The next video is out and ready to view here. We go to The Settlement Center in Borgarnes, drive through some rain and snow, and end up near the coast and snow dusted mountains as the skies finally clear!
Borgarnes is interesting because throughout the town, there are cairns. In fact, you can see Skallagrim’s Burial Mound as we drive past it in the video. The highlight here for us was The Settlement Center. This museum consists of two primary exhibits: The Settlement Exhibition and the Egil Saga Exhibition. The Settlement exhibit tells the story of the Scandinavians who braved the Atlantic to settle in Iceland. Here, you will travel along with these Nordic explorers and settlers as you learn about Iceland’s history from the very beginning.
The Egil Saga exhibit tells Egil’s story. Now, they may say Snorri is a menace, but we tended to think Egil was even more of a menace. He was the son of one of the first Viking settlers, and this exhibit follows the story of Egil’s family including witchcraft, affairs, battles, and magic. He’s quite the colorful character, and the exhibit is equally as colorful With unique art and lighting, the Egil section was even spooky!
Both exhibits had headphone audio tours that you get with your ticket. The exhibits were interactive, and we really learned a lot about Iceland. This museum was probably our favorite one we visited on this trip. In addition, they have a nice gift shop with, of course, copies of the Sagas and even cookbooks. When we visited, it was snowing. You could see snow falling inside the building along these rocks.
After our time at the museum, we were running a little late to get to our next activity. But, we had to stop and take some photos at this beautiful little pull off. I am glad we did since we learned some fun geology at the stop. Here, we learned that a rockslide from 10,000 years ago scarred the land so badly that you can still see it today.
If you self drive in Iceland, do take a few minutes for unplanned stops at some of the information signs around the island. You will learn really cool things you might not learn on your trip otherwise! This video ends here at our little resting place. Next time, we go to a lava tunnel and back to Reykjavik to get a tattoo! We’re still hoping to finish our Iceland video project by the end of the year! Happy adventuring.