At the peak of summer, the average daytime temperature in Tórshavn, the colourful clapboard capital of the Faroe Islands, is an invigorating 12 degrees. The air is fresh and misty, the kind that keeps you on your toes. As proof, I watch joggers zip round the tiny harbour in steady succession, past sailboats bobbing in their berths.
Leaving the docks, I scramble up volcanic rocks past a Viking sundial to walk among the old parliament buildings – gnomish log cabins painted blood-red and black. Off ahead, Nólsoy Island squats in the bay like a sea monster. Behind me, the gold weathercock on the cathedral’s graceful steeple is so low I can practically grab it. This is as urban as
