Iceland 2025

June 19th, 2025 - Reykjavik

Due to the bad weath­er and after yes­ter­day’s long dri­ve, we slept in and then drove back to Grundafoss, which we had been unable to vis­it yes­ter­day because of the rain. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the weath­er had only improved slight­ly, but at least it had stopped rain­ing. On the way to Grundafoss, we dis­cov­ered anoth­er pho­to­genic ship­wreck, the Sandger­di GK-2. We stopped there briefly to take some photos:

Triv­ia: The Sandgerði GK-2 shipwreck

The for­mer fish­ing trawler Sandgerði GK-2 was built in Akureyri in 1967 and served in the fish­ing indus­try for decades. After sus­tain­ing dam­age in 2017, it sank in the port of Rif. After being sal­vaged, it was decid­ed not to repair the ship, but to run it aground on the black sand beach between Ólafsvík and Hellissandur.

Today, the wreck lies half buried in the sand and is slow­ly rust­ing away—a silent memo­r­i­al to the harsh life of seafaring.

Then we head­ed on to Grundafoss. This water­fall plunges 70 meters in an ele­gant cas­cade. The park­ing lot is locat­ed right on the road, from where you have to walk about 1 km past a water con­ser­va­tion area to reach the water­fall. On the way there, we encoun­tered some sheep again.

We then con­tin­ued west­ward on the ring road. With slight­ly high­er clouds than the day before, we were final­ly able to admire Kirkjufell in all its glory.

Next, we con­tin­ued on to the Svör­tuloft light­house. This was acces­si­ble via a wind­ing grav­el road, which was anoth­er adven­ture in itself. It shines in a bright orange col­or - after all, a light­house should be easy to see. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it start­ed rain­ing again and real­ly poured down.

But we had our café with us and first retreat­ed to the camper for cof­fee and pas­tries. We had orig­i­nal­ly planned to con­tin­ue on to the Sax­hóll crater, but in this rain?

Lat­er, we decid­ed to give it a try as the rain was slow­ly dying down. The weath­er in Ice­land is very dif­fi­cult to predict!

The crater is easy to access, with a con­ve­nient iron stair­case lead­ing up to it. From the top, you can look down into the crater (which is not par­tic­u­lar­ly deep) and, above all, enjoy the view of the bar­ren, lichen-cov­ered land­scape sur­round­ing it.

Then we con­tin­ued on to the next light­house, Malar­rif, on the south coast of the penin­su­la, this time white and slight­ly taller. Once again, there were a few sheep around, some of which posed nice­ly for the camera:

I par­tic­u­lar­ly like this pic­ture of “Tooth­pick Charlie”:

We con­tin­ued on to Anarstapi. There is a large stone guardian there, Bárður Snæfell­sás. Impres­sive.

Triv­ia: The mighty Bárður Snæfell­sás, half human, half troll, is con­sid­ered the guardian spir­it of Snæfell­sjökull. He is said to have once lived in caves, bathed in a maar, and pro­tect­ed the peo­ple of the region - until he final­ly dis­ap­peared into the glac­i­er, where, accord­ing to leg­end, he still watch­es over it.

The path led down to a view­point that offered a view of the rugged cliffs and the rock gate. Numer­ous nest­ing birds were bustling about on the rocks.

Then it was time to leave the Snæfell­snes Penin­su­la and head for Reyk­javik.

With around 140,000 inhab­i­tants, Reyk­javík is not only the cap­i­tal but also the largest city in Ice­land. If you include the entire met­ro­pol­i­tan area, around 240,000 peo­ple live there – more than two-thirds of Ice­land’s total pop­u­la­tion. This makes Reyk­javík not only the north­ern­most cap­i­tal in the world but also the cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic cen­ter of the country.

Thanks to the abun­dant geot­her­mal ener­gy, much of the city is heat­ed sus­tain­ably, and even some side­walks in the city cen­ter are frost-free in win­ter because warm ther­mal water cir­cu­lates beneath them.

We drove into town briefly and took a look at the famous Hall­grim­skirk­ja. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was already closed as it was late. But it is also very impres­sive from the outside.

At 74.5 meters high, Hall­grím­skirk­ja is Ice­land’s largest church build­ing and dom­i­nates the Reyk­javík cityscape. It was named after the hymn writer Hall­grí­mur Péturs­son. It is Ice­land’s largest church build­ing and the sec­ond tallest build­ing in the coun­try. Plan­ning began in 1929, con­struc­tion start­ed in 1945 and con­tin­ued until 1986. Archi­tect Guðjón Samúels­son took his inspi­ra­tion from Ice­landic basalt columns and glac­i­ers. Inside, the church is bright and sim­ple in design, with Goth­ic ele­ments such as point­ed arch­es and ribbed vaults. Par­tic­u­lar­ly famous is the large organ with 5,275 pipes, the largest in Ice­land. Three large bells and a 29-note car­il­lon hang in the tower.

In front of the church you can see the stat­ue of Leifr Eir­ic­s­son, a famous Icelander.

Leifr Eric­s­son (c. 970–1020) was an Ice­landic explor­er and is con­sid­ered one of the first Euro­peans to set foot on North Amer­i­can soil – around 500 years before Christo­pher Colum­bus. He is said to have reached an area that the Vikings called Vin­land, pre­sum­ably on the coast of New­found­land in present-day Canada.

The stat­ue in front of Hall­grím­skirk­ja com­mem­o­rates the famous Viking and was a gift from the USA to mark the year 1930, when Ice­land cel­e­brat­ed the 1000th anniver­sary of its parliament.

Then it start­ed rain­ing heav­i­ly again, so we had to can­cel our plans for anoth­er stroll through the city. After our brief vis­it to Reyk­javik, we arrived at our last camp­site, Tjaldsvæði Sandgerðis, near Kevlavik Air­port. Tomor­row after­noon, we will return the camper and spend our last night in Ice­land in a hotel right next to the airport.