Time to leave the Njal’s Saga central area and move slightly further east but decidedly south. There is a group of 15 islands that sits off the south coast called Westman Islands. Only one of the islands is settled (by humans – they are probably all settled by birds) and the citizens here joke that the mainland of Iceland is the 16th island of the Westman Islands. They are a proud group of people here.
We drove from our cabin to the ferry point on the south coast, which was about 40 minutes away. Our ferry departed right on time at Noon and pulled into Vestmannaeyjar around 12:40pm.
The biggest island and the one with the people is around five square miles in size and has around 4,500 people living on it. The port is at the north end and we immediately drove Jimmy (that’s our Suzuki Jimny rental car) to the south end to the lighthouse and to see if we could see any puffins. That ended up working out very well – there were hundreds if not thousands of puffins hanging out on the cliffs and flying around, enjoying their Wednesday afternoon. Puffins are referred to as “clowns of the sea” due to their comical appearance with their bright beaks and waddling walk. Over half of the world’s Atlantic Puffin population breeds in Iceland and the Westman Islands are home to the largest colony in the world. There is an estimated population of nearly 10 million birds here. Once breeding season ends in late August, they start to make their way further south. This was better than we could have hoped for when it comes to our puffin experience. On our way back down, we tucked into a picnic table that was pretty well sheltered from the wind and enjoyed our peanut butter sandwiches. This point by the lighthouse is the windiest place in all of Europe and yes, it is very windy.
Among the interesting and defining events here is the 1973 eruption of the Eldfell volcano. It was unexpected and when it happened, the entire island (save for a couple hundred emergency personnel) evacuated to the mainland. The eruption continued for nearly six months and when the residents returned, they found more than 400 homes buried under the crush of the lava. The flow made its way down to the harbor and we walked around that area, which includes a small church built in 2000 to celebrate 1000 years of Christianity in Iceland and a small medical museum where we talked for a little while with a local and learned about life here on the island. We then headed to our apartment and settled in. It’s nice – spacious and right in the center near the restaurants and museums we plan to visit. Sandy went out and picked up some groceries at the Kronan store, a two minute walk from the apartment. We heated up goulash soup for dinner and watched some American Idol and Frasier.
For our exercise on Thursday, we walked through the lava field just outside our apartment and then made our way up to the top of the Eldfell volcano.
It was a good workout, pretty steep and sandy in some spots. Occasionally, there are marks for houses or businesses that are buried under a point and there are some street signs to show where the streets ran that are now buried sometimes under 50 feet of lava rock. At the top, it was windy but the views across the island and out to other islands was great. It was very easy to look out and see where the lava flow had traveled through town and on the other side, where the lava created almost a full new square mile of land. Such an interesting area to learn about.
We made our way back down and decided in the afternoon to walk to the Eldheimar Museum since we were kind of in the mental mode of the volcanic eruption. This museum is built around one of the houses that was buried in the eruption – it’s an indoor museum, but the building has literally been built around the excavated buried house, which is decent size – maybe 2000 square feet if I had to guess. The museum was great – it gave an excellent explanation on life before the eruption, what the eruption and evacuation was like, and returning to the island once the eruption stopped. Outside the museum, there is another house that shows how the ash destroyed a house in this area.
Dinner on Thursday night was at the family-operated restaurant called Gott. That word translates to “good” in English and now that we’ve eaten there, I think they should have named it Frabaert, which means great or fantastic. We both had the fish of the day, which was wolf fish and it was awesome. It’s a white fish and they made it with a delicious sauce and vegetables and potatoes. So good. We finished the meal with two desserts – we shared each of them. One was a vegan raw cake and the other was a traditional Icelandic dessert – happy marriage cake. It was a great meal.
Yesterday, we started with a walk into the valley that holds the island’s golf course and also the big music festival that takes place in early August. The scenery along this walk was a ten out of ten on a rating scale. The golf course is known to be among the prettiest in Europe and there is no question why. The area is green, the mountains are jagged – one that resembles an elephant dipping its trunk into the sea, the sea is a deep dark blue, the waves crash against the island. We loved this walk.
Interestingly, there is a monument to the Mormon followers who emigrated to Spanish Fork, Utah in the 1850s. Around half of the LDS immigrants from Iceland came from this island – just over 200 of them.
This valley would be a neat place to be in early August for the festival. You can just tell they have an amazing time. On our way home after the walk, we stopped at the Sagnheimar Folk Museum for a couple of hours and learned a lot about the culture here in the Westmans and especially a lot about its fishing history. Dinner was across the street at The Brothers Brewery where we shared two flights of beers – got to try eight different beers – and we ordered pizza to be delivered along with garlic bread. The pizza came from Pitsugerdin and it was excellent.
After a relaxing Saturday morning in the apartment, we went downstairs and got really messy sandwiches at Krain – Sandy had a chicken pita and I had a ham and cheese, but lots of the sauces seemed to be on the outside of the sandwiches. We wondered if the sandwich maker ever eats one. The Boli beers were delicious – and the sandwiches were good, just messy. We strolled around the harbor – nice weather today with the high around 60 and not much wind. We had treats at the Vigtin Bakery and then went back to the apartment to get some things done since tomorrow is a travel day. Dinner was at Taginn right on the harbor. They have a good menu, but we were both interested in the soup and salad bar. I ate way too much food – the soups were fantastic and filling and I went back for three bowls – too much. This was a good spot for dinner – it felt like we were getting good value in a place where things always seem to be so expensive. After dinner, we drove back out to the south side of the island to see the puffins. There weren’t near as many, but we sat there and watched many of them flying around and then land and waddle into their nests for the night.
We loved our time here in the Westman Islands. Great place to visit for a few days!