May 21 – Stykkishólmur and the Snæfellsjӧkull Glacier

Iceland seems to be the Land of the Midnight Sun.  Sunrise today was at 3:46 am and sunset at 11:12 pm (4 ½ hours of nighttime). 

This morning we took a bus trip that went along the coast of Snæfellsnes Peninsula in the Western Fjords area. The scenery is beautiful...rugged, a bit desolate, haunting and gorgeous. And a bit cold.

Since we are driving through farmland there were plenty of domestic animals to see. 

Besides the coastline there were great mountains, including the often photographed Kirkjufell Mountain...

and a fair amount of waterfalls.

At the town of Grundagata we stopped for a bathroom break on our way to the glacier.  The little café seemed to also be a community center, library, movie theater and souvenir shop, all rolled into one. 

After the short break we changed to another bus that was able to handle gravel roads and headed out again.  The drive was pretty awesome.  We could see for miles most of the way up the mountain.

We then switched to a snow cat for the long crawl up the glacier.  We were all seated in an open box, three to a bench.  We did have a railing, like on many ski lifts, to hold us into place.  Those facing downhill really needed it in order to avoid falling into the laps of those that we were facing.

The views were great...

until we got to the stopping point.

Unfortunately, by the time we reached our stop we were in the clouds so the views were minimal.  And with clouds and snow it was rather difficult to even see up close at times.

However, the group had a good time, even if it was pretty darned cold.

Then it back down the mountain and back into the bus for the long ride back down the mountain.  On the way back we stopped at the Kirkjufellsfossa waterfall, across the road from Kirkjufell Mountain.  The falls were rather small by Iceland standards but  very pretty.

We then stopped back in the same café for bathroom break, hot chocolate and what they called Love Balls (apparently they have another more risqué name for it but they cleaned it up to Love Balls).  These were basically fried fritters.  Very tasty.

We were back to the ship in time for lunch.  After lunch we decided to wander around the town, Stykkishólmur (pronounced sticky homer, sort of). 

There was a small wooden church along one of the main streets.

We also walked up the hill to the very modern church, Stykkishólmskirkja Church.
  

The inside was simple but beautiful.

Outside there were great views of the mountains in the distance…

and the nearby cove and the mountains beyond.

On the way back to the main harbor we passed a school where there was a large inflatable "pad" with some children bouncing on it.

We also stopped by the harbor...

for pictures of the boats,

the nearby sculpture of a boat,

some very interesting rock features. One sided of the harbor was protected by a huge rock cliff made of basalt columns.

and lots of flowers.