Snæfellsnes

In Voyage au centre de la terre by Jules Verne, Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel start the journey to the center of the earth in the crater of the jökull of Snæfell after deciphering a coded note written in runic script:

“Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the jökull of Snæfell, which the shadow of Scartaris touches (lit: tastes) before the Kalends of July, and you will attain the centre of the earth. I did it. Arne Saknussemm”

My journey to Snæfellsnes was somewhat less adventurous. For a start I had a very comfortable Suzuki Vitara 4x4 to my disposal. Still, Snæfellsnes is a really deserted place. I first drove to Borgarnes for a stopover and black coffee, but it was still dark when I reached Borgarnes. The live traffic service of my TomTom navigation showed many exclamation marks (!!!!!!) along the way, but I decided to ignore those. I entered Hellnar as a destination since it has a restaurant. Or so I thought.

At a gas station I learned that a big storm was going to hit Iceland around coffee time. “What time is that?”, I had to ask. “Around 4 o’clock”, I learned. The Road and Coastal Administration (IRCA) advised to avoid driving after that time. Suddenly I had a time schedule.

After driving for more than 5 hours since I left Reykjavík I found the only restaurant in Hellnar closed. Not many people visit Hellnar in wintertime and for good reasons. Hellnar is not much more than a small church, the closed hotel-restaurant and a few scattered buildings. In 1703 there were 194 people registered as inhabitants of Hellnar. Since then the village has declined, no more fish is being landed here. But it is the gateway to Snæfellsjökull National Park. Since I was getting really hungry I had little choice than to keep on driving, trough the park to Ólafsvík, the nearest village, boasting a population of 1.010.

The church of Hellnar built in 1945 on the site of an older church.

Fresh cod in SKER Restaurant, Ólafsvík. Nice touch were thin slices of cauliflower marinated in vinegar.

Svarta Kaffi

Amazingly we know exactly when coffee arrived in Iceland. Coffee arrived precisely on November 16, 1703, “when Árni Magnússon – a scholar and collector of many highly valuable Nordic manuscripts – acquired a quarter of a pound of coffee from a friend.” By the mid-19th century, drinking coffee had become a daily habit. When driving in Iceland I stopped at every gas station for a cup of black coffee - or in practice every hour or so. The last hour and a half before arriving back in Reykjavik the storm hit the island, heavily. My speed dropped from 90 to 30 kilometres per hour so the car wasn’t blown off the road. The round trip from Reykjavík took me 10 hours.