Snæfellsnes Peninsula – where the Heck is mom

The first two pictures are of the Snæfellsjökull volcano in Snæfellsjökull National Park. On a clear day you can see its peak from Reykjavik. There’s a technical reason why it is visible from so far away that I didn’t understand entirely, or at all. It’s a 700,000 years old glacier-capped stratovolcano (wikipedia knows all about it…). “The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, written in 1864 in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the earth on Snæfellsjökull.”

I arrived late to Helgafell from the ferry. Helgafell is the name of the small community where I will stay for two nights in the small cottage on the right.

On the first night it was cloudy (surprise!) but on the second night I got to see the midnight sun for only the second time. All the other nights I was either asleep or it was cloudy. But two is pretty good! I took these pictures at the same time, midnight, out the same window, but a different zoom, and I added some contrast to the second one so we could see that sun. I should redo these…

Bárðar Saga Snæfellsáss Statue, designed by Ragnar Kjartansson. The statue represents a half-human, half-troll protagonist of an important saga. Notice the teeny little people in the distance, to get a feeling for scale.

At the location of the Bárðar Saga Snæfellsáss Statue we find more bird cliffs.

This is about 1/8th of the size of the cliff as it drops down to the sea. Poo, lots of poo. All the cliff birds back up to the edge of their platform and shoot poo out in the direction away from where they’ve settled. All the visitors giggle when they see a good poo fly.

A classic lighthouse at the tip of the Peninsula.

This guy is Kirkjufell “Church Mountain” near the town of Grundarfjörður. There are so many gorgeous pictures of this place but I didn’t have the time…like so many other places, a drive-by. Just a reason to come back!

And now it’s back to Reykjavik and only two more nights before Home Sweet Home.