Iceland road trip (day 3)

After a decent buffet breakfast including omelette and smoked salmon we packed up the car, but not before having a bit of a wander around the troll trails in daylight, although at this point it was starting to snow lightly.

Our next port of call was the infamous black church at Búðir, on the Snæfellsness peninsula.

The drive was the kind of my dreams, the light was amazing with this golden haze hanging around the edges of the mountains making it hard to believe it’s midday and the impulse to stop at every turn is difficult to resist (but made slightly easier by the Icelandic way of telling you there is a ‘picnic’ stop up ahead but not telling you what side of the road it is or putting a signpost near the actual pull off).

We eventually stopped when we saw a sign for coffee, which turned out to be Kaffi Rjúkandi. It must be a prime location for this part of the peninsula as even though we’d seen hardly any other cars, several others arrived at the cafe around the same time, most of us opting for the cod n chips which were absolutely delicious.

After refuelling we headed back on the road towards the black church, following a rainbow almost the entire way, it was quite surreal as at one point the rainbow was across a mottled snow patch on a mountain side making it look weirdly covered in multicoloured snow for a moment.

This church has been photographed every way from Sunday but it was still nice to add to my ‘collection’ and I got a nice atmospheric instant photo as well. It wasn’t easy to see inside due to it being so sunny, but I can’t imagine you’d get more than 25-30 people in the pews being very cosy.

Anyway onwards we drove to Arnastapi, where we didn’t do much but check out a giant stone sculpture – it was so cold I didn’t even take a photo with my phone. What piqued my interest was the inscription that it was created by Ragnar Kjartansson, however I don’t think it is the same Ragnar Kjartansson I saw at the Barbican u less he was making stone statues at the age of 10!

After this we decided to drive to our accommodation in Stykkishólmur which involves driving back on ourselves due to road closures. We were staying in a guesthouse literally 2 minutes away from Bónus which meant we could pick up a few bits. We stayed in this town a few years ago and had forgotten about the food options, last time the fancy place was closed and we ate at a burger joint which had teenagers hanging out there. This time the burger joint was now a ‘gastro pub’ but closed due to staff illness, we’d forgotten about the fancy place and ended up at the basketball themed burger joint in a petrol station which was frequented by teenagers… history repeating itself.

Then back to our guest house to find somewhere to stay for the next couple of nights in the Westfjords (after the weather changed our plans) then headed for a big sleep