FAROE ISLANDS

The forgotten Faroes are just a short flight from the UK, yet they’re way off the standard traveler's radar. Multicolored cottages and grass-roofed wooden churches add focus to the grandly stark, treeless moorlands. Timeless networks of cairn-marked footpaths crisscross craggy layer- cake mountains. But even the tiniest once-inaccessible hamlets are now linked by a remarkable series of road-tunnels. And even as you bob around the dramatic fjords on a 70-year-old wooden sloop, your mobile phone is never likely to lose its signal.

Tórshavn is one of the world’s smallest capitals, although it’s home to over a third of the Faroese population. Behind the harbour and a charming if tiny old-town core lies a compact commercial centre that comes merrily to life on summer weekend nights. Behind this, the town’s newer housing and anonymous light-industrial warehouses sweep up towards an inspiringly barren ring of moorland hills.