Monday 10 Aug 2015
On the way to Iceland, I discovered two interesting things. Firstly, Iceland operates on GMT year-round and secondly that 50% of the population believe in Elves. It must be something in the water as alcohol is extremely expensive here. The water is another thing, our hotel bathroom smells faintly sulphurous as most of the hot water in this country is free and comes from deep underground.
We started our day with a faintly healthy buffet breakfast in the hotel, it was delicious. Rather continental in style it was certainly plentiful.
Our plan for the day was to visit the Snaefellsjokull peninsular on the west coast of the island north of Reykjavik. Our route took us through the edge of the capital and on north to the tunnel under the Hvalfjordur (whale fjord). This tunnel is 6km long, costs 1000 Icelandic Krone to use and saves a 56km trip around the fjord. Given the national speed limit of 90kph, this is quite a time saver!
North of the tunnel, we skirted around Akranes and headed on along the coast to Borgarnes, where we crossed the Borgarfjordur. Travelling through increasingly remote and beautiful countryside we continued North. The scenery is constantly reminding you that it is volcanic. Huge lava fields, molten rock ejected from the volcano that starts to solidify mid-air and then splatters on the ground, cover vast areas, ash cones of varying hues dot the landscape whilst all the rocks and mountains are sharp and jagged; all evidence of the recent geological activity.
Eventually, we reach the small fishing port of Stykkisholmur on the north Coast of the Snaefellsjokull peninsular. Ferries leave from here going to the island of Flatey and to the mainland port of Brjandlaekur on the NW peninsular of Iceland.
We briefly debated eating at a smart restaurant, which would have set us back £60, opting instead for a fish and chip kiosk on the quay. We ate freshly caught fish, lightly battered, with homemade chips served with a slice of lemon and a sprig of parsley all served in a newspaper - delicious.
We ate in the car as the temperature had only managed to creep up to 8C. Lovely summer weather!
Lunch eaten, we continued west along the north coast of the peninsular passing through several busy fishing ports. We had almost given up seeing the mountains as it had been gloomy with low cloud all day, but as we continued, the cloud started to lift. It was much brighter as we reached the end of the peninsular at Hellissandur revealing the lower slopes of the snow-capped volcano Snaefellsjokull.
The volcano is famous for being the starting point of the adventure story, "Voyage to the Centre of the Earth" by Jules Verne. I was captivated by this book as a child, but didn't really understand where the story started. Rather bizarrely, the story ends with Prof Lidenbrock emerging with his Icelanic guide, Hans, on the Mediterannean island of Stromboli. Incidentally, Hans isn't an Icelandic name!
As we got to the southern side of the peninsular, the clouds blew away to reveal the summit of Snaefellsjokull. It was a beautiful sight, clearly a volcano, but covered on snow. This was our furthest point from the hotel today and I noticed a signpost marked 227km to Reykjavik!
We carried on to the village of Arnastapi where it was warm enough to sit outside a grass-roofed cafe for coffee and cake. After this pleasant break, we drove directly to Reykjavik which took just over two hours.
We drove into the centre of the city to a small restaurant called 'Fish and More'. I had fish soup whilst Lynn had fish stew, both delicious.
Finally, back at the hotel, I spend over an hour writing up this blog and inserting a couple of pictures. I had repeated attempts to publish it to no avail. After roundly cussing our internet connection, I gave and went bed.
Footnote: this version of the blog was typed up a day late, now I'm a day behind!
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