Sunday, July 28, 2019

Day 11: Saudarkrokur to Borgarnes

Eve and Leo might have declined the Herring Museum yesterday but today they were treated to the joys of a Turf House Museum.  The museum is in Glaumbaer and is a collection of twelve 18th century turf houses.  I found it utterly captivating and Eve and Leo were very tolerant of my enthusiasm.  
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HKs8Wo88fyeapDJkPmaMp_Pukh0Y9Qd7
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1o9RkETnQr2sZ5OhrziVlxi7YJo6hgtpC
The turf walls surrounding the houses
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=13orCVXXnie_Vl8737fzD-ZHeaMZbZti_
View back out to the bay
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1wknzkiKbWeX6qZ9XREe0xRQ2UxHaJzn-
Store room and cheese making equipment
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1-PJxklpIL9tWK8yeVnVbNJ_l-9tZhQds
The Christmas tree!
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1evdwC1yDi2f86SXvhlkKWgR-6BfrGiSa
This was taken by Eve specifically for Grandad (a pair of 18th century skis)
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gtcBXUfKXawtf9dIBkc5ShbcEDgp-okW
I found the beds are particularly interesting.  All round Iceland we have seen decorative bed boards (rumfjol).  In the shared bedrooms (badstofa) everyone would sit in couples on the sides of the beds with feet into the aisle and would work in the evening (spinning, knitting, combing wool, carving etc).  When it was bedtime couples would take the rumfjol and slot it into the aisle side so that they wouldn’t fall out of the bed.  As they put the rumfjol in place the prayer was said “May God’s angels sit in a circle above my covers”.  Each couple had their own rumfjol with individual carvings.
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1eJn5bx7KnmDk273E77T85uiK2dIoNWMk
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1EbbUwWmIXS5AbDbS54P6ZKDUDDqBsQQi
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15PPMp1pKVzmSNBdgLutWuknzGQtvWIBI
There was lots of beautifully painted furniture including chests andeven a backgammon boardhttps://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Z5oY8M14AiRwqwvcYJlrCat6ZO0l2MXY
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18lVa2dvO1QLY6qYgik1BEKjmRxh8bDW7
I loved all the colours and designs.  I was not expecting a Turf House museum to be a highlight for me, but it was!Talking of highlights, here is Eve’s guest blog
Eve’s five Iceland recommendations:
Any of the black sand beaches
Jokulsarlon Ice lagoon
The Whale Museum at Husavik
Dettifoss waterfall
Ice cream shop in Akureyri

By the way throughout the blog I have not put ina single accent or weird Icelandic letter - this is because I cannot get the iPad keyboard to do them properly.  
We had a bit of a change of plan during the day. The Northern coastline wasn’t particularly inspiring so we have cut a corner off our planned route and arrived in Borganes.  This means that tomorrow we will do a day trip around the Western Snaefellsnes penninsula and camp in Borganes again for the final campervan night.  It is only about an hour away from Reykjavik.

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Day 14: Reykjavik

For our final full day in Reykjavik we went to Perlan.  It is a museum high on the Oskjuhlio hills to the south east of Reykjavik.  The cent...