Iceland: Snæfellsnes Peninsula to Reykjavik
Jules Verne famously wrote "Journey to the Center of the Earth" about Snæfellsjökull, a 700,000 year old strato-volcano located at the tip of the peninsula. It has a glacier on top and is considered to be one of the top "energy centers" in the world. There are lots of alien theories and other mystical tales that take place here. So, naturally, Nick needed to see it. Regardless, it definitely is beautiful and does have a "star power" that draws you to it.
We left our cottage in the morning and drove clockwise around the peninsula. It was a perfect day with bright sunshine and temps that allowed us to wear short sleeves for the first time in 10 days. The ocean views and steep cliffs were a picturesque site as we approached the F570 that would take us to Snæfellsjökull. It was like the F88 to Askja Caldera all over again, except much shorter and a lot less water.
Road sign
Looking out from the Songhellir or "song cave" that has a great echo to belt out some tunes. Nick thought "I want to know what love is" was the perfect choice. It is believed that fairies and elves live in these caves and there is graffiti in the cave dating back to the late 1600's!
Ancient graffiti in the songhellir
Me and the road
The majestic Snæfellsjökull
The view from the road on the way back down from Snæfellsjökull
View of Snæfellsjökull from Sneafellsbaer. It's a beautiful black sand beach where the wreckage from a British fishing vessel washed ashore. Only a few survived and the remains from the boat stay there untouched as a memorial.
Shipwreck remains
Back in the day, fishermen were assessed on their strength and they established a rock system to help them test prospective fishermen. Each rock weighed a certain amount and those who could lift the heaviest were chosen first.
Beautiful rock formations on the beach
I had a hard time getting a good pic of this monument with the bright sun but this was built to honor the first female to birth the first European in North America. Her name was Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir and she was a total badass surviving many treachorous days at sea exploring new land...even meeting the pope. Not to get all girl power with it but her story was really cool and I loved seeing her have her own monument calling out all of her accomplishments. Her son's name is Snorri...the first European born on North American soil. How's that for a trivia fact?
After stopping at Hellnar and spending the day exploring the peninsula, we decided to head to Reykjavik. This made me very sad. I didn't want to go back. Nick was ready but I guess I have had Iceland on my must see list for so long, I was really bummed this leg of our trip was coming to a close. We decided to stay our final 2 days in an Airbnb in Reykjavik. Since we missed the famous Geysir and Gullfoss in the Golden Circle on our first day, we decided to head back out there and also swim in the Reykjadalur Hot Springs. Reykjavik is pretty small and we were able to see the bulk of it in an afternoon. Of course we saw the Hallgrímskirkja and Harpa Opera Hall and we also took in the Settlement Exhibit, which was really cool.
On our final night, we saw the Northern Lights for the 2nd time on our trip. The first time was at Lake Myvatn. Both times they were super faint, so we were unable to capture pictures of it. We feel a little lucky to have seem them at all since September is pretty early but we will have to plan another snowy adventure to get the full show nature puts on.
Gullfoss means Golden Falls. Golden Circle was not a good way to end the trip. SO many tourists made seeing this not as magical after being secluded for 2 weeks. It's still amazingly beautiful and worth seeing but definitely wish we saw it on our first day.
Nick shaved!!
The Geysir was really cool! It erupted every 4 minutes while we were there.
We had a super early flight to Glasgow so we had to get up at 4am to make it to the airport and drop off our rental car. It seems every single flight leaves within 15 minutes of each other at KEF so checking in our bags took a bit of time. They were efficient though...much different than my experiences in South America where you have to arrive 3 hours before your flight and you barely make it. Iceland is no short of breathtaking and we feel like we really did it right. I want to go back to do some hiking at Hornstradir and see Landmannalauger but I feel like we really got a good sense of the country and it's culture.
FINAL THOUGHT: It was strange to get back to Reykjavik and civilization. Once you travel past Hofn, you realize how isolated people are on the rest of the island. The West Fjords, in particular, are so expansive and desolate it's amazing to think people live there year round. It was actually hard for me to acclimate back being around so many people and having to hold full conversations with someone other than Nick. When we were at Geitafell and having conversations with the owners, it was took a lot of my energy. But I definitely need the human interaction...I think we both do.
