As we drove over the mountain pass to the small village of Seyðisfjörður, our motorhome was swallowed up by heavy white clouds, which happened to be the perfect introduction to the Eastfjords. This region of Iceland is the cutest, most scenic place in the whole country (according to me). While not technically part of the Ring Road, it was only a small detour (17 miles) to get to Seyðisfjörður, and nearly every blog, article, or guidebook I read about Iceland dubbed it a must-see attraction.
Since we visited Iceland in its off season, Seyðisfjörður was a quiet town covered in fog, which some how made it seem even quieter than it actually was. Its main street, church, hostels, and restaurants were void of people, but I think that is Iceland in general during its off season. I mean, fewer than 350,000 people actually live on the island year long, and most of those people live on the opposite side of the island from Seyðisfjörður in the capital Reykjavik.
While in Iceland, we would walk trails and drive roads without seeing another person or car for ages-- sometimes even ever. It was almost startling sometimes to hear another person coming towards us on a trail in the mountains or see another car coming our direction from around a corner while driving. In Seyðisfjörður, it actually made us jump in fear when an elderly shop owner unexpectedly opened his store's door to invite us in as we walked by because we were not expecting any of the shops to be open, let alone hear a heavy wooden door swing wide open behind us.
While some people may find that level of solitude stifling, we really enjoyed it. We are not people who enjoy crowds or a lot of frenetic activity. Instead, it felt to us that Iceland was ours alone to uncover any which way we wanted to-- literally a present for us to unwrap made of fairy tale settings.
To be honest, we didn't do anything particularly exciting in Seyðisfjörður. We walked on more than one occasion the rainbow cobblestone pathway leading up to the cute blue church on the water. We made spaghetti and meatballs in our motorhome. We slept with the skylight above us open so we could gaze at stars in between the clouds. We watched cars appear over the ridge of the fjord and drive onto the ferry headed for Denmark. We stood at the base of a waterfall so powerful I cannot quite describe the sound it made or the vibrations below our feet.
While most people visit Seyðisfjörður in the summer for a well known art festival, I am happy we did it in our own quiet way that some other people may find boring. I mean, just look at my daughter's face in the photo below. She was obviously really enjoying this postcard town. Confession: this is one of my all time favorite photos of her, and I didn't even have to frame the photo in any particular way to keep other people out of it. That walkway? All ours. That church? All ours. The town as a whole? Practically all ours.
We left Seyðisfjörður after staying one night, and our original plan as we crested the fjord's mountain pass was to leave the Eastfjords entirely to hike to some glaciers in the south of Iceland. However, our drive along the Ring Road through the rest of the Eastfjords was just too beautiful, and we didn't feel quite ready to say goodbye to the jutting, tall mountains or the narrow, winding waterways. That night, we pulled into a campsite in Djúpivogur, one of the last towns in the Eastfjords heading east.
The drive from Seyðisfjörður to Djúpivogur was one blissful bend in the road after another, and at one mountain pass, we all got out of the motorhome and hiked to the top of a mountain. The vista was truly spectacular, and there, we spoke some words to my father who passed away six years ago; he loved Iceland after backpacking it in the 70's. From the top of the mountain, I couldn't help but feel him with us, kindred spirits seeking adventure and natural beauty. I also couldn't help but wonder if he drove these roads in these places all those many years ago and feel a little sad I will never know the answer.
In Djúpivogur, we stayed at my favorite campsite of our two-week trip; it overlooked the harbor and town, and there were hiking trails from the campsite into the hills that overlook the fjord. From those hills, we watched a sunset so saturated with purples and oranges that we had to sit to watch the entire curtain of night fall. It was also from these cliffs that we saw a bird sanctuary we could walk to from the campsite.
While Sean worked on an essay for graduate school, I pushed Ruby in her stroller to the opposite end of town. We walked down a beautiful dirt road until we reached the water. While it was not the right season to bird watch, it was a spectacular place to watch the tide come in and out and admire the purple wildflowers in bloom.
When people ask me what we did in Iceland, I don't really know what to say. We didn't do a single tour. We didn't even go to the capital! We walked-- a lot. We hiked-- a lot. We said hello to a lot of ponies. We spent a lot of time cooking delicious meals in our motorhome's tiny kitchen. We drove around the entire island. We figured out how to travel with a baby in a tiny motorhome for the first time. We took a lot of pictures. We read to each other and to Ruby. We sang Old Macdonald Had a Farm way too many time (for Ruby, of course). We watched sunsets. We hunted for the Northern Lights. We played in playgrounds. We battled intense wind and rain. We did laundry. We watched way too much Peppa Pig. We reveled in the beauty of Iceland's many different landscapes.
Really, we just enjoyed taking a time-out from life in order to be together and do something new and different as for our little family of three-- all in our little white motorhome that we came to adore.
Note: Some of you may have noticed this is the second edition of this post. I accidentally deleted the first post I published. I still have no idea how. I could not retrieve the post on Blogger, so I went to Bloglovin and found a HTML version of the post via a cached version. While I had to delete a lot of code and edit for apostrophes, it sure beat writing the whole post all over again. The only thing that was not saved were photos. However, they were easy to find and put back in the post! I am putting this side note here because I could not find any information on how to find an accidentally deleted blog post using Blogger. You are welcome.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful post. I love to visit new places Iceland has a lot to sell to tourists and residents. Take warm clothes with you; no matter what time of year you go you'll need them. Some tours and ferries will take you to various islands; if you wish, you can also go fishing and snorkeling. Ask your travel agent if you can include any of those tours in your travel kit. It is good to take the help of a travel agent who will guide you in each and every moment. I had visited Iceland with Discover Iceland and seen many beautiful places.
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