Walking in Torshavn (Day 4)

We have a lazy morning. Coffee and rye bread and butter with caper berries for breakfast. 

Midday we walk to the Torshavn art museum through their adorable little park. One thing you don't see many of in the Faroe Islands is trees. Forests are really not a thing here. So the park is interesting because it's an intentional forest.  Also, it is extremely charming.

The art museum is small and dedicated to local Faroese artist. I enjoyed the variety. Usually there is a fee to examine it, but since they are in the process of turning over some exhibitions they are currently waving all fees.  The museum giftshop had a few items crafted by local artist, including some ceramicware that we recognized from our evening at Raest.  One of the cups looked perfect for coffee, so I now have an espresso cup made by the Faroese artist Gudrid Poulsen.

After the museum we took another stroll through the park and decided to walk to the National Liquor Store to get a bottle of aquavit to sip on in the evenings. This walk turned out a bit longer than expected. The store is on the outskirts of Torshavn with lots of other stores people who actually live and work in the Faroe Islands need. Things like hardware and furniture stores or car dealers. 

We get a bit lost on our walk back and end up walking through Torshavn's suburbia. Neighborhoods of small houses and apartments. We obviously look lost because a helpfully pulled over to ask us if we were lost and needed help. After walkies, we decide to sit in a cafe for a bit. Dawn knits and I read. Afterwards, we walk to an art gallery and I purchase a painting that caught my eye earlier in the week. 

As a bonus we learn that the moody impressionistic painting is actually of Fuglafjordur, which is the town we had visited the day before for Dawn's knitting workshop. The gallery owner told us that the painter is self taught and does amazing work, but is slow to produce paintings. I connected with the painting because I think is successfully evokes a mood as much as a sense of place. 

Tonight is a our big night at Paz, the 2 Michelin star restaurant currently in the Faroes. It's hard not to compare this to Raest. Both restaurants seek to celebrate local ingredients and traditions. Paz is focused on viewing this through a modern Nordic lens. Raest is happy to invite in chefs with other culinary traditions to incorporate traditional Faroese ferments. Both are compelling. But I think Raest might be having a bit more fun. 

After dinner, which starts at 6:30 and ends 4 hours later. I drop Dawn off at the apartment and head back out to checkout a Nordic record release party at a local bar. While there I encounter the bartender who is trying to bring cocktail culture to the Faroe Islands. He had the interesting bitters, made is own clear ice, had the ice stamps, the whole shebang. We have fun chatting in between musical numbers. I returned to the apartment a bit after midnight, but that wasn't my last excursion for the night. But that is perhaps a story for another time.