Worth Seeing in Iceland (Part 5)

The tour of Iceland is coming to an end. From the town of Akureyri we now head west. Driving around the long and gorgeous fjords, we reach the town of seals — Hvammstangi. There you'll find the Selasetrið Icelandic Seal Centre, from where trips to watch seals set off.

Further on, the road leads to the small town of Ólafsvík. It's a small town with about 1,000 inhabitants. Most of them are engaged in fishing. There we'll come across typical fishermen's huts and plenty of boats and fishing gear.

The destination of the journey is the Skálanagi lighthouse, to which the Útnesvegur gravel road leads. It runs along the cliff through volcanic rock. We drive along the Icelandic bay of Breiðafjörður. The Snæfellsnes Peninsula, on which we find ourselves, is sometimes called "Iceland in miniature", because here you can find many of the landscapes typical of this country.

In the area we can see the volcano Snæfellsjökull, on whose summit there's a glacier. Jules Verne set the plot of his book here: Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Finally we reach the very end of the peninsula and see enormous cliffs, against which the ocean waves break.

At the very end of the cliffs stands a lighthouse 10 metres tall, built from iron girders. It was erected in 1914. It gave light by means of gas lamps. It was rebuilt in 1931 and is now powered by solar energy.

Further on, the road leads towards Akranes and through a tunnel under the fjord all the way to Reykjavík, which can be explored in literally a couple of hours.