Andre and Wendy: Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Snæfellsnes Peninsula - North Side

We are now touring the North side of Snæfellsnes Peninsula. We start off by backtracking to Hellissandur about 10 minutes in order for Andre to see the murals. We just drove around and took pictures of the murals. We had planned on going to the Maritime Museum, but unfortunately we were too early to visit this, so on we move. Just a couple of pictures from the parking lot,

On the way to our next planned stop we came across the beautiful Ingjaldsholl Church which is the oldest concrete church in the world. Amazing views of the snowcapped mountains in the background. There was only 1 other couple from China here at this time of day, sometimes it pays to start off early for the day.

We saw a shipwreck on shore, so of course that meant another stop. We both touched the water, which of course was very very cold.

We next drove on to Kirkjufell Mountain, a place that you see most often in pictures and promoting Iceland with the 2 waterfalls. It is very beautiful. Mount Kirkjufell is named for its resemblance to a church steeple, translated directly to “church mountain” in English. Lately, it has taken on another name, Arrowhead Mountain, thanks to its appearance in the Game of Thrones television series. It would have been nice to visit under the midnight sun, but we were definitely not there at the right time of day for that.

On our way to Grundarfjörður we see another cruise line although we didn’t see any cruise passengers around, they must have been out and about. We drove to see the Bjarnarhöfn Church which is another pretty black church, but again it was not open to sit inside. There is also a shark museum here, but a hard pass on this one. Not interest in visiting this. One of the things you can do at the shark museum is try the Greenland shark which has been fermented, a hard pass as I read it was really awful to eat. Again some nice Icelandic horses along this very narrow road that takes us to the church and museum.

We move on to the town of Stykkishólmur. This is a pretty town that we did some walking around to the lighthouse and town. There are so many cars parked on the wharf that there must be some kind of tours running by boat here. A very picturesque harbour town with a church that has the same architect at the church in Rajkovic. We stopped outside what looked like a little store with Icelandic sweaters, but a pass on these as most are second hand and just weren’t that great looking. Andre tried to enter the home, no not a store, just a home where a couple of racks are outside selling Icelandic sweaters. Next we had a nice walk up to see the lighthouse, good to get a little walk in. Andre really wanted to try lamb stew, we had seen it lots at food trucks earlier in the week, but unfortunately none here. The food truck on the wharf was run by 2 young kids that the only interesting thing on the menu was fish tacos. We get excellent fish tacos at home, so no way were we paying $24.00 for an order of fish tacos. They told us to try a little restaurant just outside the harbour for lamb stew. We decided to drive up and discover that this restaurant is vegan, 100% positive lamb stew is not on their menu so we take a pass. On our way out of town we stop at a bakery and pick up some desserts. Right outside town by the Bonus grocery store there is a hotdog stand set up, so lunch is now covered, lamb hotdogs, not lamb stew.

Next we move on to a replica Viking Longhouse of Eirik the Red. It was quite a drive down a dirt road to get here. Andre walked around a little. Again what we thought a crazy price of admission to visit this replica. Again a beautiful drive along a fjord, once again thank goodness for beautiful scenery.

On to Erpsstadir Creamery for delicious home made Rhubarb for me and rhubarb and coffee ice cream for Andre. This is a very busy weekend in Iceland, and we are not sure what all was going on, it reminded us a little bit like Truemans ice cream here. You could sample cheese, and buy a bunch of things. Loads of families with children having a great time.

Since we couldn’t find lamb and we are on our last night camping Andre picks up lamb stew that just needed to be reheated from the grocery store. I am very happy with vegetable raman noodles.

Next we need to find a campground for the night. Our original plan was to spend the night in Borgarnes, but we had already seen the campground on our way into the Peninsula, so we are off to find a new spot.

We found a really cute campground in a farmers field in Stori-Lambhagi 4 Tjalvsaeoi . There is no kitchen here, but 2 bathrooms, a shower, and a place to wash dishes. This was cash only again, so happy we had brought a little cash with us, this again is one of the cheapest campgrounds we stayed at for $22.00 Cdn. It was very very clean here, and you could tell they really wanted their camp ground taken care of, little ornaments in the bathroom and shower room. They even had a shoe horn for putting on your boots after your shower! The old man that came around to collect the camping fee had a much younger man come along with him to translate. Lots of laughs about how much he is getting paid to do the translating. They stayed with us for quite a while and talking about living in Iceland. He told us we were lucky to get in as this is a very busy weekend in Iceland with locals and it usually always rains. Last year on this weekend they couldn’t even open the campground as you would get stuck in the field. After we have paid up we walked up the dirt road from the field and ran into a young woman on a bike, we were taking some pictures of the horses. We talked to her for a while, these were all her horses, she had 12 of them. She told us about a newborn in the next field and told us we could walk down the hill to see her, unfortunately the baby was sleeping and too far away for us to see much of her. Back to the campsite and Andre cooks up his lamb stew and we pretty much call it a night. It is cold again tonight and we didn’t feel like moving the van to be more in the sun. We went to bed at around 9AM and there were only 5 campers in our section of the campsite. Bigger campers had another spot to park that was in another field, not sure if any campers were there as we could not see this field from where we were parked.

Day summary:

9:00 AM leaving Campground

10 Sightseeing spots

5:30PM at Campground

280 KMS of driving

9 KMS of walking