Southwest Iceland & the Golden Circle - Iceland - page 311

There's a saltwater swimming pool (Sundlaug Vestmannaeyja; MAP GOOGLE MAP ;
488 2400;Brimhólabraut;adult/child Ik500/180; 6.15am-9pm Mon-Fri, 10am-7pm Sat & Sun) ,
with hot-pots, a water slide and a gym.
Town Centre
Eldheimar MUSEUM
(Pompeii of the North; MAP GOOGLE MAP ; 488 2000; www.eldheimar.is ; Gerðisbraut 10;adult/
10-18 years/child Ikr1900/1000/free; 11am-6pm Jun-mid-Sep, reduced hours rest of year)
Over 400 buildings lie buried under lava from the 1973 eruption, and on the edge of the
flow 'Pompei of the North' is a new musuem revolving around one house excavated from
50m of pumice, along what was formerly Suðurvegur. The modern volcanic-stone building
allows a glimpse into the home with its crumbling walls and intact but toppled knick-
knacks, and is filled with multimedia exhibits on the eruption and its aftermath, from com-
pelling footage and eyewitness accounts to the homeowners' story.
An audioguide leads you through it all, and upstairs, there's a catwalk over the wreck-
age, a space dedicated to all things Surtsey , and a cafe with broad views across town.
Skansinn FORT, HISTORICAL QUARTER
( MAP GOOGLE MAP )
This lovely green area by the sea has several unique historical sights. The oldest structure
on the island was Skansinn, a 15th-century fort built to defend the harbour (not too suc-
cessfully - when Algerian pirates arrived in 1627, they simply landed on the other side of
the island). Its walls were swallowed up by the 1973 lava, but some have been rebuilt.
Above them, you can see the remains of the town's old water tanks , also crushed by mol-
ten rock.
Landlyst MUSEUM
( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; 11am-5pm mid-May-mid-Sep)
A shocking 80% of Heimaey's babies once died at birth, until in the 1840s an island wo-
man, Sólveig, was sent abroad to be trained as a midwife. The tiny wooden house Landlyst
was Sólveig's maternity hospital (and is the second oldest building on the island). Today it