Látrabjarg

In the nesting months the cliff edge belongs to puffins — painted heads tilting above the burrows while the ocean runs unbroken to Greenland below. Látrabjarg, counted the westernmost point of Europe, is a fourteen-kilometre wall of vertical cliff alive with seabirds beyond counting.

Látrabjarg rises 441 metres from the North Atlantic — among Europe's tallest sea cliffs — and its ledges hold one of the continent's greatest seabird cities: puffins, guillemots, fulmars and the largest razorbill colony in the world, nesting in their millions from May to August. The puffins here are famously unafraid of people, but the grassy lip overhangs and the rule is simple: stay well back from the edge. The cliffs also hold one of Iceland's proudest stories — in 1947 local farmers rappelled the sheer face in winter seas to rescue the crew of the British trawler Dhoon. The gravel roads in cross some of the Westfjords' emptiest country, past abandoned farms and golden beaches.