We left our accommodation in the south Westfjords and headed to the east Westfjords, namely Hólmavík and Drangsnes. Because the drive took around an hour we had plenty of time to spare before checking into our hotel. We headed for the Museum of Icelandic Witchcraft and Sorcery. The museum houses various artefacts, thought to be used in sorcery. Apparently even owning a piece of paper/vellum with symbols of witchcraft on could be enough to have you condemned to death. The museum especially concentrates on witchcraft and sorcery from the Strandir region, where the museum is located, as there was a higher concentration of witch trials/accusations in the Westfjords.
For me I felt the museum had the right balance of information, so you knew what was going on without having to read an essay for each item – Guide books are handed out in a variety of languages.
Afterwards we headed to our hotel in Drangnes, the instructions we’d received were wrong so thankfully the owner had spotted us arriving and we got moved / upgraded to a nicer room, but also without a kitchen area. The only restaurant open was back at the museum (half an hours drive) so we headed there and stopped at Vínbúð on the way to replenish our beers. As you can see above the restaurant at the museum had some delicious traditional Icelandic food by way of baked cod and lamb steak. The cod was spiced to perfection and would highly recommend if in the area.
After we were sated we headed back once more to our hotel, described as being ‘just across the road’ from the infamous Dragnes hot pots, I just want to clarify that neither of the two hotels are near the hotpots unless 1/2 a km counts as near!
Anyway, we made it there, it was getting dark but it was so good to get into the steamy water right next to the sea. We saw a boat come into harbour and under the harbour lights it looked surrounded by bats flapping their wings furiously like you see in Disney cartoons, except it was the seabirds, hoping for a snack.
After heading back for the night, the northern lights were apparently strong but cloud cover foiled me once again, I went out every 30 minutes or so until midnight when it was also raining before admitting defeat, which was a shame given our good location for them, looking out towards Grimsey island.
Culturenator 