Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Þingeyrar
Just 6km north of the Ringroad along Route 721, the ancient site of
Þingeyrar
is
worth a stopoff on your journey to Akureyri. If you don't have your own transport,
you'll find that it's a straightforward walk from the Ringroad. This was originally the
site of a
legislative assembly
during the Icelandic Commonwealth (p.319), and the
first Bishop of Hólar, Jón Ögmundarson, pledged to build a church and an associated
farm here if God were to relieve a severe local famine. When the land began to regain
its productivity, the bishop took things one step further and established Iceland's
first
monastery
, Þingeyraklaustur, here in 1133, which remained in existence until the
Reformation in 1550. The monks went on to copy and transcribe some of the country's
most outstanding pieces of medieval literature, and it was on this spot that many of the
sagas
were first written down for posterity.
5
Þingeyrakirkja
July-Sept daily 10am-6pm; at other times call in at the adjacent horse farm, Þingeyrar, where the keys are kept • Free
There's nothing left of the monastery, but a superb nineteenth-century church,
Þingeyrakirkja
, now stands adjacent to where the monks once lived and worked.
Constructed of large blocks of basalt, brought here on sledges dragged across the
nearby frozen lagoon of Hóp, the church was the first building on the site to be made
of stone - all previous structures had been of turf - and it brought much admiration
from local worthies. Although its grey mass is indeed an impressive sight, clearly visible
from miles around, it's the
interior
that really makes a trip here worthwhile, with stark
white walls setting off the blue ceiling, painted with a thousand golden stars, and the
simple green pews. The wooden pulpit dates from 1696 and is thought to come from
Denmark or Holland, whereas the altarpiece, inset with religious figures made of
alabaster, dates from the fifteenth century and was originally made in the English town
of Nottingham for the monastery there. The wooden figures of Christ and the twelve
apostles lining the balcony were carved in 1983 to replace the original statues from
Germany, which are now in the National Museum in Reykjavík.
Blönduós
From the Þingeyrar junction, it's a further 19km along the Ringroad to
BLÖNDUÓS
,
the focal point of Húnaflói bay, with a huge hospital and its modern, multicoloured
houses grouped on either side of one of Iceland's longest rivers, the glacial Blanda.
Without a good harbour, the town is merely a service centre for the locality,
pasteurizing milk from the surrounding farms. Consisting of a handful of uneventful
streets and the odd shop, the centre of town straddles both banks of the river, accessed
from the Ringroad by the roads of Blöndubyggð on the southern side and Húnabraut
on the northern shore. There's little reason to stop here, other than to quickly pop into
the town's only attraction,
Hafíssetrið
exhibition on sea ice.
VATNSDALSHÓLAR
Clustered around the turn-off to Route 721 for Þingeyrar and Route 722, the extensive area of
small hillocks known as
Vatnsdalshólar
are in fact leftover debris from a massive landslide
from the Vatnsdalsfjall mountains west of the Hóp lagoon. These conical-shaped hills cover a
total area of around four square kilometres and are so numerous that they have become one
of Iceland's three “uncountables”: the other two are the islands of Breiðafjörður and the lakes of
Arnarvatnsheiði moors near Húsafell. One of the hillocks,
Þrístapar
, has gone down in history
as the location for Iceland's last beheading, when a couple were executed on it in 1830 for a
double murder.
