Fossá Waterfall in the Faroe Islands

Getting To Fossá Waterfall

Flying to the Faroe Islands is the most convenient way of getting there. Although, there are ferries that exist that one can take to Faroe from either Iceland, Denmark, Norway, or the Shetlands. Nonetheless, your flight to Faroe, like mine, may be delayed by hours or days depending on the prevailing weather conditions at the time.

You will fly into the island of Vágar in the Faroe Islands at Vágar Airport (Airport Code: FAE). From there, it is easiest to rent a car, as I did during my trip, to drive to Fossá Waterfall. All you have to do is start driving north along the eastern coast of Streymoy island to reach Fossá, which is tucked between the villages of Haldórsvík and Tjørnuvik. You can also get an amazing view of this waterfall from the neighboring island of Eysturoy, along road 62 on the West coast.

You can also reach Fossá Waterfall from the capital city of Tórshavn by taking bus 400 to the village of Haldarsvík, then you can walk to the waterfall.

When to see Fossá Waterfall

I was so extremely surprised that when I went to see the Fossá Waterfall, that there was no one else there. My arrival to the Faroe Islands was in May, so in the middle of Spring and my journey to Fossá was made in the middle of the day on a day of the week I don’t remember.

If I had unlimited time on my hands I would imagine that seeing the Waterfall on a CLEAR or partly cloudy day, which may be hard to come by on its own, around sunset would be the best time to see it. This is especially best if you choose to photograph it from the island of Eysturoy, which sits to the east of Streymoy, the island bearing Fossá.

Furthermore, you can always expect such plush green vegetation in Faroe but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Faroe Islands are actually charming to see in the winter as well. The Faroes are no stranger to snow but it rarely gets less than negative 5 degrees Celsius.

Photographing Fossá Waterfall

The photographic opportunities of Fossá Waterfall are numerous. Firstly, with your DSLR, you will want to use a standard focal length of 24-70 mm for most shots, and also a wide angle lens, 10 mm focal length, for landscape shots. The latter is necessary considering how wide Fossá waterfall is and you are limited to going as far back as the road just behind you to capture all of it.

The cool thing about Fossá Waterfall as well is that it has multiple levels. You can meander your way to these upper levels by walking around the north side of the waterfall which can give some very unique angles to your photos. Again, using the same lenses as I discussed before.

Furthermore, as I alluded to in the previous section, you can park your car somewhere safe along road 62, on the west coast of the island of Eysturoy. From here you will get a full view of the waterfall. Use your telephoto lens of 200-300 mm focal length to get this shot.

Lastly, for those of you with a drone, this is a great place to shoot. I was able to get a vertical panorama with my DJI drone, along with some super wide angle shots. I also enjoy getting myself in some of these photos to truly show the scale of the landscape. If you have an ND filter, you can set your drone to tripod mode and use a slower shutter speed to get the misty effect of the falls. Lucky for me, I have a ND1000 filter that makes it easy for me to do this.

Enjoy!

Purchasing Photos

Conclusion and Further Resources

I’ve managed to see quite a few waterfalls in my life but I would say the Fossá Waterfall is definitely in my top three. Even if I didn’t have a camera, just coming to the falls and seeing how big it is and hearing how powerful it is, is enough to make me feel at peace.

If you like landscapes such as those found in the Faroe Islands and the rest of the Nordics, check out my blog posts below.

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