Continuing on, we go in search of the last turf church ever to be built in Iceland…
Originally constructed in 1884, this is still a practicing parish church…
…surrounded by burial mounds…
Next stop – Diamond Beach: http://luxuriousnomad.com/diamond-beach/
~ Bella
When the Vatnajökull volcano erupted in 1996, the 880-metre-long (2,890 ft) bridge was damaged by icebergs the size of houses that had broken off and floated down and across the plains…
Thankfully, no one was killed when the bridge was destroyed…
…and this monument is all that remains…
Hofskirkja Turf Church next… http://luxuriousnomad.com/hofskirkja-turf-church/
~ Bella
Leaving home (aka my lovely hotel where everyone is taken such wonderful care of me), first stop is filling up the gas tank…
Since anything within about a 3-4 hour radius of the hotel was doable for a day trip or two, I decided to essentially drive for about four hours straight and come back to those destinations I passed on another trip.
This post is mostly just the glorious scenery along the way…
In the middle of nowhere, a half-naked man on one side of the road, yelling at a man on the other side of the road… Strange…
Núpsstaður Turf Church and ancillary farm buildings…
Next stop, Skeiðará Bridge Monument: http://luxuriousnomad.com/skeidara-bridge-monument/
~ Bella
Leaving Stykkishólmur, we went in search of a giant padlock and, as in the words of Supertramp, we took the long way home… but didn’t realise just what that meant at the time…
From stunning green fields, we enter the lava fields… They were extraordinary!
Another thing that is amazing in Iceland, is how close to the road many natural wonders are located…
…and we continue… http://luxuriousnomad.com/snaefellsnes-peninsula-part-3-of-3/
During the final part of this road trip, I didn’t realise that the ‘road’ trip would be minus a ‘road’! You’ll see what I mean………….
Harry’s a tough Little Sprout – and Google assured us there was a road here – so we decided to forge ahead………..
4.8 miles of slippery gravel and inclines and a track only wide enough for one and half cars at best… (and at one point we almost went sideways off the top as a 4×4 came over the verge toward us)…
…but eventually the vinnusvaedi were endar! YAY!
These stone ‘pyramids’ are everywhere around Iceland…
…and home sweet home…
~ Bella
“You want me pump you?”
Harry Hyundai needed some go-go juice for our rather adventurous day trip, and I was quite proud of myself that I navigated the entire affair myself, without resorting to using English even once.
As I settled back into the car, a rather large fellow with a safety vest slowly came over to the car and stood at my window, staring at me. I thought – oh, no, I must have done something wrong!
I put down the window and he said something very slowly in Icelandic. I asked him if he spoke English, not sure what he was going to say if he did?
To this he replied, equally slowly, “you want me pump you” – with an inflection that made it sound like more of an order than a request.
Having now cottoned on to what was happening, I thanked him but said I had already taken care of it – and we were on our way!
Destination: Snæfellsnes Peninsula
Tunnels are not exactly a welcome sight for me, since I have very poor low-light vision – and what I didn’t know was that this tunnel goes on for ages and ages and ages………….
…and, thankful to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, we continued…
…and so we arrived at our first way-point – and the next in our Walter Mitty quest… Stykkishólmur, where the helicopter scene was filmed!
The smaller two-storey building near the centre of frame was the building used for the bar in Walter Mitty… (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkpDb3-AruE)
This photo (below) is taken from where the helicopter was sitting…
…and in the image above, the cream building with the detailing down the corner edges of the building was painted a dark colour in the film…
The entire place is stunningly beautiful!
The Walter Mitty bar on the left…
Photo of Harry…
Freshly caught, freshly cooked!
…continuing on… http://luxuriousnomad.com/snaefellsnes-peninsula-part-2-of-3/
Harry Hyundai and I went out to pick up a couple of supplies, and decided to take the scenic route, following our noses and seeing what we could see…
We ended up on the peninsula of Seltjarnarnes.
Unfortunately, I forgot to pick up my camera to take with me on the way out, so these photos are all taken with my trusty iPhone.
The bee-hive-looking construction is Suðurnesvarða, and was built in 1780 as a way point for sailors to navigate around the peninsula.
In the distance is Grótta Island Lighthouse.
Hmmmmm, me thinks he missed…
…and the biggest surprise of the day – I had an urge to go in here to get lunch (yes, I know, not normally something I would do, either) and it was perhaps the best Chinese I have ever had! Certainly the best Viking Chinese! 🙂
Well, am now back safe and sound…
~ Bella
First job for the morning – packing Harry Hyundai, ready for our adventures, with things such as:
OK, so we are not exactly going off-roading (hmmmm, the thought of little Harry attempting to climb a hill, let alone rugged terrain, is quite comical!), but the weather here is quite changeable, only a week or so before I arrived, three quakes measuring over magnitude 5 were recorded, with one of them being felt in the capital Reykjavik, located some 265 kilometers (165 miles) away from the epicenter.
Experts are warning that Grimsvotn volcano, Iceland’s most active, could erupt soon.
So, while a bottle of water and a couple of protein bars are not going to be helpful in case of an eruption, somehow it feels a little more comforting and sensible to at least have set the car up with the basics.
…and then we set off…
We didn’t really have a destination in mind for this trip – just to go a little further afield and see what we could find…
These are the three rear ends of three very large black sheep that decided to play frogger by running across the road right in front of us!
