Just a walk in the old city of Torshavn. Its a beautiful small place where there is just walkways, narrow streets, old red (many) buildings and grass roofs. Its open for anyone to enjoy. Come with me and lets have a look. I have posted a small video taken from my phone in the end of the blog.
Welcome back several 100 years.
The plaque reads:
Tinanes is the historic location of the Faroese Government and is a part of the city of Torshavn. The name itself means "parliament point" in Faroese. Tinganes is one of the oldest parliamentary meeting places in the world. The island's main Thing, the Faroese general assembly, was held at Tinganes as early as in the Viking period. At this time there was presumably no settlement in Torshavn, apart from the small farm of Husgardur.
Evidence suggests that the Thing was held on the rocks of Tinganes.
The Thing met at Tinganes until the year 1816. When the Thing was re-established in 1852, the new House of Parliament, which is still in use today, was built farther to the nort of the city.
In the Middle Ages, Tinganes also became a central trading place with many warehouses. Shipping trade with the outside world only took place in the summertime and most of the people did their trading only once a year.
Unfortunately, most of these earliest warehouses on Tinganes were destroyed by a fire in 1673, but the area was rebuilt shortly after.
Many carvings, mainly from the 16th and 17th centuries such as compass cards, personal logos and property marks, have been identified and are still visible ont the rocks today.
Beautiful buildings.
Built right on the rocks....
...and right besides the ocean.
A big poster map showing the old city in about year 1400
The flag is called Merkið, which means "the banner" or "the mark". It resembles the flags of neighbouring Norway and Iceland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Faroe_Islands
Please click on the video. Just a little walk through a part of Tinganes.
Hopefully you enjoyed this. Have a nice day.