Hringraut Day Two: Drive to Lytingsstathir

 

 The day after Stephanie's birthday, we awoke from our comfortable (but small--they are all small) room at the "Old Post Office" to see another blustery day outside, just as wet and foggy as the day before.  But we were prepared to make the most of it.

This is the beach at Grundarfjorthur, where we stayed at the "Old Post Office."  It is a typical tiny Icelandic fishing village.  It sits at the end of a little fjord and you can kind of see a big
rock-mound thing in the middle of the bay. 

As we drove our way around the north shore of the Snaefellsness peninsula, we tried to spot the magical glacier but never did.  The fog stayed thick.

But the weather cleared up just as we were cutting across highway 56, and we came upon a rest stop with a stunning view of a gorgeous valley and lake. 

It was the first time we had to get outside and enjoy Icelandic nature.  So we made the most of it and got some pictures.

We met an Australian man who encouraged us to "In-joy the foyn weethuh!"

We rejoined the Hringbraut in Borgarnes, which is where we left highway 1 to drive around the peninsula the previous day.   Only this time the weather allowed a much better view of the place.  By Icelandic standards, this town is a metropolis, which means it has about 3,000 inhabitants.

Once you are 10 miles outside Reykjavik, there is no radio in Iceland...at least not that we could find.

So in the gas station in Borgarnes,  I asked a young man where I could get an adapter to listen to my ipod in the car.

"Have you tried Omnis?"  I told his I hadn't tried it, and did not know what it was.

"It is here.  Look right through this window...ah, well the truck, it blocks us.  But behind this truck here is a long gray house, within this house is Omnis.  Omnis is the best place for these things."

I found the Omnis in a normal old strip mall.  I love that Icelanders refer to any building as a "house."  We found the adapter, and left Borgarnes with music and better weather.  Things were looking up.

They got even better when we stopped off in Bifrost for lunch.  Bifrost is not a town actually, it is a University/guesthouse (!?).  There are five universities in Iceland, and I believe this one is the business college.  It looked like it could handle about 200 students or so.  We ate in the dormitory-cafeteria/guesthouse-dining-hall, the customers of which were about 50% students and 50% travelers.  Stephanie had a delicious tuna sandwich and I had my first bowl of Icelandic soup.  Icelandic soup is available everywhere, including many gas stations, and every spoonful has the potential to change your life.

We drove along several picturesque fjords on the northwest of Iceland before arriving and Lytingsstathur.