Volcanos, Waterfalls and Puffins – We’re Back in Amazing Iceland

Days 21-23, 2025 European Odyssey

Saturday-Monday, July 19-21, 2025; Grundarfjørdur and Reykjavik, Iceland.

The trope that Eskimos have many words for snow is debated among linguists, but it does illustrate the belief that those whose life is filled with snow probably understand its nuances better than people who’ve never seen it.

If vocabulary does reflect such experiences, then the residents of Grundarfjørdur know something about wind. Local artist Sólrún Halldórsdóttir illustrates the concept in a simple sculpture showing 112 Icelandic words for wind.

I discovered this unusual artwork during a walk around the small town on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula. On a previous visit, I toured the highlights of the peninsula and its glacier-covered volcano, so this time I just tendered ashore to stretch my legs.

Nearby a statue pays tribute to the fisherman who have lived here for generations. A sailor woman faces the sea, standing on a rock column representing Snæfellsnes. A metal sculpture represents Kirkjufell. Today the hill was shrouded in fog.

On our first of two days Reykjavik, I joined a 10-hour private tour to the South Coast. It´s a longer tour than I prefer, but we had to drive a couple of hours to reach the popular sites on the South Coast.

Reykjavik’s most popular all-day tour is the Golden Circle, reaching waterfalls, geothermal pools, earthquake damage and the mid-Atlantic rift, where you can have a foot on each of two continents. But having done that, I took advantage of our overnight stop to take this longer tour on our first day. It left me to explore the capital city on foot our second day, something I enjoyed doing on separate visits in 2023 (here and here). I even sketched the city’s iconic church again, this time from a different perspective.

Back to the South Coast. After a couple of hours, we reached our first waterfall, Seljalandsfoss (foss meaning falls in Icelandic). On a sunny day I’ve heard that rainbows are the highlight of taking the path that leads behind the falls.

Today with overcast and foggy skies, we could just count on getting wet, so I passed. Another path highlights the numerous smaller falls that line the old sea cliff.

Birds, and specifically puffins, were the stars of our stop at the Dyrhólaey Peninsula.

Our guide warned us not to get too close to the edge, as there is nothing to keep stupid tourists from falling right off the cliff.

I didn’t need a warning and was glad I had my Lumix 60x optical camera.

The puffins are fun to watch, as they must continually flap their wings to keep their pudgy bodies aloft. In comparison, the Arctic terns gracefully glide along the cliffs.

The Reynisfjara black sand beach came with a different warning: Watch out for sneaker waves. These unpredictable and surprisingly strong waves can pull you into the water with potentially fatal results.

Our visit came during low tide, which meant we had plenty of black sand and rock beach to explore without getting too close to the water. We were able to safely view the famous basalt hexagonal columns formed by cooling lava of distant volcano eruptions.

You can’t go far in Iceland without seeing more waterfalls, and we visited a second one during our return to Reykjavik. Skógafoss is one of the largest, and according to at least one guide to Iceland, is the most beautiful. A few of the more energetic in our group made it to the top viewing platform (572 steps).

Speaking of volcanos, during our Reykjavik visit a volcano was erupting on the Reykjanes Peninsula. It wasn’t an explosive volcano sending lava and ash from a mountain high into the atmosphere. Instead, it bubbled and oozed along a half-mile fissure. It did manage to temporarily close the popular Blue Lagoon a few days before we arrived. Last time I visited Reykjavik this same volcano also erupted.

Friends who took a tour to the peninsula said they could see the eruption in the distance, but the fog (and perhaps “vlog,” or volcano fog) obscured their view. I will be back in about a month and might look into a tour if the eruption is continuing.