We woke up leisurely in the morning as we had the complete day for traveling around the peninsula. The weather outside was too cold with heavy winds and it felt like a storm. We quickly checked the Iceland country news to see if there was any prediction of a storm, but we couldn’t find any such news. I almost lost hope about the day and thought that we would just be at home for the entire day.

After a couple of hours, rain subsided but the winds were still strong. We just thought that we would try going outside in a car and see places from the car without getting down. That sounded like a nice idea and we started in our car around the peninsula.

Our first stop was at a waterfall called Svodufoss. We walked up to a point where we had to cross a stream and there was a fence beyond that. So, we returned back. We didn’t explore much as it was very windy and we had to hold our hands together to walk.

Later, we found a path to the glacier, Snaefellsjokull, located in the National Park of the peninsula. It was a gravel road and it took really long to reach the glacier. Clouds came into our driving path at many places and it turned out to be an adventurous drive uphill.

The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), by Jules Verne, in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the Earth on Snæfellsjökull, which sounded very interesting. Now, one more book got added to my reading list 😛

After an hour’s drive, we reached the glacier 🙂 With clouds around, we couldn’t get the complete view of it, but we just spent sometime in the snow there.

 

By the time we came back down the hill, the climate changed miraculously and a lot of  clouds were cleared.

We quickly headed to Kirkjufell mountain, the most photographed mountain in Iceland. It has a waterfall, Kirkjufellsfoss, beside it, adding more beauty to the place.

The view of water from the waterfalls reaching the ocean was also clearly visible from there.

 

We later headed to a lighthouse located on top of a hill in a small town called Stykkishólmur.

I was disappointed with the look of the lighthouse initially. I expected it to be very tall, but it looked like a bigger version of Indian postbox :P. My husband came up with a logic that, since the lighthouse is already located on top of a hill, there was no need to build a tall structure and the lights sent from there would be visible to all the ships around. That sounded like a logical explanation for the small size of the light house.

There were numerous basalt columns on the hill below the lighthouse. I just keep wondering as to how these stones were aligned so well as if they were built by someone.

Later, we headed to the black church in Budir.

The church is famous for its color and location. It is located  beside a beach with no constructions around and it looked picturesque.

 

We then headed to a small fishing village, Arnastapi on the way and loved the rock formation there. It was turning out to be more of a photo-stopping day 😀

We got to see a clear view of the glacier finally and it looked wonderful. There are a lot of interesting stories connected to the glacier, and it is believed to be the meeting place of extra-terrestrials. Some people believe it to be one of the seven chakras (energy centres) in the world.

It is a glacier located on top of a dormant volcano. As per other tourist blogs, many people had a hard time sleeping while visiting Snæfellsnes, due to these magnetic energies from the glacier. So far, we haven’t observed anything of that sort. It could just be a myth or there could be some science behind it.

We reached Djúpalónssandur beach (Black Lava Pearl Beach). Well, I found a perfect bench with glacier view 🙂

The lava rock formations were so cool and I loved the color combination of the rocks. The walk from the bench to the beach is simply amazing.

There were four set of stones on the beach with varying size and a perfect place for fitness freaks :P. Apparently, the sailors before venturing out into seas, tested their strength by lifting these stones. People were advised to lift those stones with caution, taking care of their backs.

The strongest two people of our group could lift the 23kg rock :D. I didn’t even try to move the rock!!

After we walk out of the lava formations, we could see a lovely pebble beach.

There is another story to this beach.

On the beach, there were some iron pieces from a British ship, which was wrecked east of Dritvík cove, on the night of 13th March 1948. There was a blizzard on that cold winter night in March. Fourteen men lost their lives and five were saved by the Icelandic rescue team in the neighboring villages.

The iron remains, which washed up on the beach, are protected and should not be touched. They are kept there in memory of those brave fishermen from England. It was a heart breaking story.

The glacier view from the beach, from between these formations looked amazing.

 

After spending a lot of time on that beach, we moved on to another beach, which turned out to be a golden sand beach amidst all the black sand beaches!!

It was dark by then and we drove back to our house. We stayed awake for some time in the night to check if we can see Northern lights, but we had no luck that day.

Only one more day left in Iceland!! Wish life was a fairy tale like Iceland is !! Maybe some day I would come back, and stay in this country for a while. Let me just wish for it and see how the energy center works 😛