Today was our first snow day in Iceland! We woke up a bit later today and made our way to breakfast, where we ate the best yogurt we have ever had. After that we made our way to the Lava Centre!
Today’s adventure started with a video containing the history and the view of Volcanoes in Iceland; most of our group members had the chance to appreciate the video laying down. The Lava Centre sits in close proximity to many of the island’s volcanoes: Hekla, Eyjafjallajӧkull, Eldfell, and Katla. The Eldfell volcano is located on the island of Vestmannaeyjar, where Eldfell erupted in 1973, on January 23rd. Hundreds of houses were destroyed. People gradually returned to the island, and now, the island’s fishing industry is thriving again on this island with an active volcano. In the exhibition at the center, we got to experience what it’s like to stand on earthquake waves, and we played with the interaction board that controls the presence of lava in different temperatures, etc.
After the lava museum we went to the Skógafoss Waterfall and took some amazing photos. The water looked so clear and pretty! We then headed to my favorite place for today — the Skogar Museum. Inside were a bunch of artifacts from the region, including an entire boat! We learned about Icelandic folk tales and saw some very fashionable historic clothes.
The museum was founded by Þórður Tómasson, who started the collections by accidentally finding an escutcheon on a beach. Most of the collections in the museum were donated by people all around the world. The eight-oar fishing boat is the best-known exhibit in the museum; it weighs about 20 tons. Years ago, the fisherman would have to pull up the boat from the ocean and push the boat to the ocean themselves.
From there we made our way to the Black Sand Beach. The snow made it more of a grey sand beach, but we had fun nonetheless. We went inside a massive cave lined with basalt columns. The cave and beach were featured in the popular show Game of Thrones. By this time the snow was clearing up so we made our way to Vik and ate some amazing black crust pizza. We then headed to our hotel, but due to all the snow the trip took a while, so along the way we got out and just played in the snow. It was spontaneous and fun! We finally made it to our hotel where we ate a very delicious buffet dinner. We had so much fun today, and we can’t wait for tomorrow!