Heimaey Days 3 and 4

Having seen Heimaey's parimeter, I decided to explore what little of the interior I had not yet seen. I began with the graveyard, which has some interesting statues nearby. There were some fantastic shots of ash falling around the angel statue during the 1973 eruption.

From there I went up to Helgafell, the island's central volcano. Once again I had spectacular view of the entire island. I could clearly see my next stop, the pompously-titled Pompeii of the North, an excavation of several of the buried houses.

While a fine layer of hot ash of Vesuvius perfectly preserved the Roman town of Pompeii, Eldfell was not as gentle to the houses (though far kinder to the people).

I then proceeded to pick up where I had left off at sunset on my perimeter perambulation by going across the Northwest coast of the island. The coastal path goes across a golf course, which of course was not in use in the winter.

  Beyond that was the fairgrounds of the festival I mentioned, which lie at the base of precipitous cliffs, which, naturally, I walked up.

(If you look closely you can see the trail up, though I actually took a parallel one.)

The views were breathtaking, and the vertigo I got switching between my camera and my eyes were even more so.

 The day before I had thought that Heimaey might be the location for Sigur Rós' Glósóli, the most beautiful music video I've ever seen and which still gives me goosebumps.

Sigur Rós - Glósóli from Sigur Rós on Vimeo

These cliffs made me think so even more, but after watching the video again it became clear that it was actually filmed on the mainland of Iceland. It turns out that moss covered lava fields and imposing cliffs are actually fairly common in Iceland.

I made my way along the narrow path and was actually not the only one out on the heights on that blustery day. I went the wrong way around a rock outcropping, though, hoping to get a better view of the festival grounds, and... well, let's put it this way: I was honestly afraid for my life at a couple points scrambling across scree fields with nothing to stop me from rolling down the embankment for hundreds of feet. My foolhardy choice did let me see these icicles on an overhanging section of the outcropping and that view I was hoping for with another awe inspiring Icelandic sunset in the background.

I smelled sulfur in the air as I trudged on. It took me some time to pick my way across the jagged hills and back down to town, so I missed the ferry. So it goes.

 

On the first of February I slept in then went to the town's museum, which was mostly about the pirate attack of 1627 and what happened to those taken, especially those who managed to travel back to Iceland from the far end of the Mediterranean (the pirates were mistakenly thought to be Turkish but were actually Algerian).

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I made my own journey back along the ferry and bus to Reykjavik.