This week’s challenge was an interesting interpretation of the word spare. The definition they used was lean or sparse. As far as sparse landscapes, Iceland was a unique blend of awesome beauty and a sea of ice and snow. This lava field with a volcano in the background was a typical scene during our trip.
Our last full day in Iceland was also one of our busiest and most rewarding. It started out a little stressful as we woke to a fresh five or six inches of snow on the roads and we had a two and half to three-hour drive to peninsula ahead of us. We had rented a 4WD SUV just in case something like this happened, after all we were in Iceland, but that doesn’t mean that it can get through anything. We asked several people at the hotel if they thought the road conditions would be okay for us to make it the peninsula and they all said that it might be “a little icy”, but that we should be fine. Since we live in Colorado, we’ve probably told people something similar when we’ve had a few inches of snow, but we’ll probably think twice about saying that again in the future.
It was still dark out when we hit the roads and it was white knuckle driving as we made our way out of Reykjavik. Once we got out of town and the skies started to lighten up, the roads got a little better, but we would deal with icy roads for most of the day. The drive to the peninsula took us back through the town of Borgarnes where we turned off of the Ring Road (the road that circles the entire island) and headed west. Once we turned off of the Ring Road, we were pretty much the only car on the road, which was a little unnerving to be out in the middle of nowhere with no one else around. Despite the fact that the Snæfellsnes peninsula is considered “Iceland in Miniature” due to all of the sites that can be seen, it is also one of the least spots travelled to by tourists, perhaps because they have to leave the Ring Road. As you can tell by the varied scenery in the pictures, it really is an amazing place to see so many different sights.
One notable feature that is visible from everywhere on the peninsula is the Snæfellsjökull volcano which has a glacier that covers its cap. It is the highest mountain on the peninsula and can be seen from the Hallgrímskirkja church in Reykjavik on a clear day. It was the inspiration for Jules Verne’s “A Journey to the Center of the Earth” and was the location where the expedition started their trek below the earth. The Snæfellsjökull National Park takes you around the volcano and along the ocean and has some pretty incredible views. All national parks in Iceland are free, so they are definitely worth visiting. In order to get into the park, you have to drive over a pass on the edge of the volcano, which was covered in ice while we were there and made for some nervous driving conditions. With all of the active volcanos in Iceland and the land littered with huge lava boulders found miles from the volcano calderas, one can only imagine the potential devastation if one of the larger volcanos were to erupt.
The first stop, as we drove along the peninsula heading towards the park, was the town of Hellnar. It is really only a few buildings and a café that was closed while we were there. During the summer, you can book tours up to the top of Snæfellsjökull in order to see the glacier. The main attractions here are the beautiful little church, the views of the ocean, and all of the birds that make the area their home. The sun actually came out for a little bit, making it a cheery spot to visit. As you can tell from our pictures throughout the trip, the sun made few appearances for us and when it did, clouds returned within a few hours to blanket the sky. Unfortunately for us, the weather and a less than active solar period kept us from seeing the Northern Lights, which was probably our only disappointment of the trip.
From Hellnar, we continued along the coast to Malariff, where there is a lighthouse, and Lóndrangar, which are a couple of rock pinnacles that jut out along the rugged coastline. The rock formations are interesting and lighthouses are always nice, but otherwise it wasn’t anything too impressive. We continued on and entered the national park, always with Snæfellsjökull looming above us as we drove around the coastline. As you reach the northern end of the park, there is a road that heads west to the ocean and one of the many lighthouses on the island. You travel across a lava field and have some beautiful views of the ocean crashing against the black lined coast. After driving for twenty minutes, we turned around as the road conditions just kept getting worse and worse.
Once we reached the main road once again, we could see the most western portion of the Westfjords towering over the ocean water. Knowing that we still had about a four hour drive ahead us, we started heading back to grab a late lunch at the Hotel Búðir. On the way, we saw what looked like steam coming off of some of the lower peaks of Snæfellsjökull, which was a little unnerving to think that there was any chance that there could be anything active on the giant volcano. Although it was probably just a cloud that settled on the mountain, we were happy to make our way out of the area. Our lunch was wonderful, probably because we were extremely hungry from hiking around the different locations where we stopped. The hotel was truly charming, the staff incredibly friendly and if we’re ever back in the area, we would definitely considering staying with them.
