Travel deep dive
Faroese Villages: A Bishop's Seat, a Gorge and a Lagoon
The name Føroyar goes back to the Norse for Sheep Islands, and the villages still read that way: a cluster of houses, some under turf roofs, set in a green bowl above the sea, with sheep grazing the slopes above. The sheep still outnumber the islanders, and their wool goes into the traditionally patterned Faroese sweater. Kirkjubøur, Gjógv, Saksun and Gásadalur each sit at the end of a different island road, and together they show more of Faroese history and landscape than a day indoors could.
Updated 2026-09-19
Kirkjubøur: the medieval bishop's seat
Half an hour from the capital on Streymoy, Kirkjubøur is the islands' most significant historical site. In the Middle Ages this small village was the cultural and episcopal centre of the Faroe Islands, and three buildings still stand for that era side by side at the water's edge. The roofless walls of the Magnus Cathedral, begun around 1300, are the largest medieval building in the islands; next to them, the small whitewashed Saint Olav's Church is still in use as the parish church.
The third is Roykstovan, the old farmhouse at the heart of the village, which the Patursson family has worked for seventeen generations and part of which is open to visitors. That continuity is the point of Kirkjubøur: a working farm, a living parish and a medieval ruin, none of them staged, within a few steps of one another.
Gjógv: the village named for its gorge
Gjógv, at the northern end of Eysturoy, takes its name from the gorge beside it, a narrow cleft that runs for around 200 metres from the village out to the sea. For centuries it served as the village's natural harbour, the landing place for its boats. The village sits at the head of the gorge and at the start of the long route up Slættaratindur, so a walk and a village visit fit into the same day.
Saksun: a farm above a tidal lagoon
Saksun, on Streymoy, is a scattering of buildings in a natural amphitheatre high above a tidal lagoon, with a church built in 1858 looking down over the water. Dúvugarðar, the old farm at its heart, is still an active sheep farm and doubles as a museum. At low tide it is possible to walk along the sandy shore of the lagoon and round the headland; the tide decides whether that walk is possible at all, and the landowners charge for access to the lagoon path, so check both before going down.
Gásadalur: the waterfall village
Gásadalur, on Vágar, was reachable overland only by a path over the mountain until a single-lane road tunnel opened in 2004. Its reward sits a short walk from the village: Múlafossur, a waterfall that drops off the cliff edge straight into the North Atlantic, with the village and its fields on the green shelf above. Since the tunnel it is one of the easiest dramatic sights in the islands to reach, and the old mountain path to Bøur is still there for anyone who wants to arrive the way the villagers did.