A trip around Iceland on the ring road – Part III
I guess there is a first time for everything and day 3 of our trip saw us experiencing three first timers in one day: Visiting glacier lagoon and Viking village as well as sleeping in barrels. After a rather chilly night in our tent, the morning after our hike in Vatnajökull National Park wasn’t the chirpiest of all. I had been warm enough in my sleeping bag despite the low temperatures of five degrees at night but the same couldn’t be said for the other two girls. It was raining again and because Peter was gone and with him the stove that we could use with our gas canister, we only had a quick bowl of muesli at the campsite and stopped at the fuel station for proper coffee before we drove on to Jökulsárlón, the famous glacier lagoon.
The name literally means “glacial river lagoon” and it’s a large glacial lake situated at the head of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier. With the glacier melting, large icebergs are breaking off it and floating through the river outlet into the sea, where some of the beautiful and out-of-this-world looking ice sculptures are washed up on the beach. Needless to say, it’s a major tourist attraction and offers amazing photo opportunities. Also, Jökulsárlón has been a setting for four Hollywood movies: A View to a Kill, Die Another Day, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Batman Begins, as well as the reality TV series Amazing Race.
In high spirits because of this amazing stop and the sunshine that was upon us all of a sudden (it’s true that in Iceland, the weather changes all the time), we continued the drive towards Djúpivogur, our destination for the night. On the way, we stopped at a Viking Café and what appears to be a remote Viking village near Höfn. This was a set built for an Icelandic movie that was never actually filmed and is now open for visitors. As the set is located on the land of a local farmer, visitors can wander around the location upon paying the fee of 800 ISK (5.75 GBP / 6.42 EUR) at the café. There are many more hiking routes in the area so we spend the remainder of the day there.
For the night, we had treated ourselves to pre-booked accommodation again after the cold night the day before. At the Framtid Campsite, the owners have, seemingly recently, placed some lodging barrels for those who prefer a bit of “glamping” in these temperatures (us, in this case). They are very cosy, and not too expensive (120 GBP / 135 EUR per night and per barrel, capacity: 3 people). With the rain in full swing again, we were very happy with that choice for the night and headed to the local pub to watch football and treat ourselves to some Icelandic fish and chips – the best I have ever had (sorry, England but it’s true).
Total driving distance and time approximately 235 km / 3 h 15 including diversion to Viking Village
