Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Iceland Part VII: A Relaxing Hike on the Snæfellsnes peninsula

We had been trying to decide what to do with this day for a few days. It was our "free" day, so we had a ton of options to choose from. It took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do - we ultimately were deciding whether to do a long hike to see Glymur waterfall or find something to do on the peninsula. We decided against Glymur since it was over an hour away, apparently very popular and therefore crowded, and from what we read, a little more strenuous than I was hoping for. We were so happy with our choice to stay on the peninsula!

We relaxed a little in the morning and then set off to Snæfellsjökull National Park where we had a couple of hikes planned. After driving around for a bit we finally found the start of the hike we wanted. Rauðholl is a cone shaped crater that was created in an eruption about 5,000-8,000 years ago. There was a nicely marked path that we took to circumnavigate the crater that then took us to a lovely waterfall. We were completely alone with no one in sight! The scenery and weather were stunning so we parked ourselves for a good hour next to the waterfall and just enjoyed the tranquility of it all.




We walked back to the car and drove further up the road to walk to Klukkufoss waterfall. This small waterfall fell over little basalt columns and was nice to sit and look at. We walked up further on the path hoping to find a larger waterfall called Snekkjufoss, but after walking for quite a bit we decided to make a detour towards the road and continue walking towards another area. We found ourselves walking in unmarked territory, with concerned sheep staring at us. We were never concerned though since we always kept the road in our view, and our shortcut led us right to the trail, and surprisingly the Snekkjufoss waterfall, which we were looking for.





We walked a little ways down the road and found our car. We drove back to our cottage and took advantage of our deck and down time. For dinner we drove to the fishing town of Borgarnes, about 45 minutes away. We thought there would be more to do here, even just an area to walk by the water, but we didn't see much. After driving through the small town we went to dinner, which was a delicious meal overlooking the water.






What an amazing day we had! It was the perfect end to a perfect trip!

Our next day, which was our last day, we had big plans... not really. I actually needed to take a final for one of my masters classes and it had to be done on that day. It actually worked out since because we had to be at the airport at 3 and had to drive about 1.5 hours to Reykjavik (and then the 30 minutes to Keflavik) so we didn't plan much. So from 9-11 I took my final and then we checked out of our cottage and headed to the capital.

Since we had already been here we didn't feel the need to see anything major again. We walked around a different district as our main goal was to buy some artwork that we didn't get last time. After an hour or so we went to find some lunch (with our artwork in hand) and feasted on a delicious platter of fish and chips. Yum!

This was such an amazing trip and we're glad we made the decision to come back again!

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