Snæfellsnes

Snæfellsnes is often described as Iceland in miniature, and for good reason. On this one peninsula in the west of the country you find lava fields, black beaches, rugged cliffs, and waterfalls that elsewhere would justify a trip of their own, here simply sitting by the roadside.

On this stretch of the 2018 journey I came across a waterfall that hardly anyone seems to know, one that appears on none of the usual lists of Iceland’s great falls. That was exactly what made it interesting, no barrier tape, no crowd, just the sound of the water and the wind coming in off the coast. Moments like this remind you how much of Iceland still exists beyond the well-known stops.

Above it all sits Snæfellsjökull, the glacier-capped volcano that shapes the peninsula’s silhouette from almost every angle. I found myself thinking of Jules Verne, who made this mountain the starting point of Journey to the Center of the Earth, and standing there it isn’t hard to see why a volcano that looks like it could hide a passage into the depths would spark a writer’s imagination.

The coastline here is wild, unpredictable, and different in every light, a place I am always glad to return to.