Tuesday, May 19 – The poor sleep we’ve been getting here in Iceland was making it difficult to get moving in the morning. We got off to a late start. For breakfast, we took the car to a bakery in a shopping center in the suburbs. Parking was free and abundant.
We realized the bakery was part of a local chain. The signs were all in Icelandic, with no English. But the people behind the counter spoke English and were happy to explain what was in the assorted goodies. This bakery was about half as expensive as the places we’d gone to downtown.
The food was great. We’ve been blown away by the food here in Iceland — we haven’t had a single mediocre meal, let alone a bad meal. Once we finished eating, we set off, this time heading north on Highway 1. It was another beautiful day, sunny and 49 degrees Fahrenheit (9.44 celsius).
Eric quickly realized that we were following the same route that the tour bus had taken when Eric went to the glacier tunnel. It was a long but stunning drive to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. This stretch of Highway 1 mostly followed the jagged coastline, so there were beautiful waterfront vistas all along the drive. Here was a shot looking back at the city.
We came to the tunnel that had impressed Eric, which ran under the Hvalfjörður fjord. The tunnel opened in 1998, was 5,762 meters (18,904 feet) long and ran 165 metres (541 feet) below sea level. Prior to the tunnel, cars had to drive another 62 kilometers (39 miles) around the fjord, so it saved an hour of drive time.
On the other side of the tunnel, we passed a factory. Eric remembered that the bus driver had told them it was an aluminum plant and that aluminum was one of Iceland’s biggest source of revenue. Aluminum was abundant in nature as bauxite, a sedimentary rock composed mainly of aluminum-bearing minerals. But bauxite refining was an energy hog, making aluminum production expensive. But energy was cheap in Iceland. Bauxite wasn’t indigenous to Iceland, so cargo ships brought in the bauxite for processing.
Not long past tunnel was the turnoff that Eric’s tour took to go to the glacier.
Highway 1 took us across a bridge over the lovely Borgarfjordur fjord to the base of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, then turned inland.
We turned off Highway 1 and followed a road that took us northeast, through the charming small town pictured above. The scenery was mostly rural farmland, with a couple towns so small that you’d miss them if you blinked.
The road eventually turned due east, following the shoreline of the peninsula. Our first stop was at viewpoint.
to be continued…