The Faroe Islands are a series of volcanic islands between Norway, Scotland and Iceland in the North Atlantic. They are self-governing but part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
The islands are quite long and thin, running north-south. The capital is Torshavn.
It rains about 300 days a year on the Faroes, and true to form, it rained both days I was there. On the first day I took the bus from Torshavn to Klaksvik. The road goes through a series of tunnels including the 6 km long Noroya tunnel under the sea. I was surprised how good the road system is with all the tunnels, considering the population is less than 50,000.
One of the main points of interest of the Faroes are the buildings with the turf roofs. The grass roofs were introduced in the early days to provide protection from the rain and to give insulation. I had seen a few in Norway in the past, but in Torshavn many buildings had these roofs. View through the rain of the old town -
The Vikings founded the first Faroese parliament on the Tinganes peninsula in AD 850. And today part of the government is in Tinganes. The name Tinganes means "parliament jetty" or "parliament point" in Faroese.
Views of Tinganes and the red wooded government buildings -
To make the roofs, the sods are cut from pasture land, and laid on birch bark on the roof. Corrugated iron and tiles were later used in some buildings, although nowadays the green trend means the grass is making a comeback.
In Torshavn town -
Even the Hilton Garden Inn hotel on the outskirts of Torshavn has a grass roof (photo taken from inside the bus in the rain) -
And in Klaksvik the bank has a grass roof -
On buildings with large flat roofs, the grass can be cut with a lawn mower. Or goats as I saw in Norway. With the smaller and steeper roofs, I guess the grass is just left to grow.
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