Eastern Iceland

We boarded the Gate 1 bus in the morning knowing we had a long drive to get to the hotel we'd be staying the night in near the town of Hofn. However, Gate 1 always does a good job of scheduling interesting stops along the way. The first stop we made was at Petra's Stone Collection. The collection is housed within a garden/house that are filled with stones that were collected by an Icelander, Petra Sveindottir, beginning in 1946. She traveled all over Iceland personally collecting all of the stones displayed in the museum. As we walked through the exhibit, we were amazed at the variety of stones that were all found within Iceland.

After Petra's Stone Collection, we continued driving south with a stop in a small town for a group lunch. Then we were on our way to see the green cliffs at Blabjorg and another waterfall, Fossadalur.

Blabjorg

We've lost count of the beautiful waterfalls we have seen in Iceland!

At the end of the day, we arrived at the Fosshotel in Hofn where we stayed for two nights.  The next day was all about glaciers. We arrived at the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon eager for a boat ride amongst the floating icebergs. The blue color of the icebergs was spectacular!

We were lucky that the weather was overcast/rainy because we were told the blue color of the icebergs is more vibrant when skies are gray.

After the glacier lagoon boat ride, we crossed the road to Diamond Beach where chunks of ice that break off from the icebergs in the lagoon wash out to the beach. The ice chunks on the black beach give the appearance of diamonds.

 scattered on the beach.

It was a great day at the lagoon and Diamond Beach and it was made even better when we saw a reindeer off the side of the road as we drove back to the hotel. 

After a second night at the Hofn hotel, we started the next day with a stop at the Svinafellsjokul glacier. This glacier is an outlet glacier of Vatnajokull which is the largest ice cap in Europe. We were able to walk out to a spot where we could get some really good pictures of the glacier. It was interesting to learn from our tour guide that she used to visit this glacier with her family when she was a child. She said the glacier has receded hundreds of feet from where she remembers it being.