Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ÁRMANNSFELL
ÞINGVELLIR
0
1
kilometre
2
N
National Park
Information Centre
& Bus Stop
Hrauntún
ÞINGVALLAHRAUN
Öxaráfoss
Skógarkot
Visitor
Centre
ÞINGVELLIR
Þingvallavatn
Selfoss & Laugarvatn
Selfoss
& Laugarvatn
are few specific monuments and to capture the spirit of the place you need to
familiarize yourself with the natural formations around which events were played.
The Visitor Centre and lookout
June-Sept daily 9am-7pm • 1000kr
Coming from Reykjavík, your first stop should be the
Visitor Centre
, just where
Route 36 grazes the top of Almannagjá, less for the interactive videos outlining
Þingvellir's history (and certainly not for the toilets, which - almost uniquely in
Iceland - you have to pay for), but for the superb
lookout
alongside. You're right on the
edge of the
North American continental plate
here: Almannagja and the Alþing site is
directly below, with the church over on the far side of the Öxará, which flows south to
the lake. Looking northeast up the rift, Ármannsfell and Hrafnabjörg frame the valley,
fist-like and solid. Permanence is an illusion, however - the rift is widening by 1.5cm
further each year as the continental plates drift apart. As they move, the valley floor
sinks, on average, a couple of millimetres annually, though it fell half a metre in 1789
following an earthquake. Away in the distance, Skjaldbreiður's apparently low summit
is easily overlooked, though at 1060m it's actually one of the highest peaks in view.
Almannagjá
From the Visitor Centre, a 100m gravel track descends through the deep
Almannagjá
canyon, whose vertical basalt walls form the west side of Þingvellir's rift. To one side is
