Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Iceland Day 8 - Up North

We left Myvatn today and headed toward through the northern region of Iceland. As we left Myvatn we somehow missed the fork that connected to the Ring Road (my fault, I was navigating) and took an unexpected loop towards the north. It actually wound through some beautiful areas but delayed us for about 45 minutes to get back on track.



Our first stop today was Godafoss,  a beautiful horseshoe-shaped waterfall which is right along the Ring Road. Godafoss means "waterfall of the gods." It is a short walk to the overlooks to view the falls.


We continued along the Ring Road to the larger town of Akureyri. This is the trickiest place in Iceland to visit, I think. First, there is a tunnel right before the town. You have to pay the fee for this tunnel online within a few hours or else you will be hit with a big fine. Second, in order to park in town, you need a "parking clock" which is simply a piece of paper where you write down the time that you left your car. Parking areas are labeled with different amounts of time. Both of these procedures prey on unaware tourists who haven't done their research.


We had lunch at Akureyri Fish and Chips and enjoyed a huge piece of crispy fish. I also got a bit addicted to the Appelsin orange pop. We stopped for ice cream at Valdis (which also has a shop in Reykjavik). So many good flavors. 


We strolled the shops for about an hour and picked up a few souvenirs. We also made a quick stop at the church. The architecture of the churches in Iceland is so unique.

We now took a detour off the Ring Road and drove north along the Trollaskagi peninsula. This pretty route (with some gravel sections) wound along the coast through fjords and tiny fishing villages. The big excitement along this route were the tunnels! Two of them were single lanes with two-way traffic! Every so often there were alcoves where you could pull off if traffic was coming in the opposite direction. 



We made a short stop at the small town of Siglufjordur. It was nestled under snowy mountains along the harbor and has a few shops which we wandered through. Then we headed towards our hotel for the evening, Hofsstaðir Guesthouse. More about this lovely guesthouse in the next post!

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