Iceland: Day 9

Day 9 in Iceland was again more driving.  Begin a Sunday there was very little open to do so it was a good day to drive.  We had hoped to make a few stops at a couple of churches and the only country bar in Iceland, but many of the churches were occupied when we got there, and the country bar was closed for a private event.  Below are a few pictures of what we were able to see.

This is Gothafoss, meaning waterfall of the gods.  It is said that after the local chieftain made the decision to convert to Christianity (following the decision that Christianity would be the official religion in Iceland) he threw all this statues of the Norse gods into this waterfall, hence it became the waterfall of the gods. 

Although this time we chose to take the tunnels instead of the wandering waterside roads on the northern side of the island, we did find surface from time to time along beautiful fjords. 

 This was the second church we stopped at this day.  The first church we visited first thing in the morning and was designed by the same architect who designed Hallgrimskirkja (the big church in Reykjavik), but the service was just starting so we simply drove by.  This church was in Holar, and is the oldest stone church in Iceland (built in 1763).  We had hoped to go inside because it was said to have some neat features, but there was a wedding or something of that sort happening when we got there, so we just wandered the grounds.  It was a very different style of church for Iceland as the bell tower was not attached to the main building.

The last church we saw this day (before trying to get dinner at the Country bar) was Thingeyri church, which was completed in 1877.  This church is known for its construction, which makes use of the Romanesque style with walls nearly a meter thick.  On the ceiling there's supposed to be 1000 golden stars, but we weren't able to see them because it was locked.  

 Towards the end of our driving day we made an unplanned stop at a road side parking lot that turned out to be a short hike up a pseudo crater with a view of a second smaller crater (seen above).  It was windy as anything, and despite feeling like we were going to be blown away, this was probably the highlight of the day.

Josh at the top of the crater we climbed.... notice it was so windy, Josh's curls were blown straight!!

Overall, it was a slightly disappointing day due to the number of failed attempts to see things that were supposed to be open.  But we made the best of it.