After dropping Joe and Justina off at the airport, Anil and I drove back west to explore the west and south of Iceland. We decided to stay in Borgarnes - it's only an hour north of Reykjavik, but feels like a very small town. The streets are very slick and icy, and most restaurants are closed for the season. Luckily, our rented apartment was located above Blómasetrið, a charming coffeehouse that felt more like someone’s living room.
Borgarnes is a nice base to get to the Snaesfellsnes Peninsula, where we spend the next day. We made our way to Budir, known for the photo op of Búðakirkja, the black church near the cliffs. It was an icy side road to get there, but there were several tourist and it was indeed a picturesque spot. The original church was built here in the Búðahraun lava field in 1703, and the current church was reconstructed in 1987.
We next stopped at the Arnarstapi Cliffs. At the start of the trail there's a 6 meter tall rock statue of Bárður Snæfellsás. Bárður was a half-troll, half-human from Norway who fled a tyrannical king and settled in Iceland. After his nephews accidentally caused the death of one of his daughters, he lost his mind and eventually hid himself on the Snaesfellsjökull Glacier and became known as the God of Snaesfell. He's now considered the guardian spirit of the area.
At the edge of the cliff is a small viewpoint overlooking the basalt cliffs and the sea.
After a quick stop at the nearby (very crowded) cafe for some hot chocolate, we made it to the Vatnshellir Cave in time for our tour. The cave is within the Snæfellsjökull National Park.
Vatnshellir is a lava tube created over 8000 years ago when a river of molten lava begins to cool from the outside, forming a tube. The liquid lava continues to flow, leaving the hollow tube. Vatnshellier stretches 200 meters long and goes down 35 meters below the earth's surface.
Our last stop on the peninsula was the Djúpalónssandur black sand beach, a spot with lovely views. because of the ice and snow on top of the threatening weather, we decided stay up at the viewpoint and not walk down to the beach. It was fun watching people try to make their way down, sliding on their butts or crawling on their hands and knees.
We made it back to Borganes and found a small pub that was actually open. Bara ended up being the best meal we found in Iceland, with the most amazing lamb chops and the friendliest proprietors! Yum!
The next day we headed to Þingvellir, where we trekked up to see Öxarárfoss, the popular waterfall in the National Park. It flows over the Almannagjá gorge, on the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Þingvellir is also known as the place where you can snorkel between the two plates at Silfra; we walked over to see it but didn’t get a chance to try.
From there we drove to Laugarvatn Fontana where a bubbling hot spring was built next to Lake Laugarvatn. We arrived in time for the Rye Bread Tour – they slow bake rye bread for 24 hours in the geothermally warmed ground. We walked out to the shores of the lake and dug out a pot from the black sands. It was SOOO good, served with Icelandic butter and smoked fish caught from the lake. A recipe was included – I don’t have geothermal ground, but supposedly you can bake it in the oven at a low temperature – I can’t wait to try! (Spoiler alert: tried it. It sucked.)
We stayed for a long soak at the Fontana hot springs, then decided to see Gullfoss – perhaps the most visited waterfall in the country. Gullfoss is interesting because the landscape there is a gently undulating field as you approach, and there is no hint that a huge waterfall is anywhere in the vicinity. The Hvítá river flows down from Langjökull glacier and suddenly drops into a narrow chasm at Gullfoss.
We then drove south to our hotel for the night, Hotel Selja, in the middle of nowhere near the town of Hvolsvöllur. Because of its isolation, it was an amazing place to stargaze and look for the aurora borealis – we had a great view of the night sky from our hotel room! We could see a faint green glow from our beds, and I got some great photos of the aurora just by turning off the lights and sticking my phone out the window!
On our last full day, we started by driving down the coast to Reynisfjara, the famous black sand beach at Vik. As usually, there were tons of tourists taking photos of the Gardar cliff, the basalt pillars along the coast. Just offshore, there are several rocky pillars sticking out of the ocean – according to legend, they were once night-roaming trolls hunting for ships. They accidentally stayed out too long and when dawn broke, they were turned to stone.
Near Reynisfjara is Dyrhólaey, a promontory with a 100-year old lighthouse and a view of a natural sea arch. On our last visit we went to the Reynisfjara viewpoint to the East; this time we drove up to the top to walk along the cliff edge, watching the arctic terns and admiring the view.
In the afternoon, we were finally able to go on a glacier hike on Sólheimajökull glacier, a tongue of the Mýrdalsjökull ice sheet. It’s an easy and accessible hike since the terminus is only a few kilometers from the Ring Road. A fairly easy (but very icy) walk from the car park took us past a small lagoon to the lookout, where we donned our crampons and helmet. We were also given an ice axe (that, as our guide said, was really only used for photo op props).
There was a well-traveled path up the glacier which gave a few glimpses into smaller crevasses, and it wasn’t hard to get to the wide flat top. The top was a flat sheet of ice covered with a thin layer of snow; Sólheimajökull didn’t have the huge crevasses that we saw at the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska. Instead, we found a moulin that we were able to climb into.
Did you know? A crevasse is a crack in a glacier caused by the stress of movement. A moulin is a more circular shaft caused by melted water that finds weaknesses in the ice.
It actually started raining on our way down the glacier so we were cold and wet and hungry by the time we got back to our car. We headed to Vik for our final dinner – a lovely Icelandic lamb and an awesome skyr cake.
Unfortunately, we found out that Anil’s flight the next day, which had been scheduled for the late afternoon, had been canceled so he changed to an earlier flight. That meant his plan to hang out at the Sky Lagoon was thwarted… but mine wasn’t! It was actually my least favorite of the hot springs that we visited – mainly because it was so crowded (it’s in Reykjavik, and the Blue Lagoon was still closed so I’m sure all the hot-spring-seekers were diverted there). But I did experience it for about an hour, before making my way back towards the airport and my flight home.
Overall, it was another amazing time in Iceland - It is a beautiful country with amazing people, and I'd recommend it to anyone!
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