A winter storm began coming into the area late yesterday and the situation didn’t look very promising this morning. Woke up to about 4 inches of snow with some serious winds blowing.
These are just around the hotel.
I believe I could have easily gotten around in one of these little trucks.
The group was anxiously waiting word on what our day might entail. The main concern was if the bus could safely get through a mountain pass to take us to where we were to have lunch.
We walked across the road to a store for some shopping.
I made a new friend while there.
Luckily, around 11, it was decided that the roads were clear enough for us to try and off we went.
The road we had to travel.
Horses enjoying the snow
We reached our destination safely and had lunch. This is the road going to the restaurant.
After lunch we headed to the black sand beach Reynisfjara which is a world famous black sand beach just outside of Vik. It has enormous basalt stacks along roaring Atlantic waves. It is considered to be the best example of Icelandic black sand beach . National Geographic has voted it one of the top 10 non-tropical beaches in the world.
There was some beautiful scenery along the route.
A country church located on the road going back to the beach.
Notice the lighted crosses in the cemetery.
The waves were really crashing onto the beach. It was extremely windy.
There were stern warnings about how dangerous the waves were and to stay out of the water. Darn it I brought my swimming trunks for nothing.
According to local folklore the large basalt columns were once trolls. The legend tells of a husband whose wife was kidnapped and killed by two trolls. The man followed the trolls down to Reynisjara where he froze them, ensuring they would never kill again.
There is a sea cave on the beach where the basalt columns are very distinctive.
A lava field along the beach.
On our way back to town we saw this car that had slid off the road.
This church sits atop a hill overlooking the town of Vik.
Since I couldn’t go swimming at the beach I opted to go to a public outdoor swimming pool. It was a little cold getting from the locker room to the pool through the snow but the water was nice and warm once I got there.
Well it turned out to be a very nice day after all. Tomorrow we pack up and head back towards Reykjavík after doing some more exploring of this area.
No comments:
Post a Comment