On my way

I have left Reykjavik, going north. Yesterday the news said that Hekla might be going to erupt "soon", today they reported that Katla just has had a glacial flood damage a section of the ring road in the south. Either way, I'm not affected right now since I'm going in the other direction.

With respect to Konrad Maurer's travel, I'm still going backwards in time, i.e. I'm seeing the places first where he was last, in the reverse order. There was no ring road back then, there was not even any road. He travelled in a convoy (or rather, caravan) of 12 horses with three other men. They did not have a tent, so they stayed overnight in farmsteads (bærs, Gehöfte), and mostly in those bærs where a church was and where a priest lived. Every bær in Iceland has a name and these names are shown in every decent street map (unfortunately not in Google Maps). There are also always signs where their access roads branch off the main road. The bærs are generally handed over from one generation to the next, and maintained under the same name. The name stays while the old buildings are usually replaced by new ones every couple of generations. The same is true for the churches, as I experienced today.

Today on my way I came by three church-bærs on the west coast where Konrad had stayed: Saurbær (8 Sept 1858), Borg (2 Sept 1858) and Miklaholt (30 Aug 1858). All of them still exist as churches, but have been rebuilt in the 20th century or at least heavily renovated, so they probably don't look today the way they looked in 1858. Still, they are important landmarks for me while travelling here now.