In Why Should I Cry, one of my favorite songs by Sting, he refers to the "stones of Faroe." For many years, I thought that his reference was mystical, having something to do with a pharaoh. Then I learned about the Faroe Islands.
The latter are an archipelago of 18 volcanic islands in the North Atlantic, known to naturalists for their marine bird populations; they formed about 55 MYA, along the North Atlantic Rift. First settled by Nordic explorers as early as the 4th Century AD, the Faroes became a territory of Norway in the 11th Century and joined the Kingdom of Denmark in the early 1800s. The local culture and language remain distinct from the mainland.
Today we flew from Copenhagen to the Faroe Islands (a 1.75 hour flight), where we will spend the next week; the landscape of grass-covered ridges, numerous waterfalls and intervening fjords reminds us of Iceland and Northern Scotland. More on these isolated, scenic islands in the coming days.
