Atlantica - 01.04.2006, Síða 50

While modernity in the Faroe Islands roars to life alongside the die-
sel boat engines in its big harbors, there are certainly still spots among
these rocky islands where time is on pause. Where an elderly woman
moves damp earth in a wheelbarrow in Gásadalur. On the same island
where boys play soccer and throw gummy bears, Petter, 70, walks up a
desolate road outside Sandur in his rubber boots to check his geese.
On a Sunday morning, we parked our car under the deck and went
upstairs. In the ferry café, I asked a neighbor at the next table why
people come to these islands. “It’s not for the weather, that’s for sure,”
Hendrik Egholm, another man from Sandur, told me. “You’re very free
here. Our family ties with the sea and nature are very strong.”
Which I think sums up the pace of life in these little islands nicely.
You can’t help but get back to the basics here. Sundays are still truly a
day of rest – there was one restaurant open when we arrived for lunch
in the town Klaksvík after our ferry ride. It was so quiet I could hear
myself think. a
FAROE ISLANDSa
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042-47ATL306 Faroes.indd 48 23.4.2006 22:52:04