Westman Islands, Iceland

We got our rental car and headed east, with the rest of the busloads of people, trying to see all that there is to see in the southern coast of Iceland (there is a LOT).  Along the way we took a slight detour…maybe an hour…to see yet another waterfall, this one called Hjalparfoss.  There was almost nobody else there…a huge departure from our experiences around Reykjavik.

Not overly tall, but quite beautiful.  It was worth the detour!

It was during this detour that I discovered our rental car, a plug-in hybrid, doesn’t have much in the way of fuel efficiency.  We were below a half tank already, in the middle of fricking nowhere.  Kim looked at the owners manual, and we discovered the fuel tank on this Jeep is only 9.6 gallons!  To top it off, they didn’t even give us a cable to plug the car in.  WTF?  Bottom line, I have been filling up at most every gas station we come across.

We checked into Umi Hotel, our home for 3 days, and had an excellent dinner.  The hotel is typical of Iceland, very modern looking and trying to fit in with the environment.  I highly suggest this hotel as a stopping point on the south coast.

We took a walk to the beach afterwards….damn that beach is a long ways off!  This is a typical black sand beach that we saw everywhere on the south side of Iceland.

The next morning we made the half hour trek to the ferry that would take us to Heimaey, one of the Westman Islands.  Below is one of the islands, with one home all on it’s lonesome (the little white dot on the left).  Man could I crank the tunes out there!!!

The entrance to the harbor is very dramatic, with cliffs looming over you the entire way.

I’ve gotta say, it’s been hard to get used to all of this beauty in one place!

On the way to the island I booked a tour for 2:30 with “EyjaTours“.  We got off the ferry, and when we walked into their office they advised they had two spots open for their 12:00 tour.  Boom, my luck is paying off!

Let me be clear, we have been on dozens and dozens of tours over the years, but this tour with Ebbi, the owner of the company, would be the best tour we have ever taken…the tour has set the bar for all future tours!  Ebbi was that amazing!  Here he is introducing himself by talking about a children’s book regarding Puffins.  He is a Puffin expert, a Westman Island native, and the most passionate, articulate and informed tour guide ever!

Ebbi made it clear that this tour is more about getting off the bus than just driving around.  Our first stop was at a spot where the local boys train to use the ropes on the cliffs for hunting eggs, one of their important local jobs, particularly in the past.

Here is a video of Ebbi performing for the crowd.

We visited the golf course, which just so happens to be in the caldera of a former volcano.  I rarely play golf, but I’d love to play here!

Ebbi advised that this is one the first places the Vikings landed in Iceland.  He also pointed out numerous puffins flying by.  They are terrible flyers.  Sorry, no photos yet.

During Covid, Ebbi rented this spot out from the local government.  This is a replica of the first Viking settlement in Iceland, based on the footprint found just 50 yards away from this site.  He has poured his blood, sweat and tears into this endeavor, and he hopes to make it a must-see attraction by the time he’s done.  Based on our experience, he’s already done it.

They have an actual Viking in the house…at least he said he was an actual Viking.  I’m not questioning him!

He took us to the extreme southern end of the island where the Puffins were in abundance!  They were flying back and forth in the area below, but you can’t really see them in the photo.  Still a beautiful spot.

Here is a field of the lovely Puffins.  Don’t worry, we have better photos coming up in a future blog post.  Getting close to these involved likely killing myself, and I opted out of that.

If you really want to see a Puffin up close, just look at the side of Ebbi’s mini-bus!

The last stop on the tour was the epicenter of the 1973 eruption on Heimaey, which struck without warning, causing the entire island to evacuate in the middle of the night.

You can hike to the top of the cinder cone of the volcano, or you can have Ebbi take your photo near the epicenter and pretend you hiked all the way.

This house, known as “Lucky 13”,  has an address of 13 on this unpronounceable street, and you can see from the photo that the lava stopped just short of the house.  There were numerous houses behind this one that weren’t so lucky.

There is a museum on the island, Eldheimar, where they basically dug a house buried in ash out and made a museum out of it.  It’s an interesting coverage of the events surrounding the eruption, and well worth the visit.

They even left a bunch of the ash inside the house.

This is what the landscape looked like after the eruption, at least for the houses and buildings that didn’t get burned down.

At the Viking house that Ebbi is working on, they sold an ale that was based on an old Viking recipe, and we of course bought some.  This is the brewery that made it.  I’m a sucker for a local brewery, and had to have a beer here before taking the ferry back.

This church on the island was donated by the Norwegians to commemorate the country’s conversion to the Lutheran faith.  I wish we had time to visit it as it looks gorgeous.

Here are the volcanic cones from 1973, from the ferry as we are heading back to the mainland.  The one on the right is the main cone of the volcano.  A grim reminder that we are at the whim of mother nature.

If you get to Iceland, make an effort to get to the Westman Islands, and definitely book with Ebbi and EyjaTours!  It was definitely a highlight of the trip for us!