Stykkisholmur

M     Iceland is a place of sweeping landscapes that can't really be captured in a photograph.  I've taken lots of pictures and they will help me remember places, but it's so far from actually standing on a cliff, swaying in the wind and looking out over a plain of volcanic rocks that drop down into a blue green sea.  On the other side of the water are glacier topped volcanoes.  Every day that we drive to a new spot on the island we see new beauty.

      Much of our drive today was on a narrow, gravel road.  Most folks drive near the middle of the road.  There are lots of hills where you can't see if anyone is coming from the other direction which is obviously a problem when you're both near the middle.   Iceland has stuck a pole with a warning sign at the top of the hills in the middle of the road.  You drive on your side and folks coming from the other direction have to drive on theirs.  This works great when there's a sign and is scary when there's not!  One lane bridges are everywhere and they are okay when you can see the other side and when folks are polite.  We saw someone backing off a bridge for about a block when two cars met.  Yikes!

     We've seen so many herds of horses, sheep and goats here and I was speculating on whether herding dogs were used.  Yes!  The Icelandic dog is a breed unique to Iceland and is a partner to the farmers helping them with their animals.  We saw a dog herd a bunch of horses into their corral in just a minute.  When I was looking up Icelandic dogs I noticed that the breed comes in a huge range of colors.  So do the horses, cows, sheep and goats.  One of the guidebooks says it is because the breeds are so pure and one color is not preferred over any others.  At any rate it's interesting to see so many variations of color in a single breed.

     Our stay tonight is in a hotel which overlooks the ferry harbor.  Ferries run between the West Fjords and Stykkisholmur, as well as between Iceland, Denmark, and the Faroe Islands.   We had planned to take the West Fjords ferry trip, but the ferry is not in service yet this year.  It would have been a harrowing ride today with the fierce winds.   We could hardly get our car door open at one stop and quickly learned to have only one open at a time or everything in the car started flying around and out the door.

     So back to the Fransiskus Hotel.  It's attached to the local hospital.  The hotel used to be residence for the nuns who run the hospital.  Now they have another place to live and we're staying in the remodeled nunnery.  It's nice.  The rooms are decent size, have views of the harbor and a comfortable bed.  Sort of chilly on this cold and windy day, though.  We have two nights here and then head back to Reykjavik.   Well I just got off the cozy bed where I've been blogging and found that the hot water heat in the room was turned off.  I turned it on and already the room is warming up.  Raining outside and the wind is finally quieter.  We will see what tomorrow brings.   My picture today is of a sod shack room at the Hoffell guest house.