Abroad · By 4×4 · Summer 2017
Faroes and Iceland, a summer of ice and fire
A month on the road at the top of the world. The Jeep on the ferry, three days in the Faroes, then Iceland in all its moods: glaciers, geysers, waterfalls, and thirty kilometres on foot between two volcanoes.
- Duration
- One month · July and August 2017
- Crossing
- Denmark · Faroes · Iceland, by ferry
- Big walk
- Fimmvörðuháls · 30 km
- Vehicle
- Jeep Renegade and rooftop tent
Day 1
The ferry is here
Setting off through Denmark, one last night in the rooftop tent, then the good news: the Smyril Line ferry is at the quay. The Jeep goes down into the hold, and the North Sea begins.
The next day Shetland slides along the horizon, grey on grey. Nothing left to do but watch the water.
The Faroes
Eighteen islands of grass and wind
The Faroes are a lovely discovery: slopes of an almost unreal green, waterfalls tumbling everywhere, free-roaming horses, grass-roofed houses and quiet lagoons between two mountains.
On 1 August, the Swiss national day is celebrated on a clifftop, a red fondue pot with a white cross facing the Atlantic. Then the walls drop straight into the ocean, the mists come and go, and the archipelago is left with regret, with a hello to Iceland for the next day.
The north-east
Land of ice, water and hot springs
The highlands open up at once: clear streams over black sand, fluorescent moss, and the edge of Vatnajökull, its ice cracked like bark. The Jeep is no more than a dot on the plateau.
Around Mývatn and Dettifoss the ground steams. A milky-blue lake, steam announced at a hundred degrees, a horseshoe waterfall and, in the evening, a sun that never quite finishes setting. Icelandic shades.
The north-west
Splendid animals and landscapes
Fjords so calm they double the mountains, blazing evening skies, Icelandic horses with straw-coloured manes, a seal sunbathing on its rock.
And Hvítserkur, the basalt rock drinking from the sea like a petrified animal, before heading back inland to the fumaroles.
The south
Geysers, waterfalls and icebergs
Strokkur swells its turquoise bubble and bursts, the nearby springs have a blue you would swear was painted, and Gullfoss shows off with its rainbow. The great classic, and it deserves it.
Further east, below Vatnajökull, the lagoons of Fjallsárlón and Jökulsárlón carry their icebergs in the low light. Then the south coast: black beach, Skógafoss and its double rainbow, and Seljalandsfoss, which you walk around from behind, under the curtain of water.
Þórsmörk
Thirty kilometres between volcanoes and glaciers
First a day walking around Þórsmörk, the valley of the gods, where braided rivers weave the sand between rock spires and dwarf birches.
The next day, the Fimmvörðuháls: from Þórsmörk to Skógar, thirty kilometres between the two glaciers, through green canyons, the red slopes of the craters born in the 2010 eruption and snowfields in the middle of August. The descent follows the Skógá, one waterfall after another, down to the great falls.
On foot · The hikeThe Fimmvörðuháls, between two glaciers30 kmMap, figures and photos →
The Westman Islands
Volcanology, puffins and sunshine
On the Westman Islands the programme is full: volcanology, caving, birdwatching, beach and walks, under a warm sun, yes really. Puffins hold court on the cliff edges, turf houses keep watch over the grass, and Heimaey harbour spreads out at the foot of its volcano.
One last look at the Skaftafell glacier tongue, and it is time to go home. An eventful return: on a motorway in northern Germany, a wild boar crosses the Jeep's path. He had a harder evening than she did.
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