Day 14

Going west the seemingly endless plain of Skeiðarársandur where the main attraction is the twisted iron of a 1996 destroyed bridge, I came to Kirkjubæjarklaustur. Yes, it is a frightening name unless you know how to break it up into Kirkju-bæjar-klaustur, which means church-farm-cloister. It's a small town where I first went to the public bath since it was a beautiful sunny morning. Then I had lunch and a look at their main attraction Kirkjugólf (which means church floor), a place where columnar basalt rock has been naturally planed at ground level by a glacier, so that it looks like pavement, wie ein gelegtes Pflaster.

Only a short distance north of Kirkjugólf is a more hidden attraction, another very beautiful waterfall. Here was the location of an ancient thingstead. Today there is a campsite.

Continuing on the road westward, you come across some lava fields and then there is a place called Laufskálavarða right next to the road where travellers have built hundreds or thousands of little cairns (Steinmännchen). You see these a lot in Iceland, but nowhere as many in one place. There is a reason for it: it was an old tradition that travellers built a cairn here, which was thought to bring them a safe journey through Iceland. This tradition is still done today.

The last remarkable point on this day's drive was Vík í Mýrdal (generally just known as Vík) where these picturesque rocks stand upright in the ocean. Of course there is a legend about them: they are thought to be petrified trolls.