Iceland Adventure: Day 4

Tuesday 9/6: Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Today was the first in our series of three day-long tours to different parts of the West and Southwest regions. Our destination was the Snæfellsnes peninsula, which juts out west into the ocean north of Reykjavik. Our very friendly tour guide was Adonis, who is originally from Greece but has lived in Iceland for seven years. He was very informative and sociable, regaling us with lots of stories and information throughout the day.

We had many stops to help break up the day-long tour, beginning with a rest break and pick up of a few additional guests at Bogarnes. This was our first experience with a gas station in Iceland. We had read in our Lonely Planet guide that gas stations tend to serve as community hubs in some ways, providing a wider range of food options that at typical US gas stations. It reminded me a bit of turnpike rest areas here in the US, with a large number of restrooms, souvenirs, an extensive mini-mart, a large eating area, and almost a mini-food court. The best part about this stop was that the store had Lion bars to add to our stash! And I found a post box across the street to mail postcards to family. I had been having trouble finding a post box near us in Reykjavik!

The other places we stopped included Kirkjufell (waterfall), Ólafsvík (small fishing town with interesting church spire to mitigate the strong winds), Djúpalónssandur (black sand beach), Arnarstapi (rugged cliff area overlooking rock arches in the ocean), Búðir (featuring a small isolated historic church), and Ytri Tung (a brown sand beach edged with dunes and hosting a cluster of seals on rocks in the inlets).

 

At Djúpalónssandur, I got a little too close to the water and ended up with wet jeans and soaked feet. Oops! Luckily, Mr. E had an extra pair of cushy socks in his day pack, so I used my scarf to dry my feet and then warmed them up with his comfy dry socks. That made the rest of the day much better than having wet shoes and bare feet!

We lucked out again with the weather for most of this tour. The waterfall area was cloudy, as noted in the picture above, which hid the top of the mountain across the road. But for the rest of the sights, we had sunny clear skies and temperatures near 70 -- amazing! The water in some places was so clear and blue that it reminded me a bit of the ocean near Waikiki.

We got back to Reykjavik around 7:30pm, and Mr. E got some great takeout food at a nearby Thai restaurant, Krua Thai, which we later found out was highly rated in the 2022 Best of Reykjavik guide. The tofu and veggies was delicious, as were the salmon and shrimp spring rolls, and we even had some leftovers for the next day.

For all of our tours, we had to be at our pick-up location, Bus Stop 6 by the Culture House, by 8am. Luckily, that stop was just a 5-minute walk from our apartment, so it was still a relatively reasonable time to get up and get ready in the morning before starting our day. In the evening drop-off, we usually got off at Bus Stop 8 by Hallgrimskirkja since the drop-off route got to that stop before Bus Stop 6. The distance was a little farther, but by the end of the day, we were ready to stop sitting and do a bit more walking!