Tórshavn, Faroe Islands

July 25 - Weather: Foggy, then sunny, hi temp in low 70s (turned clocks ahead 1 hour last night)

The Veendam docked in Tórshavn around noon in thick fog.  We waited a few hours before we went for a walk and it was still foggy when we visited the Old Fort.   The weather keep improving as we walked around this town of around 18,000 people.  It is quite hilly and there are many curvy streets and cobblestone walks and stairs.  This is the capital of the Faroes and is located on the island of Streymoy.  The island is centrally located in the archipelago and is the largest.   The Faroes were discovered about 1,000 years ago by the Vikings .   Tinganes, pictured below, is the parliament of the Faroese government and is the oldest parliament in Europe.  We just missed a wedding in the cathedral.  Like other churches in the ports we've visited, the ceiling is blue with models of ships hanging from it.  With the heavy fog earlier, it was a pleasant surprise to get some good photos of this very attractive town.  We enjoyed dinner tonight with Mike and Alice from Dallas.  They entertained us with stories of their travels--the best was about the time baboons got in their tent in Africa when they hadn't zipped it completely when they left.  The critters trashed the place and took a t-shirt.

At Sea

July 26 - Weather: Cloudy, hi temp in upper 50s

We had a very lazy sea day today.  Didn't even think very hard at trivia.  We're on our way from the Faroe Islands to Bergen, Norway.  This seems like a good time to vent about various things.  First: typical annoying/strange people like the wife who chastised her husband for getting a little pepper on the tablecloth.  Or the man who told us several times that he didn't like "red" sauce on his pasta, then ordered it in spite of having many other choices.  After he ate it, he complained about how bad it was.  Jay found out that the guy next door, who we thought must be a throat-clearing champion, is Carl, who is from San Francisco and was at our table for lunch early on in the cruise.  We chuckle when we see a couple that dresses identically--jackets, hats and pants.  Our chief bone to pick with HAL is that they're not giving us the printed information about ports as they have in the past.  On this cruise we've had to glean it from the port talks, pick it up in the port visitor's centers or ask the locals.  I guess it's a small thing, but we would rather they didn't give us 2 chocolates in a gold box, each in its own drawer, than cut back on the port information.  The food has been pretty good most of the time and the entertainment worthwhile most of the time.

© Jay 2020