ICELAND RING ROAD part 5, (July 14-25, 2018)



The brand spanking new guest house accommodations were very comfortable and we were able to sleep in a bit, quiet on this island. It had a nice kitchen to use, but we decided to eat breakfast in the larger main house on the property. If you've looked into traveling to Iceland I'm sure you've read about certain things being fairly expensive here, cooking some of your own meals is a great way to keep your costs down . For $20 a person at the guest house we had a modest buffet with no hot food other than toast, but I made the best salami, cheese, cucumber, tomato, sliced hardboiled egg sandwich you've ever seen! the ladies had yogurt and cereal...boring!! I read somewhere that if you want to save a few dollars every day then fill up your coffee mug at your lodging, I know how to pinch a penny! One consideration you may want to take into account when booking your lodging is to determine if breakfast is included. Hard to put a good number on it, but considering average prices we paid for sit down breakfast, lunch, and dinners (couple drinks included) I'd estimate $100 per day per person is conservative, but we didn't eat 3 meals out each day. Keep in mind the menu price is the price, no tax added and tipping is not the norm like in the US... tipping is a personal thing so I won't get to deep into that. However, with all the cooking we did we saved a couple nickels.

Unfortunately or fortunately we would need to backtrack an hour to our first stop of the day at the Jokulsarlon "Glacier Lake" area. It was too late to stop the night before, but we weren't going to eliminate this amazing place from our not so detailed itinerary...honestly, how could we pass up Iceland's deepest lake with a depth of over 800 feet sitting at the base of Europe's largest glacier Vatnajojull! Our pizza waitress said the icebergs were melting and a bit smaller in July but it's worth a look...she also said to go a tad further to the lesser visited Fjallsarlon glacier lake, which we did...thank you pizza lady!















After the up close and personal with the bergs we drove back to the larger Jokulsarlon lake. We stopped before the more crowded parking lots which are on both sides of a bridge crossing the inlet that allows the icebergs to escape out to the Atlantic...cool. We climbed a small hill and all we could say was WOW! the 360 degree view of the lake, the glacier, the icebergs and the ocean was crazy! We read that only 10 percent of an iceberg is visible above water, that's pretty amazing. Now we also heard that some of the icebergs that make a run for it often times get pushed back onto a black beach called Diamond Beach...had to check this out!














Now onward to the magical East Fjords, but first some tasty fried cod and fries at the Port of Hofn! Order of fish and chips $24 add a cold Gull another $10...how will I stay under $100 today?! During this leg of the trip we would drive through a few tunnels, the first about a mile long outside of Hofn called Almannakardsgong and the longest we saw was Nordfjardargong at over 4.5 miles. The jaw dropping scenic drive included long straight runs through vast moss covered lava fields to what I would consider nail biting shore side cliff sections. Iceland has plenty of guardrails, however they aren't always where we thought they should be...like on corners with say a 300 foot drop and an oncoming vehicle on your inside, did I mention our rental car tires were slightly bald?! Luckily there aren't any tour buses hogging the road in these parts! Our destination was a fishing village called Neskauptadur in fjord Nordfjordur, just a couples miles shy of the eastern edge of Iceland. With a population 1500 and one of the largest fishing companies around we expected good local fish for dinner. An interesting side note, we just missed a very large annual music festival by a week there, I can't imagine what this quaint village is like when they host 40 heavy metal and punk rock bands... on the bucket list, why not?!!













There were a few small villages along the way and finding diesel is not a problem, we always started our day with a full tank by the way, just in case! Funny, we would see a village just across a fjord and realize by the time we drove to the far end of the fjord and back it could be an hour til we got there. We wanted to stop so many times for pics, we really had to control that urge with at least 262km to cover. We did make a stop in one small fishing village Djupivogur, very picturesque and they have coffee shops!









We arrived at our apartment right in the middle of Neskauptadur around 8pm, had to check in at the micro hotel attached to it. The hotel restaurant offered a buffet for $70pp, but we asked where to go for a waterfront experience, they sent us to the Bait Shack. It was just a 2 minute walk and was a great spot. When we entered we noticed a full house...the waitress said the small inside room was being used for a community meeting and offered the "cozy attic" as an option, ok! For $36pp we ordered their house specialty "Fish Pan" served family style. This was by far our favorite dining experience of the trip. We climbed the narrow stairs and sat with a handful of jovial locals in a dimly lit attic with reindeer antlers and old fishing gear hanging everywhere, sat in antique Victorian furniture using an old trunk as our dining table..PERFECT! As we drank our cold Boli lager the waiter delivered our generous meal in a hot cast iron skillet, included Ling Cod and Wolf fish nestled in potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, capers and pine nuts and the broth!!....out of this world gooood! If I had stopped at just one beer I would have been dang close to my $100 day estimate, ah we're on vacation!!! East fjords....it's a must see!












To be continued.............