A Serendipitous Detour
We slept in this morning, and after chowing down on the hotel breakfast, we headed north from Akureyri. This is a view across the Eyjafjordur.
After winding up the coast and then driving through a 2 mile long one-lane tunnel (luckily there wasn’t much traffic!), we dropped down into a small fishing village named Olafsfjodur (sorry, no pictures… was still sleepy and too lazy to get out of the car…)
Since we had nothing pressing scheduled today, we chose to just keep driving. Off we drove up and over the mountains on a gravel road. And look what we found. A fantastic mountain pass!
There were numerous abandoned houses and farms along the way.
After reaching the coast on the other side of the peninsula, we headed north again along steep cliffs. The road ended in another, smaller fjord at a fishing village named Siglufjorder. It is a quaint little town with corrugated metal houses (VERY common… most modern homes are pre-fabricated and made of metal), many have colorful roofs (this is not a good example of that!).
It is the center of Iceland’s herring fishing industry
We headed back down the west side of the peninsula where the clouds hung low along the fjord.
It is common for farms to have their own small, picturesque churches, often with cemeteries. Out in the middle of nowhere these small farms with churches (a farmhouse, a large barn and one or two other buildings or sheds), dot the landscape.
At the last minute, we took a detour to Holar. It was founded in 1106, and until 1550 was the seat of the Catholic Church in Iceland, housing numerous bishops. In 1550 the reformation swept through this part of the country, leading to the beheading of the last Catholic bishop here… Jon Arason. There is a beautiful church here with some artifacts dating back from what they call the “Catholic period” and some from the reformation, including a 1584 Icelandic bible (printed here in Holar).
Nyibaer is typical of the turf houses built throughout Iceland in the 19th century, with it’s three forward facing gabled roofs and passageways joining the various rooms of the house.
Now back in Akureyri, we intend to have a fabulous dinner, and spend some time looking around the town. One benefit of the midnight sun… it significantly lengthens the sightseeing day!
