"A sunday afternoon in Nó ..." a Nólsoy Travel Page by gordonilla

I decided to visit the island of Nólsoy, on a Sunday afternoon. This meant taking the ferry across to the island; as ever public transport often has a different timetable for Sunday service. I believe I took the 13.00 ferry - it arrived in the harbour of Nólsoy at about 13.20 and then at 13.25, it returned to Tórshavn. The next scheduled ferry was due back at 16.45, so I had an afternoon away from the big city lights of the capital!

The ferry cost 40 DKK during thsi visit - it is a return ticket, oddly they only collect fares on the way to Nólsoy. There is no collection on the way back so it is very unlikely that they get many fare dodgers on this route.

The one problem that I encountered was that there was absolutely nothing open during my visit to Nólsoy. I had collected a tourist information leaflet from the hotel, sadly it was in danish, but I was able to tarnslate enought to identify that the Tourist Information Centre and Cafe were open all year round. Sadly this was not the case, I realised that this was the case just as the ferry was pulling away from the dockside.

Luckily the weather was dry, and as it afternoon progressed it did get a little colder but the wind dropped and it was fairly pleasant. However after several hours of walking around the village and along the cliff tops - I made my way back to the harbour to wait for the ferry and spent an hour or so reading in a quiet corner of the harbour.

I have a liking and longing to spend time by the sea, or in this case the ocean. It comes from always having lived on the east coast of Scotland whilst growing up and then again as an adult. Everywhere I go, I try and visit the nearest body of water.

In the case of Nólsoy, I walked through the village and walked up some nearby hills and then found myself face to face with the ocean. It was wild and blustery, but very very invigorating; or at least it was in my opinion.

I understsnad that early in 2008, there was a huge storm that actually caused a huge amount of destruction to the cliffs. The issue with this is that it appears to have been the breeding grounds of Puffins; although there are similar cliffs further up the coast the birds have never nested there. I was advised by the Tórshavn tourist office that there was a genuine concern that the puffins may not return. No news on that thus far.

I found a secluded spot to sit and await the ferry - and realised that it had a great view of the harbour with the tide coming in and captured the boat through the Gate of Honour.

The Gate is made out of a whale jaw, and was created in the 1970s to welcome and commemorate Queen Ingrid of Denmark's visit to Nólsoy. I understand there are similar gates elsewhere on the Faroes (Oyrarbakki and Tórshavn to name but two).