Westfjords, Iceland Sept. 7-9, 2023

 We’re doing the ring road clockwise going to the Snaefellsness peninsula (last post) and the Westfjords region first on the trip since the weather gets colder and stormier here earlier than east Iceland.  The Westfjords is a big region way off of the ring road in northwest Iceland, and as the name implies, the location of numerous fjords.  Our time here was truly magical and spectacular.  We absolutely loved where we stayed out side of the small town of Pingeyri.  Views of the fjord in one direction, and a view of the highest peak in the Westfjords in the other. Incredibly peaceful, serene and spectacular.  And we saw almost no one else..We felt like we had Iceland to ourselves.   Quite the drive getting there too, as a lot of it was on gravel roads.  Amazing number of small unnamed waterfalls everywhere, one showstopper waterfall..Dynjandi, and beautiful fjords.  We were here for three nights and did a 5 mile hike just up the road from our place one day with breathtaking scenery and lighting.  Drove to Isafjordur one day through a 3 mile long one lane tunnel (one way has the right of way, the other way has numerous pull outs for oncoming cars to sneak into) and drove to Sudureyri in another 1.5 mile tunnel, and to Flateyri, a town we really liked.  It’s the site of the building that house Iceland’s first business (it’s a bookstore now..closed when we were there) and also the site of a 1996 avalanche that buried part of the town and killed 20 people.  An absolutely stunning area that we thoroughly enjoyed.