All in all, it was a perfect way to end our brief trip to Iceland. We know that we’ll be back again, perhaps in the fall, when things might not be as frozen, but there still might be a chance to see the Northern Lights. We’re glad we chose to make the drive across the frozen tundra and frozen roads to see everything that the peninsula had to offer. After driving back to Reykjavik, we were thoroughly exhausted, but satisfied. Our time in Iceland is something that we will obviously never forget.
On the night before we drove to Borgarnes, our dinner took longer than expected and it was a very cold and windy night, so we decided to take a taxi back to our hotel from downtown Reykjavik. Our driver, like almost everyone we met during our trip, was extremely friendly and immediately struck up a conversation with us. He was trying to discern from our accent where we were from and he told us that he was keen on learning the variations in accents from within different countries. Somehow that led us to talking about German accents and from there we related a story about a time that we flew through Frankfurt. It was an overnight flight and they offered headsets to listen to a variety of radio stations, one of which was a German station that told lullaby stories. As soon as the words “German lullabies” came out of our mouths, our driver doubled over in laughter, tears streaming from his eyes as we all contagiously laughed together. Perhaps not as funny now as it was at the time, but the image of Grimm’s Fairy Tales being told to lull children to sleep in a language that is somewhat guttural certainly seemed to provoke a comical image in our driver’s mind. After our following day touring the Settlement Centre in Borgarnes, it seemed more than just a little hypocritical considering the violence of their own Icelandic tales.
We made the hour-long drive to Borgarnes, going through a five kilometer tunnel underneath one of the bays, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the restaurant of the Settlement Centre. We then took the tour through the museum, which consisted of two thirty-minute audio tours that covered the history of how the Vikings first came to populate Iceland as well as their turbulent history once they arrived. The early history of Iceland is told through Viking Sagas, one of which is the Eglis Saga. Egill Skalla-Grimsson was a famous Viking and poet whose story is used to provide an understanding of the first people to populate Iceland. It isn’t just a recanting of his poetry, but is the tale of his life, beliefs, fortunes, and misfortunes.
It is a bloody history filled with mythical tales of beasts, witches, and betrayal. Neither of us were particularly fond of history when we were in school, but that is because the way that they used to teach history was fundamentally flawed. We don’t know if they’ve changed, but when we were growing up, history was about memorizing dates and names without context to how all of the events were interrelated or how cultural and religious pressures and prejudices affected personal decisions of those who affected our history. History would be a lot more fascinating if told around a campfire by the village elders as it was in the past versus dry text books. Generally speaking, history is far more fascinating when you understand the motivations of the individuals involved. This is also true of the Viking Sagas, which the Settlement Centre does an excellent job of relating the relationship between Egill and his father, brothers, and mother and how that shaped his manhood.
We knew that the Vikings were great seamen and that they had conquered the oceans long before the rest of Europe had done so because of their invention of the keel. One interesting fact that we learned was that they didn’t use the stars to navigate, despite their ability to travel such long distances, eventually leading to the discovery of North America. The reason, once we learned it, was quite obvious. There are times of the year when there are no stars visible or not visible for very long due to the length of the days during the summer, so obviously they couldn’t rely on the stars. Instead, the Vikings learned to navigate by following the birds, the migration paths of the whales, and other patterns that allowed them to travel back and forth between Norway and Iceland with ease.
Borgarnes is definitely worth visiting and the restaurant at the Settlement Centre is one of the best on the island. It is a beautiful drive along the coast with stunning views, even as you drive across the bridge that leads you into town. Even if you’re driving the ring road that goes around the entire island, stopping at Borgarnes is something that is well worth the time. We hadn’t originally planned on going to Borgarnes, it was one of those last-minute whim decisions and we couldn’t have been happier with the unexpected surprise and the history that we learned while we were there.
