Visiting Fossá & Saksun: A Pretty Village with Grass Roof Houses & a Black Sand Beach in the Faroe Islands

After spending the night in Gjógv, Matt and I headed out to Saksun in the morning! It’s a pretty village with historic grass roof houses, tons of sheep (of course!), and a black sand beach in the Faroe Islands! The views were amazing, and it was so quiet and peaceful in Saksun, which made for a great start to our day. And on the way there, we got to stop and see the tallest waterfall in the Faroe Islands 🙂

Fossurin í Fossá- the tallest waterfall in the Faroe Islands

Fossurin í Fossá (or just shortened to Fossá) is the tallest waterfall in the Faroe Islands. It doesn’t look very tall in these photos, but that’s because you’re only seeing half of it! The road runs between it so you don’t get the full view, and there hadn’t been much rain before we went so the waterfall wasn’t as impressive as when there is a lot of rain (you can see a better photo to see how big it can get).

The great thing about Fossá is you don’t have to hike or even walk to it! It’s literally on the side of the road, so you can’t miss it and you can just hop out of the car for a few pictures. If you wanted a full view of Fossá, you would need to hike down.

Driving to Saksun

The drive to Gjógv was terrifying on the edge of a mountain, but I actually thought the drive to Saksun was a little more nerve-wracking! It was on a flat surface, but there was absolutely nothing on the side of the one lane road, it just dropped off. So if a car was coming from the other direction (because it was for 2 way traffic!) or if it you moved the steering wheel slightly too far, you would be completely off the road with no way to get back on. We didn’t see any cars so thankfully we didn’t have any problems, but that also worried me because we wouldn’t have anyone to ask for help if we did get stranded! Thankfully, our little car made it there and back without any issues.

Visiting Saksun

Saksun is such a pretty village! It sits in a “natural circular amphitheatre” on hills above a lagoon. It used to be a harbor, but a storm in the 1600s blocked it off with sand and it’s been that way every since!

Saksun only has 14 residents, and we didn’t see a single person while we were there (so thank goodness our car was ok!). It has a church that was actually in a neighboring town before it was disassembled and rebuilt in Saksun so the residents wouldn’t have to travel so far for church services. Saksun is known for its grass roof houses and the beautiful lagoon. The area where the houses are were roped off (I think for restoration) so we couldn’t get too close to them or look inside, but they were still pretty to look at!

(Even with only 14 residents, there is a public bathroom for tourists!)

Hiking to a black sand beach in the Faroe Islands

There are two different hikes you can take in Saksun. You can hike up the mountains to get a better view of the town and lagoon (which is the longer hike), or you can walk down to the black sand beach. Since it was low tide and Matt and I had never seen a black sand beach before (I didn’t get to go to one when I was in Iceland, sadly), we went down the path to the beach. There are signs in Saksun that show you where to go for both hikes.

The way down to the beach was paved part of the way and gravel the other half, so it isn’t really a “hike.” We took our time walking (and you know I stopped every minute to take photos of all the sheep), so it took us about an hour total.

It was so cool getting to see the sheep on the beach and in the water!

Parts of the water were green!

If you’re up for a nerve-wracking drive, I definitely recommend visiting Saksun! The views were incredible, and it was amazing getting to walk on a black sand beach in the Faroe Islands 🙂

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