Day 6 — Vik and Dyrhólaey

Vik is just a tiny town a couple hours east of Reykjavik, but it’s oozing with charm and intrigue. Alf said that he heard that a lot of Iceland crime novels (gotta get my hands on one of those…) are set here due to the dramatic cliffs that surround the town, and that’s not hard to believe. one of our first stops after checking out of the hostel in the morning was to head up some random dirt road that climbed up the side of one of these cliffs, and after pulling over due to snowy/icy conditions the road we walked along the edge of the cliff on what vaguely resembled a path. we had a great view of both the town (see the fifth shot below) and some of the famous seaside cliffs.

after managing not to be blown off the cliff, we headed down to one of Vik’s black beaches and even got to witness someone riding an Icelandic horse (these things have the weirdest trotting form)! we also hit up Dyrhólaey, which is a small peninsula to the south of the village that’s famous for its puffins (which we didn’t see, sadly…not the right season) and its interesting geologic forms. after spending some time wandering around the cliffs, we hurried over to another massive black beach where there were some remnants of a US Navy plane crash. we didn’t stick around for too long, though, because there was yet another storm approaching and we wanted to make it back to Reykjavik before it hit…