After spending two nights based near Stykkishólmur to explore the picturesque Snæfellsnes Peninsula in West Iceland, Steven and I began the country's famous Ring Road trip. As the name implies, the 1,322-km- (820-mile-) -long circular road loops around the entire island, connecting most towns and villages. The drive on Highway 1 is renowned for its diverse scenery, including high plateaus, mountain passes, deep fjords, many of Iceland’s most iconic sites, and access to major attractions. We thought we'd planned well when we allotted a week to drive clockwise around the Ring Road, even taking into account detouring to out-of-the-way sights. In hindsight, however, an extra two or three days would have made the trip infinitely more relaxing.
Our first destination on the Ring Road was Eiríksstaðir, believed to be the ancient homestead of legendary explorer Eirík the Red. When planning the itinerary, I hadn't figured on the torturous Highway 54, a 60-km-long dirt road taking 90 minutes. However, the journey past hills dotted with sheep, numerous one-lane bridges, and infrequent tiny settlements, each with its own church, was particularly striking.
Not for the first time, did I fathom how there were enough people to support a minister unless they only infrequently visited the far-flung churches.
After spotting Haukadalsvatn Lake, we knew that we were finally close to Eirík the Red's home and Living History Museum, located in Haukadalur Valley.
As you may remember from your childhood history classes, Eirík the Red was a Norse explorer born in Norway around 950 AD who later settled in Iceland with his father. After establishing his home at Eiríksstaðir with his family, including his son, Leifur Eiríksson, also known as Leif the Lucky, Eirík set out on his voyages after being exiled from Iceland because of conflicts with neighbors and acts of violence. He discovered a landmass to the west of Iceland, naming it Greenland, leading to the establishment of Norse settlements there.
Janina and other fellow knitters: You'd have loved seeing and feeling the exquisite yarns in the ticket office cum gift shop.
The ruins of Eiríksstaðir were excavated in 1895, again in 1938, and finally in the summers of 1997-2000. While not proven conclusively, the location of the ruins matches the descriptions in the Icelandic sagas. No other part of Iceland has such a high concentration of sites featured in many sagas and tales.
The Eiríksstaðir site, believed to have been inhabited for only ten to twenty years, included a reconstructed 10th-century Viking longhouse based on the living conditions of the time. The tools for the reconstruction, completed in 2000, were replicas of tools used during the 10th century. Since turf houses only lasted for a few decades with good care, we couldn't expect to see an 'original' home from a thousand years ago.
As the guide was in the middle of her 'spiel,' I couldn't ask any questions as to what was in the longhouse, what conditions were like, etc.
Another visitor told me that only women would have been able to enter the pantry and exit the longhouse via the rear door in the second photo.
The exterior peat moss was constructed using a herringbone pattern as it was more resistant to weathering damage from earthquakes.
Ruins from the Viking settlement:
The statue of Leifur Eiríksson honored Viking exploration. After Leifur, also a seafaring man, heard reports of land still further west of Greenland, he found what were probably Baffin Island, Labrador, and also Vinland. Icelanders consider him “The son of Iceland, the grandson of Norway, and the discoverer of North America,” because he 'discovered' America 500 years before Christopher Columbus. Leifur built a base for the winter on the northernmost tip of western Newfoundland at the site now known as L'Anse aux Meadows, which Steven and I visited in June of 2022.
Here's a link to that post:
Shots on our way north to a turf church in Víðimýri, in the Skagafjörður region, an almost two-hour-long drive away. Turf houses were a common sight in Iceland for centuries, providing excellent insulation against the harsh climate.
A church was built at Víðimýri after the early days of Christianity in Iceland, about 1000 AD. The present, wood-frame building with turf walls and roof dates to 1834. Two bells hung in the bell gate leading to the small graveyard. After the church was bought by the National Museum in 1936, it was restored and became the first historical building to be placed in the museum's care. Of the six turf churches that remain in Iceland, only three, including Víðimýri, still serve as parish churches.
