Somewhere between Iceland and Scotland, the Faroe Islands rise from the North Atlantic. Of the eighteen islands that make up this Danish autonomous territory, Vágar is the one most travelers encounter first, its airport the sole entry point for everyone arriving by air. Vágar happens to be among the most scenically dramatic islands in the archipelago, and its most famous attraction, a vast freshwater lake that appears to hover in mid-air above the ocean, is nothing less than remarkable.
Vágar, whose name translates roughly as “bays” or “coves” in Old Norse, has been inhabited since the Viking Age. The island sits in the western part of the Faroe chain, lying between Mykines to the west and Streymoy to the east. Its geology tells the oldest part of the story: like the rest of the Faroes, the island is built from Paleocene basalt lava flows dating back 54 to 58 million years, formed as the North Atlantic Ocean opened and the great tectonic plates shifted. Ice-age glaciers later carved the fjords and valleys that give the island its layered, dramatic character.
The island has six inhabited villages today. Miðvágur, Sandavágur, and Sørvágur are the largest, while Gásadalur, Bøur, and Vatnsoyrar remain small and strikingly remote in feel. Two earlier settlements, Slættanes and Víkar, were abandoned in the early to mid-twentieth century when the practicalities of isolated life grew too demanding. During World War II, Vágar took on a role of strategic importance: British forces constructed the island’s airfield between 1942 and 1944, quartering 5,000 soldiers in and around Sørvágur. The airport they built eventually became the only civilian airport in the Faroe Islands.
Vágar’s most iconic natural feature, a lake perched on cliff’s above the Atlantic Ocean, known as Sørvágsvatn, also called Leitisvatn depending on which side of the island you happen to live on. Both names refer to the same body of water, the largest freshwater lake in the Faroe Islands, stretching roughly four miles from north to south and covering approximately 1.4 square miles of the island’s southern interior.
What makes Sørvágsvatn extraordinary is not its size but the perspective afforded from the Trælanípa cliffs on its southern shore. From that vantage point, the lake appears to be suspended hundreds of feet above the Atlantic Ocean, a shimmering calm water floating impossibly in the sky. It is an optical illusion, one of the most photographed in the world. In reality, the lake sits only about 98 feet above sea level. The dramatic sea cliffs below the viewing point, rising 466 feet from the ocean, create the false impression that the lake is perched at a far greater height than it actually is. The effect is more striking on clear days, when the contrast between the still lake surface and the churning ocean below becomes most vivid.
The name Trælanípa translates as “Slave Cliff,” a reference to a grim Viking Age practice: it is said that disobedient or unproductive slaves were pushed from the promontory to their deaths in the sea below. At the far end of the lake, Bøsdalafossur waterfall drops 98 feet from the lake’s outlet directly into the Atlantic, a dramatic punctuation mark at the end of the trail.
The hike to the Trælanípa viewpoint begins at a trailhead car park on the outskirts of Miðvágur, roughly seven minutes by car from Vágar Airport. The route is about 4.5 miles round-trip and largely flat, running alongside the eastern shore of the lake before ascending the final stretch to the cliff viewpoint. Most visitors complete the round-trip in two and a half to three hours, though the views reward a longer stay. A hiking fee of 200 Danish kroner applies to visitors aged 16 and older and is collected at the trailhead. The cliffs near the viewpoint are unguarded and should be approached with real caution, particularly in high winds.