Waterfalls and history

Taking advice from other summer travelers I brought a sleeping mask to make it through the night. It never really got dark, just a bit of twilight from midnight until about 3 am, and I needed the extra darkness. The breakfast at Hotel Björk in Reykjavik was good though not as varied a spread as at Hotel Keflavik.

We headed north of the city, driving around the fjords and looking for waterfalls. We weren't sure whether or not we'd make it to the Snaefellsness Peninsula, and it turned out we didn't. Along Hvalfjörður we were intrigued by a large industrial plant, which we later learned did aluminum casting (Grundartangi) and supplied electricity. Stopped to view birds at Hesta Þingsholl where they were nesting and feeding -- we must have seen dozens of new-to-us birds on this trip, being in a new part of the world and all.

Waterfalls at were next. Hraunfossar and Barnafoss are both on the Hvitá (hvit means "white" and á means "river") which drains from Langjökull glacier, the very large shield glacier to the east. Hraunfossar is from water trapped between the soil and the lava and these waterfalls appear from the middle of the line of short cliffs. Barnafoss was so-named for a story of two young children lost when a lava bridge fell into the river, taking them with it. (foss = waterfall; fossar = waterfalls)

We crossed over to the north side of the Hvitá and traveled on a dirt road past a number of farms with sheep, goats, and horses. We even encountered a number of horses being herded back to their farm!

Arriving at Borgarnes in the late afternoon we toured the settlement museum there, with dioramas and hand-held iPod minis telling the story. Saga-teller Snorri Sturluson is the likely author of Egil's Saga, and Egil's father and son are supposedly buried in the mound steps away from the settlement museum that illustrates their lives. After our tour we had dinner at the restaurant near the museum which had, among other choices, horsemeat as one of the specials. I chose a smoked trout salad instead.