According to the oldest records, the church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. Peter the Apostle. The turf is regularly renewed, but the unpainted panelling and vertical roof boards are largely original.
Considered a masterpiece of Icelandic architecture, Víðimýrarkirkja, the turf church, conformed to the fixed conventions of seating following the Reformation, with men on the south or right side of the aisle and women and children on the north or left side. I was surprised to learn that the church's capacity was one hundred people, even taking into account that they had less food to eat and were much smaller than our contemporaries.
Gentlewomen, i.e., unmarried women, had their own box pew in front of the other women.
The triptych from 1616 is probably Danish and depicts The Last Supper, The Crucifixion, and The Resurrection.
The reverse of The Crucifixion panel showed Moses wearing horns and displaying the Ten Commandments!
The chandeliers, baptismal font, and altar silver dated from the 19th and 20th centuries.
The pulpit likely dates to the 17th century, with the paintings depicting Christ and the Evangelists on either side. The young ticket taker explained that 'fallen women' sat on the right by themselves directly in front of the pulpit so the minister could literally look down on them!
At the back of the church was the minister's tip jar!
Though still a 'serving church,' it only has irregular church services. It is more often used for weddings and christenings. I was glad we stopped at Víðimýrarkirkja, as it was an absolute gem.
Just a few minutes up the road was Glaumbær Turf Farm & Museum, an open-air museum founded in 1948 that featured a traditional turf farm and timber buildings that showcase 18th- and 19th-century life in Iceland. Glaumbaer's first farmer is believed to be Snorri Þorfinnson in the 11th century, whom I described in a previous post as possibly the first European child born in North America. You may also recall that we saw a statue of his mother, Guðríður Þorbjarnardóttir, on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula and that she was likely the most traveled woman of her time.
On the museum grounds were two 19th-century, timber houses in the Danish-Icelandic style that were relocated from their original sites in the region. The yellow one, called Áshús, was built from 1883 to 1886, housed exhibitions and a tearoom with traditional Icelandic pastries typical of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The gray timber house, called Glisstofa, was a reconstruction of one built in 1849 that stood in six different places before moving to the museum grounds! The house belonged to District Magistrate Eggert and Ingibjörg Briem, who had 19 children, but six died in early childhood.
For 1,000 years, turf served as the primary construction material for homes and livestock housing in Iceland, as it provided a much-needed insulation from Iceland's harsh climate. In 1920, eighty percent of all homes in Skagafjörður were built using predominantly turf. As the 20th century progressed, however, other building materials were more commonly used, leading to the decline of turf buildings. I was surprised to discover that while a handful of turf buildings receive adequate maintenance, their numbers are declining rapidly and, more importantly, the precise number of Iceland's remaining turf buildings is unknown. A key characteristic of the Icelandic building tradition of the time is that farms were composed of multiple small buildings that were connected with tunnels, as seen in Glaumbær. Because there were few trees left in Iceland, turf houses were built from rocks and expertly cut chunks of sod, with the interior supported by a wood frame and paneling like the church at Víðimýri. As we knew from Glisstofa being moved so often, wood was often the settlers' most prized possession.
Inhabited until 1947, and a museum since 1952, there were 13 connected houses, with each one serving a specific function, such as a kitchen, pantry, smithy, and more.
At Glaumbær, the herringbone pattern was again used for the sod layers and driftwood for the timber fronts. Think of the roof as the original roof garden, as it was covered with grass! Due to the risk of fires, the smithy was usually the farthest room or building in the farmhouse structure, or even stood separately. The farmers had to be as self-sufficient as possible, with many making their own horsehoes, nails, and other items they needed. The barrels were used for storing water for the smithy.
The southern storeroom had Icelandic pack saddles on the table, an essential means of transportation well into the 20th century, with a piece of turf under the saddle to protect the horse's back. A leather harness, bridles, and a horsehair rope hung on the rafters. The whale ribs were used as sled runners.
