Iceland Day 4: Hvammstangi to Akureyri

From the restaurant and lounge of the Lambs Inn in Akureyri …

Breakfast is at Hotel Laugarbakki and at 9a we’re on the bus and leaving Hvammstangi. We’ve got a long drive to Akureyri in the northeast of the island. Much of the drive is the scenic route along fjords and the Iceland Sea. After the blur of the past few days it’s good to settle in on the bus and enjoy a few relaxing hours of the scenery rolling by.

Around 10:30a we stop at the Bakari in Sauðárkrókur for a mid-morning pastry and then drive to an overlook above the town for a view of the Skagafjörður fjord.

The road is mostly empty. We don’t pass many other vehicles. We do pass many fields with sheep, cattle, and Icelandic horses grazing. The fields have ditches dug through them for drainage so the land is dry enough for haymaking and grazing. As we travel along the northern-most shore of the island we pass about 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Around lunchtime we arrive in Siglufjörður. We visit The Herring Era Museum, the island’s largest maritime museum. Here the story of Iceland’s herring fisheries and processing industry is told. But this museum is different from a traditional museum, the exhibits are housed in the actual buildings that were part of the herring industry, including the dorm where herring girls lived while working to process the fish. But the herring were overfished and in 1969 they did not return marking the end of the fishing industry here.

Then we’re back on the bus and through several long tunnels for the rest of the drive to Akureyri. As the Capital of the North, Akureyri is Iceland’s second-largest urban area and the cultural hub in the north of the island. It’s known for its beautiful fjord setting, and proximity to Lake Mývatn, Goðafoss waterfall, and whale watching in nearby Eyjafjördur fjord. We’re here to see all of that!

Dinner is appropriately lamb served in the restaurant of our hotel for the next several nights, the Lambs Inn!