Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Iceland : Snaefellsjökull, Grábrók, Hraunfossar

En français
The road to Snaefellsjökull is quite difficult, it's full of rocks and we are a bit scared for our poor little car. Hopefully we manage to go through the glacier without too many problems.
On the opposite side we visited a little cave called Sönghellir.
We then drive to Grábrók where we can see some old volcanoes.
We then decide to go visit Reykholt but we get a bit confuse.
We finally arrive at Hraunfossar which is a place with several waterfall coming from the river Hvíta and from the ground. A lava-tube cave Víðgelmir is close by.
In Icelandic, Hraunfossar means the Lava Falls. We also visited the lave field called Hallmundarhraun.

One of the waterfall is "Barnafoss", Children's Falls and here is the story related to it :

Once there lived a widow on the farm Hraunás. She was well off and among her possessions was the farm Norðurreykir in Hálsasveit. She had two children. They were quite young when this story took place. There came a time when evening services were to be held at Christmas at Gilsbakki. The Mistress of Hraunsás and all her folk, except the children, attended the service. The children were told to stay at home and play. The moon was shining and the weather was fine. When the people came home the children had disappeared. Their footsteps led to the stone arch over the river. Their mother had the arch destroyed, saying that no man would ever be allowed to cross the falls alive. She later donated to the Church at Reykholt the farm Norðurreykir, in memory of her children. (Kristleifur Þorsteinsson II (1972) Hvítá.276)

We finally go to Akranes for the night.


Travel table of content

No comments:

Post a Comment