June 11 – Isafjӧrꝺur to Patreksfjӧrꝺur

Before heading out today we decided to wander around Isafjӧrꝺur a bit.  We were pointed to an “old” section of town that had some of the original wooden houses.  Some were certainly quaint and with a tiny bit of “gingerbread” trim.

There were some very interesting doors...

and some interesting "decorative" items.

Then it was off for another day of driving through the high mountains.  Part of the trip we had already taken as part of a shore excursion.  However, the scenery is lovely, if stark, and is always worth a second look.  

The lupine is in massive bloom with hillsides covered in blue.  Very impressive.

The drive took us along more fjords...

and we saw more arctic terns,

Eider Ducks,

and a stilt.

We took a detour to the town of Flateryi...

to see the Oldest Original store in Iceland.  The store was established in 1914 and is run a young man who is a fourth generation of the original owner.  

It is a bookstore and old books can be bought by the pound.

There was also a display of old ledgers showing all sales and purchases for the store. 

The store takes up half of the building.  The other half was the home of the original owners, the great grandparents of the current manager.  The home is like a time capsule with many of the furnishings of the original owners.  It was interesting to see how the home was furnished.  There was even a pump organ.

As usual there was a pretty little church in town.

On the way out of Flateryi we stopped at a wooden fish drying frames (called “hjallar” or trӧnur”) beside the fjord.  There were a lot of fish heads drying on the frames.  A bit of subsequent research revealed that the heads were from cod fish.  

In the past the head was cut off the cod while still at sea and thrown back into the water.  However, it turns out there is a huge market for dried fish heads in Nigeria.  So now we know why they were drying just the fish heads and not the entire fish.  Was a bit odiferous which might explain why the drying was performed far away from the town.

We drove over some pretty high mountain passes and then down again to the fjords.  The drive through the first fjord took us near Dynjandi Waterfall that we had seen a couple weeks prior. 

We didn’t stop there but headed up into the mountains above the falls.  It was a beautiful area.  We found a lake...

and small rivers that were obviously feeding the falls.

As we traveled along there were more waterfalls and beautiful highlands. 

We had lunch in the small town of Bildudalar.  While browsing in the shop Mary found her favorite cookies from India, packaged for Iceland...different name but they sure looked like the same cookies.

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And we stopped by the Sea Monster Museum.  Apparently the Lock Ness Monster has cousins in Iceland.  The museum was a bit cheesy but sort of fun.  They had a video of interviews of people who had purportedly seen unexplained monsters in the waters around Iceland.