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Day 9
Not everyone wants to get there, many do not have enough time for that. Statistics shows that only 14% of visitors to Iceland visit this land. We decided that we must go there, as to make our trip to Iceland “full”. The western fiords are the most deserted place on the island. There are many legends connected with their uprising. One of them says that trolls made the bet that they manage to break this piece of land and they began to “tear apart” the coast of Iceland. Ultimately the plan has failed – it lacked 80 km :-). This is of the width of the “entrance” to the land of amazing things.
The only major city (1200 inhabitants :-)) is Isafjordur, which is considered to be the capital of the West Fjords. We headed our steps there, because we have accommodation by a couchsurfer – Einar.
Fiords are really amazing creations of nature. Contact with crystal clear water and the stark bizarre rock formations make an electrifying impression. And this silence and total lack of anyone around :-). We have been stopping more or less every 30 minutes to take a picture :-). We wanted to stop more often, but in many places it was not just possible. All the time bends, hills, narrowings, etc. Just after 2 p.m. we got to Isafjordur. To our surprise the city – despite the small number of inhabitants – is a lively “metropolis”. There are shopping malls, pubs, museums, generally, there is something to do. We had four hours to meet with Einar. We set out to explore the city. First of all, we went to the old harbor area, where the main buildings date back to the early 19th century. We visited the ethnographic museum, where we had the opportunity to look up close the diving suit of a diver from the early twentieth century – you need to admit that they were the brave ones, those who decided for a dive dressed like that (see photo gallery).
Most of our time in Isafjordur we spent however in a charming cafe Braedraborg. The place has its unique atmosphere. Mania found something for herself, and even we made up a backlog of drinking good coffee.
It is interesting that Isafjordur is one of the largest cluster of our compatriots on the island. It is manifested in that way that you can hear the Polish language on the street very often, and at the surrounding of Bonus you can find a shop with Polish products! :-). In the evening Einar explained us that many Poles came here to work in fish processing, in the factories located nearby.
Einar himself is also an interesting person. He just started an adventure with couchsurfing, and we were his first guests. He probably did not know how it is to be in the situation when strangers are bossing in the house. He could not get over that we decided to travel with Mania. But she acclimatized by Einar fairly quickly, because in less than an hour she began to browse the hosts’ vinyl records – to his horror :-).
