March 14th, Part One: Off to the Snaefellsness Peninsula

We slept in a little bit the next morning (comparatively speaking, I guess), then grabbed breakfast at the hotel. We had something fun planned for the afternoon, but we wanted to check out a few shops in Reykjavik, too, so we hopped on the bus and went back downtown.

We walked along the water to the Sun Voyager statue, then made our way up to all of the shops. We went into a bunch of cool stores and bought a few odds and ends before slowly starting to wander back toward the bus stop.

We did take a short break for some snacks at a cafe. I had an Icelandic donut and a hot chocolate filled with marshmallows and caramel sauce (and somehow didn't keel over from all of the sugar). We eventually took the bus back to the hotel, packed up a couple things in our little backpacks, and hopped in the rental car. Time for some exploring!

We headed east out of the city and picked up Route 1, Iceland's ring road that circles the country. We started heading north. Time to check out a new part of Iceland: the Snaefellsness Peninsula!

We drove past a lot of open land and farm fields. I loved the gradient on the hills, how it faded from white to dark gray.

After a little while, we turned off of the ring road and started heading west. Some of the snowy hills hid behind clouds in the distance.

This was somewhere along route 54. We only saw a few other cars along the way; most of the time we were the only ones on the road. That was ok, though...we could enjoy the scenery on our own.  :)

Once in a while you could see waterfalls off in the distance.

We stopped once in a while at various parking areas to check out the view.

This one was especially nice.  :)

After a little while we stopped at an area with a bunch of paths near Hellnar. We followed one of the paths for a few minutes and got a neat view of Londrangar, a pair of rock pinnacles left over from an old volcano. There were lots of birds flying around here; they had built their nests in the sides of the cliffs.

After walking around for a few more minutes, we hopped back in the car and kept going. We had decided to make a big loop around the peninsula, and still had a ways to go.

The closer we got to our next stop, the more rain and snow showers started to pop up...

...though they occasionally made for some really nice scenery.  :)

After a bit more driving, we could finally see our next stop in the distance.

To be continued...