Good–bye Iceland / Hello Faroes.

We awoke on Sunday morning in Akureyri, our last port of call in Iceland. 

This was our view from our cabin – a waterfall at 60 deg. C!

Akureyri is quite small but very pleasant.  The church is high up on the hill above the town centre (although it was Sunday it was closed!)

The houses are charming and, all around, everything is very clean and tidy.

A visit to the botanical gardens was well worth the short walk from the town – especially as most other things were closed.

The main shopping street, as with everything else, was very attractive.

We managed a much better picture of an Eider duck on this occasion as there were many of them nesting on the beach next to the town.

The town of Akureyri is situated a fair way along the Eyjafjordur fjord (Iceland’s longest) and surrounded by snow covered mountains.

The sail away party got underway as we left Akureyri and started our journey down the fjord and out to sea. It was Rupert’s birthday and, much to his chagrin it was “recognised” during the party – here he is in the middle with the entertainment officers Martin, Millei, Nick,  Tom and Emma.

The scenery down the fjord was stunning on both sides of the ship and this was the view from our balcony.

A panoramic view looking back down the fjord as we set to the open sea.

Our initial disappointment, at not journeying inside the Arctic Circle on this cruise , was put to rights on Sunday night /Monday morning.  This is us with Des and (birthday boy) Rupert in the Crow’s Nest at the front of the ship at 1 o’ clock in the morning during the four hours we spent inside the Circle (and it’s still daylight!).

Monday was a ‘sea day’ and the regular pastimes of deck quoits, shuffle board and lectures were enjoyed (and the odd knap as we try to catch up with late nights and time zones!).

This is us with our lovely ‘table mates’ just before dinner on Monday – Frances and Sebastiano, Len and Irene.

Tuesday morning, as we woke, saw us at anchor off Torshavn in the Faroes.

It’s a small town with fishing as it’s main industry (tourism being a good second these days). 

There are 18 islands in the Faroes so everywhere you look you can see another island.  “Arcadia” looks quite small anchored in the bay.

Torshavn has many turf roofed buildings – some of them very old as they’ve never had any major fires to destroy anything.  Being a small town it was fairly quickly “done” (including a free bus ride up and around the town) and, as we had to be back on board ship by 3:30, ……….

…… we returned on one of the tenders for the ten minute journey back to the ship. Each tender can take 120 passengers (150 if it’s used as a lifeboat!) so it’s rather a ‘cosy’ ride.

This evening  we’ll be waving the  Union Flags  as we have a Great British Sail Away and head for Kirkwall in the Orkneys for our last port of call on this cruise.