u201d. Hihihi, how about that… And, as the world is so small, especially in the Faroe Islands, I find out that the receptionist\u2019s grandfather is my guide! And this is how we get to stop on another island, during a tour, we meet some relatives\/friends (I didn\u2019t ask any questions), and they put a bag full of raw whale meat in our arms. The guide\u2019s wife, a very kind woman, ready to satisfy this craziness of mine, invites me one evening to dinner, at their place, and she will be cooking the whale meat. Super cool! I liked it this time. The truth is that she cooked it very well, making a good sauce that went perfectly with the steak. Thanks for the meal! And yes, the first impression I had when I ate the whale elsewhere is still valid today: it\u2019s a kind of beef with a liver consistency. I ask them during dinner about the whale-killing scandal, what I had read online. Like any other nation, the Faroese have the right \u2013 regulated by laws \u2013 to use the natural resources at their disposal. Much of what they consume is not imported, but caught and hunted locally. The whaling is done according to some well-developed laws. I read some recent data: the pilot whales population in the eastern part of the North Atlantic is 380,000, of which 100,000 are in the Faroe Islands. In the last 20 years, the average number of whales hunted annually by the Faroese is 600. I\u2019m so curious when and how they hunt them! \u201cAll year round\u201d \u2013 S\u00e1mal, the guide, answers me. But it is proven that, for the past 450 years, most whales have been hunt in August. They don’t go whale-hunting like I would imagine. They are waiting for them\u2026 When a school of whales approaches the shore, the people are notified and everyone leaves everything behind: they leave work, home, church, wherever they are, to hunt. They drive the whales into bays, where they are beached and killed. After a school of whales is hunt, the catch is split after very clear, law regulated rule, so that nobody leaves upset… A whale is divided for free between the hunters who participated in its capture and the community where it was hunted. These people do what they want with it. For example, they can give it to\u2026 me, to eat it hihi. It is not sold, that’s why you rarely find whale meat in stores. In the capital, there is in only one supermarket. In fact, what I found, I definitely bought: Whale fat \u2013 blubber, sold in small pieces. And some sort of fillet, I guess. Hard as stone. I didn\u2019t like them, to be perfectly honest. But I really wanted to taste them. That’s after the seller warned me not to eat the blubber like the pork fat, because it\u2019s not ok. It should be cut into very thin slices and eaten with boiled, cold potatoes. Or with bread, I fill it in and he doesn\u2019t say \u201cno\u201d, even though they eat it with boiled potatoes. But seal??… No way! First of all, I understand that if they hunt any seals, the United States has threatened to stop importing fish from them. That\u2019s it, bye-bye! But, above all, there is a legend, one of the most important in their folklore! THE SEAL WOMAN OF MIKLADALUR. K\u00d3PAKONAN. In the village of Mikladalur, on the Island of Kalsoy, there is a large statue of a seal woman \u2013 \u201cselkie\u201d = the Faroese, Icelandic, Scottish and Irish version of the mermaid. Seal women could come out of the sea, \u201cstripping\u201d their sealskin and becoming human beings. Legend has it that once a year, before Twelfth Night (also known as Epiphany Eve), the seal women came to the shores of the village of Mikladalur and took off their seal \u201cclothes\u201d, becoming women. They danced and played all night on the shore and in the cave near the village. A young fisherman from the island fell in love with one of them and stole the skin of this seal woman, locking it in a chest. She could not return to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,26,611,1436,1434,1437,1362,1429,1363,1430,1433,1364,1427,1428,1440,1361,1432,1431,1442,1439,20,1274,664,1089,1441,1443],"class_list":["post-7065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-calatorii","tag-calator-singur","tag-calatorii","tag-calatorii-de-ziua-mea","tag-ce-mananci-in-insulele-faroe","tag-ce-poti-cumpara-din-feroe","tag-eating-in-faroe-islands","tag-faroe","tag-faroe-guide","tag-faroe-islands","tag-faroe-islands-guide","tag-faroe-islands-infos","tag-feroe","tag-ghid-feroe","tag-ghid-insulele-feroe","tag-holiday-in-faroe-islands","tag-insulele-feroe","tag-povesti-despre-insulele-feroe","tag-povesti-din-calatorii","tag-stiati-ca","tag-stories-about-faroe-islands","tag-travel","tag-travel-blog","tag-travel-guide","tag-travelling","tag-vacanta-in-insulele-feroe","tag-what-to-buy-in-faroe-islands","main-post"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.12.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["ro","en"],"languages":{"ro":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7065"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7106,"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065\/revisions\/7106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamladin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/faroe-islands-sheep_2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWHAT TO EAT IN THE FAROE ISLANDS<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTHE SEAL WOMAN OF MIKLADALUR. K\u00d3PAKONAN.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTRANSPORT IN THE FAROE ISLANDS<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWHAT TO BUY IN FAROE ISLANDS<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/a><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSHOPPING IN THE FAROE ISLANDS<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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