Gásadalur

Gásadalur is one of the most isolated-looking places in Europe, and until recently it truly was. The hamlet sits on the western side of Vágar in the Faroe Islands, on a shelf of green pasture enclosed by mountains: Árnafjall, at about 722 metres, to the north and Eysturtindur, about 715 metres, to the east. To the west the ground simply ends in cliffs above the Atlantic. Beyond the water lies the island of Mykines, and to the south the sea stacks of Tindhólmur and Gáshólmur rise out of the ocean. A handful of houses and their fields are all there is of the village itself; the scale of everything around it is what stays in the mind.

The image that made Gásadalur famous is Múlafossur, a stream that runs through the village pastures and pours off the cliff edge straight into the sea below, most often put at around 30 metres. Seen from the path along the clifftop, with the houses behind it and the mountains closing the valley, it has become one of the defining pictures of the Faroe Islands.

People have lived here since the 9th century, but for most of that time the only way in was hard. Villagers kept their boats down at Bøur and walked over mountain passes more than 400 metres high to reach the rest of the island. In 1940, during the British occupation of the islands, a stairway was cut from the beach up to the village. Only in 2004 was a tunnel blasted through the rock, finally connecting Gásadalur to the road network; even so the population has stayed tiny, around a dozen to two dozen people in recent decades.

Getting there

Gásadalur is on Vágar, about 10 km from Vágar Airport (FAE), the main airport of the Faroe Islands. Tórshavn, the capital, is about 37 km away in a straight line, and linked to Vágar by road. From the airport the road runs west past Bøur and through the Gásadalur tunnel to the village; the view of the waterfall is a short walk from the parking area.