In the northern storeroom were a chest for storing grain, a trough used to hold manure to spread over fields, saws hanging from the rafter, and carpenter planes on the shelf.
The Guest Room from 1879 was the youngest part of the structure and looked much more like a minister's office. Its organ was the first instrument bought for the church in Glaumbær in 1913.
The pictures were of prominent citizens in Skagafjörður from 1860 to 1960; the oldest were drawn, and the rest were photos. On either side of the chest that was used for storing books and files were old clerical clothing, a black robe or pulpit gown used by Lutherans, and a red Catholic chasuble.
The passageway was unusually long, providing access to nine of the thirteen buildings. Two intermediate doors along the passage helped keep out the cold from the living quarters.
The Blue Room was built in 1841 as another guest room. The table by the window was original to the house; under it was a folding stool.
Above the bureau, made of driftwood, was a small chest, an engagement gift from a pastor to his fiancée. Wasn't that romantic?!
The alcove bed was warmer and more private than open beds.
The kitchen was one of the oldest parts of the house, with the hearth built around 1760 being the only open fireplace in the whole building. When it was being used, the kitchen would have been full of smoke. Raw meat was hung on the rafters to be dried and smoked.
On the floor was an iron wash tub with a mangle that was used to squeeze water from wet laundry or to press linen. The wooden bathtub was used for bathing. The small seat was a whale vertebra!
Peat and dung, fuel for the fire, were placed on the floor by the door.
Because the walls were so well insulated, I don't remember being chilled as we walked down another passageway. A tad claustrophobic, yes, but not cold.
The food was stored in the northern pantry, where the lady of the house would portion out the food and bring it to the main room. On the left was an old curd barrel where the curd was collected and stored for the winter. Under the far table was a sieve for skyr, a traditional Icelandic cultured dairy product, similar to a thick and creamy yogurt. When exploring each of these rooms, I was reminded of the adage "a place for everything, and everything in its place."
Moss cutters hanging along a wall were used to cut and chop moss called Iceland Moss, which was collected with herbs during the summer and fall.
Food containers and other supplies were bought from a merchant whom residents walked to or rode to once or twice a year.
The long pantry for the primary food storage was partially dug down into the ground to keep a consistent temperature year-round. Only during frigid winters did it freeze in there. The barrels and casks were used to store food in whey, such as black pudding and innards, all kinds of meat products, and fish, in addition to potatoes and turnips.
On the shelves were small barrels for liquor and whey, and a clay container for rhubarb jam.
The back door area, used as a cowshed until 1945, was the main entrance and exit for the people living at Glaumbær. People left their overcoats here, grain was ground, dried fish was beaten, and kitchen ash was taken out to the garbage heap.
Hanging up were showshoes, ice skates made of horse and cow bones, as well as those made from driftwood and iron. One of the most unusual things for me was the iron crampons that were placed on cows to prevent them from slipping on the ice in winter!
The grinding stone for the corn mill was made from lava rock, which was commonly found throughout Iceland.
The small stone pot was one of the oldest museum artifacts. It was used for washing hands and was likely once used outside a Catholic church as a container for holy water.
At the rear of the complex, we popped into the baðstofa, the main room of Icelandic homes from the late Middle Ages until the 20th century. Though it literally means "bath room," it had nothing to do with either bathing or toilets. Instead, it was the communal living and sleeping room, where people also ate and worked, sitting on beds. Work was made easier by wooden boards placed across the lap as makeshift tables, which were stored beside the mattresses at night.
The baðstofa was a sacred space, as it was the setting for húslestur, the evening reading of religious texts, and kvöldvaka, a communal evening gathering for storytelling, poetry, and music. On long winter evenings, someone would read a story or recite poems for the others. It was common for travelers to stop at Glaumbær, where they would tell stories or news from their travels or entertain the inhabitants. From oil lamps fueled by whale oil, Icelanders "preserved, shared, and enriched their cultural heritage. They learned to read and write, achieving a remarkably high literacy rate."