No amount of photos will ever do justice to how extraordinarily beautiful this place was… It is part of the Þingvellir National Park and was ‘awesome’ in the very literal sense of the word…
It was also the site of the annual parliament of Iceland met from 930AD to 1798AD.
Hmmmm, ok, well, that road is off-limits so time to turn around and continue on… One thing about Harry is that he is little and can do a U-turn with very little space…
Unfortunately, I wasn’t up to walking up the top to view the crater, but if one Googles it, the images are extraordinary!
…and then the foggy mist set in…
…and so endeth our first real day of exploring…
~ Bella
To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.
Those were the grand, and inspiring words LIFE magazine’s founder and publisher, Henry Luce, wrote in 1936, when he outlined his vision for his new publication.
One element I love about this quote is the ‘now-ness’ of it. “To see” – not to ‘one day’ have these experiences, but rather to find them in our ‘now’. To experience life to the fullest ‘now’.
In March 2000, Time Inc. (who by then owned the publication) announced it would cease regular publication of Life with the May issue.
This event is the moment in time in which one of my favourite movies, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, is based.
Essentially, Mitty (Ben Stiller) is a Negative Assets Manager (managing the photos and negatives) who, despite as a teenager having dreams of travelling the world and experiencing amazing adventures, has only managed to go to Arizona, and to Nashville (but just Nashville airport, in transit to Arizona).
I won’t give away the rest of the film, but a huge proportion of it is filmed in Iceland as Mitty learns to live the LIFE vision…
So, I decided for my birthday this year, I am going to go in search of the locations in one of my all-time inspirational films.
Last year I was in England for my birthday, but after months of looking forward to a particular event that I had booked, it ended up being one of the saddest of times to the point that I wasn’t sure I wanted to bother with celebrating my birthday again.
…but I am a Pollyanna, after all, so I’ve decided to only only celebrate my birthday, I am going to do so for the entire time I am here in Iceland!
My birthday is September 13th and as weather can be unpredictable here, I have decided to make this entire trip a celebration and to go in search of Walter Mitty.
…but this is more than merely looking for filming locations…
This movie represents to me the reality of Michael Landon’s quote.
We seem to think that we have all the time there is… but what if your dream was to go to the top of the World Trade Centres ‘one day’?
A friend of mine always wanted to go to France with her husband and attaching a lock to the Pont des Arts “love lock bridge” in Paris. I heard many times about how they had made plans to “one day” visit the landmark and re-declare their love for one another…
Alas, due to the weight of the locks on the structure, in 2015, workers began removing the locks and later replaced the railings with glass panels.
No more “love lock bridge”… and no more ‘one day’.
Walter Mitty at the beginning of the film essentially lives out his fantasies and his ‘one day’s in his imagination – and while I realise not everyone is able to take off on a moment’s notice and go to Paris to put a lock on a bridge, how many dreams do we have that we simply relegate to ‘one day’…
So, in honour of every one of us who realises the importance of ‘now’, and who is doing everything we can to live our best lives… I am dedicating this trip to the Walter Mitty in each of us.
At the beginning of this year, I wrote a ‘decade in review’ (http://luxuriousnomad.com/decade-in-review/).
I didn’t realise it at the time, but that post is basically my personal testimony to Mr Luce’s vision… It is filled with amazing experiences I have had, people I have met, places I have seen…
“…to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”
If we add, “to live happily in each and every moment, to learn, to share, to leave a legacy, but most importantly to love and be loved,” that, in my opinion, is the quintessence of life…
~ Bella
Before I share my afternoon’s meanderings, here are some photos of the place in Scotland I just left… apparently as soon as I departed, the heavens opened up and there was flooding and landslides! Obviously it was sad and weeping…
We have had a little rain here but mostly just showers… This afternoon was a little brighter so Harry (Harry the Hyundai rental car) and I went exploring – just locally, but to see what we could find, and to pick up some groceries…
Iceland seems full of sculptures and outdoor art…
There is an abundance of murals in Iceland – over the coming weeks I will add more of them for you…
OK – one of the things I did want to see was the ‘stone pyramid beach’… it is supposed to look like this:
…but unfortunately it seems someone or something has toppled the majority, as I found it like this:
Not to worry – I will circle back again in a month or so… Perhaps new ones will have been constructed by then…
This is my favourite photo from today’s excursion… Looking carefully, one can see wildflowers in the bottom right, and two picnic tables, one atop each of the peaks, with a bird flying overhead…
On my way home to the hotel, I decided to pick up some groceries (I am getting good at navigating such things that might seem ever so simple and straightforward, but become interesting in a foreign language!), and also some take away for dinner (and found a fabulous little Thai place with ‘normal’ prices! I think this will become a staple for me!)…
Next door to the supermarket, was a liquor store, so I decided to pick up a bottle of Scotch (since paying $60 for an average bottle of wine doesn’t exactly ring my bells…)
…and I learned a new word! Btw, one bottle of Scotch is about the same price as three bottles in the UK – but still better than the cost of wine that is about quadruple or more.
Next door to the liquor store is this place – and that also was easily translated as an apothecary (aka pharmacy!)…
Oh, and the liquor store? Vin is wine… Btw, the liquor stores are all owned by the government here…
Well, it’s time to sample my Viski…
Góða nótt, dear friends…
~ Bella
