Blogs from Snæfellsnes, Northwest, Iceland, Europe

SAT, 01 OCT 2022 – Day 6: Akureyri/Snaefellsnes Peninsula - Situated at the head of Iceland's longest fjord, Akureyri is the nation's second-largest city. Embark on a short walking tour of the town, taking in the striking church and other local sights. If you’re travelling between May and December, you might have the option to partake in a whale watching excursion. Ask your leader for details. Later, continue to Snaefellsnes Peninsula, home to the magnificent Snaefellsjokull Glacier, which played a starring role in Jules Verne's 1864 novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Next up is Lysuholslaug, where you can bathe in thermal pools (depending on the season) or check out the Icelandic horses grazing in the fields. Look forward to an included home-cooked dinner this evening. If you are up for it, you can ... read more

Today we have a very long drive. We can see where we are headed but there’s quite a bit of water between us and it! There is a car ferry - very expensive and as it turns out I can’t get tickets anyway…not because there is no space but because they need three days notice! I had a chat with a guy in the kitchen last night (if you can call three kettles on a 6 inch worktop and two cold water sinks a kitchen). He had just cycled the route that route and tells me it will be easy with good sealed road all the way. Are you sure, I ask? I was pretty sure there were a couple of gravel sections and one of them pretty steepish. Oh yes, there’s a bit of a ... read more

It was the May, 2018, VirtualTourist Euromeet which brought us back to Iceland thirty-five years after our first visit to this spectacular country in the North Atlantic Ocean. Unlike our first visit when we spent only a night or two thanks to Icelandair’s free stop over option, our time this visit lasted almost a week long though it was mostly confined to south Iceland. We had already been in country 4 days and with the official Euromeet activities over, some attendees like ourselves who were staying in country a bit longer decided to book a day trip to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula with Tröll Expeditions. Starting with an 8 am pickup, our much too compact minibus departed the cloudy environs of Reykjavik for a northwesterly route where as the skies became brighter, so did our mood. This ... read more

Leaving Stockholm for Reykjavik the temperature was 29 degrees C at noon. On arrival on Icelandic Air it was13 degrees - which was actually the continuation of the European heat wave, Iceland style. All things are relative. Our plan is to travel around Iceland for 3 weeks before returning to the Netherlands and then on to France. We had considered taking a tour, thought about using guides in some places, staying in hotels, hiring a car and running around the Ring Road that is all nicely sealed. In the end we reverted to type and opted for the hire of 4WD with a camper back that would allow us to take some roads that are not widely travelled, could be a little more challenging and that apparently provide access to some of the most spectacular scenery ... read more

Snaefellsnes is a peninsula near Reykjavik that they describe as a "mini-Iceland", having small versions of the wide range of the island's various features in one place. I think the weather (24 hour grey most days) was really starting to get to me at this point and it rained fairly consistently both of the days I was here, so I'm not sure I experienced it's full potential...but it did have quite a range packed into a fairly small space. One night I woke up around midnight, the clouds were gone, and there was a beautiful sunset (or sunrise?) which was quite a nice surprise (the rain was back by morning though...if I didn't have pictures I'd swear I dreamed it).... read more