Beinisvørð

Beinisvørð is the great triangular headland on the south-west coast of Suðuroy, the southernmost of the Faroe Islands. On the land side it rises as a steep green slope; on the ocean side it simply ends, in a vertical wall of dark basalt that drops about 469 metres into the North Atlantic. It is the highest sea cliff on Suðuroy and among the highest in the archipelago, and its sharp profile is visible from much of the island, from the villages of Lopra, Nes and Vágur, and on clear days from the deck of the ferry approaching from Tórshavn.

The cliff sits between the villages of Lopra and Sumba, and it has shaped life in Sumba for generations. The ledges are nesting grounds for great numbers of seabirds, and men from the village used to be lowered on ropes down the face to take birds and eggs, a practice known as sigging; it fed families through the winter and cost lives, some of them from falling stones. In 1975 part of the face collapsed, sweeping away nesting ledges together with the local names that fowlers had given to every shelf and gully. The poets Poul F. Joensen and Janus Djurhuus both wrote about Beinisvørð, and the cliff became something of an emblem of Faroese identity; it appeared on a Faroese stamp in 1989.

Today the road between Lopra and Sumba runs through the mountain in a tunnel opened in 1997, but the old single-lane mountain road still climbs over the shoulder of the headland. Near a spot called Hesturin, just short of the cliff, it is possible to stop and walk a short distance to the edge, where the drop opens beneath your feet without warning and the sea, far below, looks strangely still. Mist often pours over the top, so a view is never guaranteed, which only adds to the drama when the clouds part.

Getting there

Beinisvørð is on Suðuroy, between the villages of Lopra and Sumba at the island's southern end. Tórshavn, the Faroese capital, is about 65 km away in a straight line but across open sea: the car ferry Smyril runs from Tórshavn to Krambatangi on Suðuroy two or three times a day, and the crossing takes about two hours. Vágar Airport (FAE), the only airport in the Faroes, is about 76 km away. On the island, drive towards Sumba and take the old mountain road rather than the tunnel to reach the viewpoint near the cliff edge.