If you're lucky and somehow make it to Snæfellsnes Peninsula, one of the places you should stop is Djupalonssandur and Dritvik. Their is a a great view of the famous glacier Snæfellsjökull which is famous for being cited as the entrance to the center of the earth in the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Djupalonssandur and Dritvik were so beautiful and I took way too many photos, as usual. I hope you enjoy this first post and all the others that follow as well!
This second part of Ytri Tunga Beach focuses mainly on the rocky shoreline. The beaches of Iceland are so different then what I'm used to. They're mostly rocky and when they aren't, they are covered with black sand. This only furthers the otherworldliness feeling when you explore the island. As I stated in part one, the beach is known for being a seal colony. We kept hoping to run in to a random seal sunbathing, but they continued to evade us. I read recently, that the best time for seal spotting is June and July. We were there right at the start of the season and I guess they weren't ready to be seen yet. It's okay though, we were in San Francisco a month before this trip and we saw heaps of them at Fisherman's Wharf!
On the sixth day of our road trip, Markus and I were driving toward Akureyri, the whale watching capital of the world. We were both very excited because the next day we would be going on a whale watching tour. I read somewhere that there was a cool maritime museum on the way to the town. Unfortunately, my information was incorrect and it was just a small tourist shop, but the area nearby was beautiful. We decided to climb the rocks and explore for a bit before we moved on to Akureyri for our whale watching tour!
As we were driving on Route 1 through Iceland, we noticed that there were heaps of abandoned farms and houses. We would've loved to stop at every single one, but we were already stopping too much. I heard that there are close to 550 abandoned homes throughout the country. A majority of Iceland's population is located in Reykjavik, thus causing these rural areas to lose most of it's inhabitants.
This house was the first one we decided to photograph. We debated for a bit whether or not we would go inside and decided, to pass. There is definitely a quiet beauty about this place and I didn't want to disturb it by trespassing. I can't help but wonder a bit about the people that left this place behind. What caused them to pack everything and move on. I love that these houses haven't been torn down and instead are left as reminders of the past.
Iceland is one of those countries that has an insane amount of natural beauty. One minute you're in an icy wonderland and the next in an interstellar landscape. One of these amazing sights is Námaskarð Pass, an area filled with geothermal activity. There wasn't anything else like Námaskarð on the rest of the trip and it truly was incredible. The area looks like a vast desert filled with bubbling mud pools. The smell of sulfur is quite intense and takes a moment to adjust. After a while, you forget about the smell because in that moment you're transported to somewhere otherworldly.
