After visiting the cliffs of Ásbyrgi, we hopped in the car and drove a few minutes south to the Vesturdalur campsite and the start of an extraordinary five-kilometer trail which would bring us through the Hljóðaklettar (Echo Rocks) to the foot of the Rauðhólar (Red Hills).
It was an early Monday morning when we visited the horseshoe-shaped canyon of Ásbyrgi. We were all alone in the park and during the two hours we spent there, we hardly spoke a word. It's the kind of place which robs your voice.
With schools of herring and abundant plankton, the freezing waters of the Northern Atlantic have always been prime whale territory. In years past, that meant excellent hunting. And though there's still a little killing going on, today the most common way to shoot whales in Iceland is with a camera.
Goðafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods, is found just off the ring road near Akureyri. Although this makes it an easy stop for tour buses, don't let the threat of crowds keep you away from one of northern Iceland's most impressive natural sights.
Maybe it's because of the long, dark winters, when any scrap of joy or warmth is especially appreciated, but Christmas is a very big deal in Iceland. And nowhere is the Christmas spirit stronger than in Akureyri, where it's celebrated all year round.
A day spent exploring the beautiful Eyjafjörður Valley, south of Akureyri, can be surprisingly exhausting. And the locals seem to know it. Two farms on either side of the valley have expanded their normal operations to offer unique places to recuperate, and we took advantage of both.
When Halldor offered to show us the autumn colors of the Eyjafjörður Valley, south of Akureyri, I was a little amused. Up until this point, we had seen approximately three trees in all Iceland. "Maybe the idea of 'autumn colors' means something different here," I thought. "Like, a pile of red lava rocks on top of wet, yellow hay." But it turns out that Iceland has some trees after all. There are a lot, in fact, if you know where to look.
When we pulled into Akureyri, I couldn't believe my eyes. This cute little village was supposed to be the second-biggest city in the country? Come on, Iceland, stop kidding. Where's the real Akureyri? Where is this "Capital of the North" we'd read so much about? Where are you hiding it?
Inclement weather and an irregular winter ferry schedule forced us to cancel our trip to the northern island of Grímsey, the only place in Iceland which crosses the Arctic Circle. But we'd been in this country long enough to have learned: always have a Plan B. And so we hopped on a different ferry bound for a different island: Hrísey.
A village of just 800 inhabitants built around a natural bay of the same name, Ólafsfjörður was our base during the three days we spent exploring the eastern half of the Tröllaskagi Peninsula. The town itself doesn't have a lot to distract tourists, but the surrounding landscape picks up the slack.
