Faroe Islands: First Impressions

Our plane was due to land at 9.15pm, around 45 minutes after the airport was, to all intents and purposes, closed. This we discovered when we looked up the bus timetable to get to Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroes, which is on a different island to the airport. The last bus left at 8.30pm. The hire car desk also closed at 8.30pm. In the end, we booked a taxi - and you do have to book in advance, so the car can come all the way from Tórshavn to collect you. At least we found this out before we arrived at the airport.

As we approached, the plane had to wait for ten minutes while they defrosted the (super-short) runway so we could land. That was when a group of Faroese teenagers started to sing, a mixture of local folk songs and badly-remembered English refrains. They burst into cheers the second the wheels touched the runway, and I wondered whether some of them were new to flying.

Not just the teenagers but the adults seemed to be mostly importing sweets and chocolate - sacks of Haribo, buckets of Maltesers, and boxes of Wine Gums filled their Duty Free bags. One gentleman strode off the plane, left his bag of chocolates unattended along with his coat and laptop on a chair in the baggage reclaim area, and wandered off to use the toilet; meanwhile, everyone else was preoccupied with collecting their bags and greeting friends and family.

And then we walked through customs to our taxi without even a cursory check of our passports; the immigration desk, like most of the airport, closed for the night.