Day 10 Part 2 of our Icelandic driving videos is out! This video is a little longer, but give it a watch. The music tells a story in this one as an experiment we’re trying out. We continue our drive around the Snæfellsnes Peninsula with the first official stop being at Kirkjufell.
Kirkjufell, “Church Mountain,” is a popular destination for tourists in part because Game of Thrones filmed there. It is a pointy mountain with a small waterfall nearby. You can hike around, but otherwise there was not a lot to do at the stop for this site. I think we stayed for about five minutes before heading out.
The mountain itself is interesting because while it is made from volcanic rock, it isn’t a volcano. It rose above the glaciers in the Ice Age and you can see the strata layers easily…if there isn’t snow on it.
On the day we had to explore the peninsula, it was cloudy, foggy, rainy, snowy, windy, and the visibility was less than ideal. Snæfellsnes Peninsula is known as Iceland in miniature because you can see a lot of the geological formations and glimpses of the scenery you find around the island as a whole. But, like I said, we got Iceland’s weather in miniature.
Still, we saw a lot of really interesting and beautiful things this day. In this video, we see frozen rivers and lakes, mountains dusted in snow, long bridges over clear blue waters, and landscapes that change very quickly.
We also run across some drivers who are struggling with the road conditions. If you’ve never driven in snow or ice, Iceland is not the place to learn. Vacation isn’t when you want to learn how to drive an unfamiliar car in unfamiliar weather conditions. Just some information to keep in mind if you’re uncomfortable with winter weather but are thinking of renting a car in Iceland. Our 4×4 did great, though, and the roads on this day weren’t bad at all.
Next time we continue our trek around the peninsula and leave the snow (mostly) behind us for the rest of the trip! Happy adventuring.