The farmer, who was also a priest, his family, and the hired hands all lived in the baðstofa, with women sleeping on the left by the window so they had better light for making lace, knitting, and spinning. The men's space was on the opposite wall, where they combed wool and made ropes from horsehair. Glaumbær's baðstofa contained 11 beds, but with two people often sharing a bed, it could accommodate up to 22 people if necessary.
The baðstofa didn't need to be heated because everyone was clothed in wool, even at night, and the room was heavily insulated with Icelandic turf, which retained heat.
At bedtime, everyone snuggled under woolen blankets and feather duvets they had made. The coverings were then tucked into the aisle side of the beds with a bed panel called a rúmfjöl, which had been against the wall during the day. While putting the rúmfjöl, often decorated with carvings, initials, and the year, into position at night, people recited the short prayer that was also carved into them. The rúmfjöl was used to prevent people from falling out of bed during the night.
On the bed was a langspil, a traditional stringed instrument that we had also seen in the blue room. Everyone had their own chamber pot under the beds.
In such crowded and confined quarters, the baðstofa had its own code of behavior to foster mutual respect. The privacy agreement among everyone in the farmhouse ensured that people could store personal items under their pillows, the only place considered to be strictly off limits to everyone else. Those items were as secure as if they had been locked in a safe.
Each person ate their food from their own askur, a wooden container with a carved lid, placed on the shelf above the bed when not in use. Food was brought from the pantry into the baðstofa in the askur.
On one bed was a small crate used to store wool, and hand carders and a spindle for spinning wool. A small oil lamp on the bedpost provided light.
The top bunk bed at the rear was intended for teenagers who stepped on the chest, used for storing clothes, to get to it.
On and around the chest under the window were bones, horns, and shells used as children's toys.
The smaller, more genteel room belonged to the farmer and his wife.
Glaumbær, like other Icelandic farmhouses, changed size and layout over time as buildings were moved around as needed over the centuries. I was impressed with Glaumbær as the museum shed a light on what life was like on larger farms in a 19th-century Icelandic manor. If you have a chance to visit, do so - you won't regret it.
As we then drove north up the west side of North Iceland's Tröllaskagi Peninsula, we had a decent view of the Greenland Sea.
Because of time constraints, we only stopped briefly at Grafarkirkja, Iceland's oldest turf church, located four kilometers south of the village of Hofsós, where we were heading for an hour or so, before continuing to the tip of the peninsula. It was also the country's only turf church with a circular turf wall around the graveyard and the church, though the circular form was an ancient form in Iceland.
It was sad to learn that when Grafarkirkja was deconsecrated in 1765 by a royal order from the king, it was used as a storeroom by local farmers. However, after being totally rebuilt in its original form almost two centuries later, the turf church was reconsecrated by the Bishop of Iceland in 1953. Grafarkirkja is a part of the National Museum of Iceland's Historic Building Collection and has belonged to the museum since 1939. Sadly, it is closed to people wishing to view a vital part of the country's history.
Next post: Far off the Ring Road to the Icelandic Emigration Center in Hofsós and Siglufjörður.
Posted on August 15th, 2025, from Nuuk, Greenland's capital, even though we had hoped to be in Iqaluit in northern Canada as of a couple of days ago. Travelers to this part of the world quickly learn that plans are just that, and are highly susceptible to changes due to weather. Fingers crossed, our flight to Reykjavik tonight will go off without a hitch, unlike our flight two nights ago to Iqaluit, which was forced to return to Nuuk because of an engine malfunction. Kudos to the staff at Air Greenland, however, who automatically put everyone on the flight up at local hotels, and provided generous meal vouchers to be used at almost any restaurant in town! I'm looking forward to feasting again on lamb, some of the most delectable vegetable sides I've ever eaten, and an Italian red wine for dinner, all on Air Greenland's króna.
