Highlights of this day included a canyon that could have been a filming location for “Land Before Time”, lava fields and glaciers. Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in Europe – we saw different “tongues” of this glacier throughout the day.
Before truly starting the day we took a walk on the black sand beach. Just like Gardar said we pretty much had it to ourselves. When we looked up in the sky it was like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. There were a least 100 puffins flying in and out of their nests. One may have even pooped on Jon, just a little on the back of his jacket and hat. Nothing too bad.
We are embarking on the part of the trip where the restaurants are scarce. The place we are staying tonight warned us that there are no supermarkets or restaurants nearby and it might be best to bring our own food. We appreciated the warning and stopped at a Kronun in Vik. It was interesting (?) shopping for groceries when you can’t read the labels. We’re pretty sure we bought rye bread (much different from back home and an Icelandic staple), salami and cheese for dinner. We picked out some snacks and candy for in the car. It feels a bit like snack food roulette each time we open one. There have been some delicious ones and others that we won’t be finishing! Oh and right next door was a shop that sold Icelandic yarn. I had to buy some because it comes from all those adorable sheep we’ve been seeing! I hope it fits in my suitcase.
Next stop was Skool Beans. A coffee shop inside a school bus. It was adorable and again the plain latte was delicious. Interesting note, so far all the coffee we’ve bought has only come in one size. It’s smaller than the smallest size at Caribou or Starbucks. Also interesting note, we have not seen any restaurants that we have back home, except KFC – we saw only one and I have no idea why it’s that one! Would not be my first choice or second or third…
I purchased skyr at the grocery store for breakfast. It’s Iceland’s version of yogurt, closer to Greek yogurt, but not as sweet. That’s another thing we remember about Europe, the food is not as sweet. I like that… a lot!
FJAÐRÁRGLJÚFUR is a massive river canyon. There are amazing views everywhere but if you walk all the way to the end the payoff is a waterfall! The pictures don’t really capture just how big it was.
The next stop was ELDHRAUN LAVA FIELD It’s a lava field that we drove through for miles. We really wanted to stop to take pictures because it was unlike anything we have ever seen, but remember they have very few pullouts. Luckily when we thought the landscape was about to change and we would never get a picture, a pullout appeared. I’m sure there’s some geological name for it but we called it pillowy lava. It’s very fragile and the moss takes 100 years to regrow if you walk on it.
SVÍNAFELLSJÖKULL is a glacier viewing outlet, or one of the arms of Vatnajokull, the largest glacier in Europe. We have been seeing glimpses of the glacier the whole day. We were finally going to see it up close!
I’ve always said that nothing beats the beauty of Switzerland. There’s nothing like the Swiss Alps and glacier lakes. It might be my favorite place in the whole world. Iceland is beautiful in an unworldly way. The scenery here is amazingly spectacular. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The land will be flat as can be. You can see for miles, sometimes all the way to the ocean. And then out of nowhere is a mountain so high and big right in front of you. They don’t have foothills here. There is no gradual change to the topography. Just boom! A mountain! Or waterfalls along the side of the road that people just drive right on by. Or weird land that nothing grows on but sheep graze on. And it’s sparsely populated. We could drive for miles and not see any farms, houses or civilization.
We thought we had one more stop before we called it an early night. HOFSKIRKJA, a turf church. Turns out it was literally steps from our AirBnb for the night.
The area has the turf church, 2 other cottages like ours, less than 5 resident’s houses and sheep out our back door.
Steps 13,920
Climbed 23 flights
Halfway Round the Planet, Part 2 