Day 36 – 14 August 2023 – Faskrudsfjordur to Hofn area, Iceland

This morning is sunny with clear blue skies & a light wind as we have breakfast. Afterwards we visit the French Museum on one side of the foyer in our hotel. Upstairs is storyboards of the buildings & their importance during the French fishing expeditions in Iceland. There is a hospital bed set up with a display of medical instruments plus a waiting room with models of French fishermen with various injuries. There are photos & models of French ships that used this port. A computer storyboard tells the tale in parts by video of why & how the French fisherman came to Iceland. The story is very poignant as over 4,000 French fishermen lost their lives over the years of the French fishing industry in Iceland.

Downstairs the museum continues on in a tunnel to the building on the other side of the road. This part is set up firstly as the cramped crew quarters on a fishing boat, with men sharing a bunk. Next is a model of the open deck of the boat with appropriate fishing related equipment & a large video of a raging sea alongside. The floor is slightly tilted to add to the effect. This museum is brilliantly put together & has won the European Union prize for Cultural heritage in 2016.

The old French Hospital had been relocated from another site in one piece by truck, then restored on the present site, very close to the original site. The French Doctor’s Residence was on site & restored. Before we left town we visited the old French Cemetery, there are only a handful of marked graves, most of the sailors were lost at sea when ships sank. Some of the sailors were unknown.

We continue driving up & down fjords, each turn seeming to have another WOW factor, this place is stunningly beautiful. The mountains are so high & so steep, in some places the huge scree slopes reach right to the edge of the road.

At Breddalur we learn that Algerian pirates attacked the settlement in 1627 & succeeded in abducting three people. We can only imagine what sort of unfortunate fate befell them.

Our next stop is Blabjorg at the side of the road & running into the water, it is an exposed green coloured tephra layer of volacanic ash formed during a pyroclastic flow of an erupting volcano & is very hard. It is estimated it formed between 9 & 10 million years ago. A bus full of Israeli tourists stopped to look when we were there.

More mountains & more stunningly beautiful scenery before we called into the town of Djupivogur for a look. A Holland America cruise ship was anchored offshore so the small town was packed. We drove around to the wharf area & discovered a display of 34 granite eggs of different sizes & shape. They are part of an art installation called Ëggin/Gledivik & each of the eggs represent a different bird species that is local to the area. We stop for lunch a little further on at a roadside rest area, steep mountains close by on one side, sea on the other. The park bench is next to a large cairn of stones, I take little notice of it until I read the sign. The site is called Djaknadys (Deacon’s Burial Mound) in Hamarsfjordur & is the supposed site of the burial place of two priests of different districts that fought each other to the death. Each passer-by is supposed to add a stone to the mound to help them not lose their way. We each added a stone.

More mountains & more stunningly beautiful scenery then into Hofn. The town is surrounded by lakes & waterbird nesting areas with a number of large birdwatching hides on the edge of the waters. From here we look across the fjord & we see the tongues of five glaciers poking down from the mountains & we get excited, we are now in serious glacier land.

We start driving past the glacier tongues, they are seriously large glaciers, as we pass the third I stop & check our map, I have just driven past the guest house we are staying at tonight. The guest house is a farm off the road & the sign is small (my excuse). We book in, settle into our room & have dinner at the guest house restaurant, simple yet adequate. Another good day.