Kallur Lighthouse

Interesting facts

The name Kalsoy means 'man island', in contrast to its parallel neighbour Kunoy to the east, whose name means 'woman island'.

Trøllanes, the hamlet below the lighthouse, means 'troll peninsula', and in 2020 it had only 13 residents.

According to legend, trolls raided Trøllanes every Twelfth Night until an old woman hiding under a table called on Christ and drove them away for good.

The tunnel linking Trøllanes with Mikladalur, the last stretch of road before the cape, opened only in 1985.

The light shows a white beam that shines for three seconds and then goes dark for twelve, repeating through the night.

The lighthouse is a small square wooden equipment room topped by a round lantern housing a fourth-order Fresnel lens.

Kalsoy's cliffs shelter large seabird colonies, including some 40,000 pairs of Atlantic puffins and around 5,000 pairs of European storm petrels.

Although only 30.9 square kilometres in area, Kalsoy packs in thirteen peaks, the highest of which, Nestindar, reaches 787 metres.

Why it is worth it

At the northern tip of Kalsoy, one of the most slender islands of the Faroes, a small white lighthouse with a red band stands on a grassy promontory that ends in sheer cliffs. Kallur is the point where the island's long spine runs out into the North Atlantic, and from the headland the view opens across the sound to the mountains of Eysturoy and Streymoy and, to the west, the two sea stacks of Risin and Kellingin. Close by, a narrow ridge drops away on both sides in rock walls about 200 metres high.

The lighthouse itself is modest, built in 1927 to guard the northern approaches between the islands. Its setting is what has made it famous. Kalsoy is a long, thin island whose western coast is cliff from end to end, while a handful of tiny villages shelter in valleys on the east side. They are strung together by a single road that passes through four unlit tunnels, which has earned the island the local nickname of "the recorder", after the shape of the instrument and its holes. The northernmost tunnel, more than two kilometres long, leads to Trøllanes, the last village before the cape, and from there a path climbs over sheep pasture to the lighthouse.

The northern end of Kalsoy reached a much wider audience through cinema. In the James Bond film No Time to Die, released in 2021, the scenery around Kallur stood in for an island in the Kuril chain, with the villain's base and missile silos added digitally. After the film's release, islanders placed a basalt memorial stone to the fictional agent near the lighthouse. Nearby Mikladalur, on the way north, is known for its local tradition of the selkie, the seal woman who comes ashore to dance once a year.

Getting there

Kallur lies at the northern end of Kalsoy, about 40 km from Tórshavn in a straight line. The nearest airport is Vágar (FAE), about 42 km away. Kalsoy has no bridge or tunnel connection to the other islands; a ferry runs from Klaksvík to Syðradalur, and the island road leads north through tunnels to Trøllanes, from where a footpath continues to the lighthouse.

Kallur Lighthouse

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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