A destination that is becoming well known for a large amount of tourism.
This site is the result of two trips to Iceland. The first one in 2010, when I stayed a few days in its capital, Reykjavik. The second trip was in 2018, during the Northern Hemisphere spring, when we travelled with my wife by airplane to the north of the island and starting from Akureyri (the second city of the Country), we made a circuit with a hired car through the countryside and the coast, reaching the small village of Raufarhöfn, with just 270 inhabitants and which is almost over the Arctic Circle. The routes are in good conditions, but are very narrow. That becomes dangerous when there are sudden climate changes and the visibility is reduced to zero because of the fog. In 2010 Iceland was still in shock due to the serious financial crisis that had suffered in 2008 and 2009, because of the speculation that had been triggered with the so called financial derivatives, that collapsed because they lacked real financial support. Bankers and officials were imprisoned; the economy was adjusted and tourism was given a great incentive. In 2018 we saw that the economic situation of Iceland, was once again, very prosperous.
I had seen images of small traditional constructions whose roofs were covered with grass that worked as insulation of the cold, rainy and humid weather. There are some reconstructed farms, for tourist consume, that are conditioned to appreciate how the way of life had been once. But the authentic ones, are the three churches made of wood, with the roof covered with peat and grass, that are located in that region and that are kept as they were originally built, some of them during the Middle Ages. What is wonderful, is its location in the middle of nature. The most impressive is the church near Hofsos. To reach it, it is necessary to leave the car quite away and a valley opens in front of you, to horizon. And you walk in that direction and you see the presence of “something” in the middle of the valley. It is a small and circular construction that while walking, can be distinguished as the small church made of wood, with its fence and its entrance portico. There is nothing at all in the valley. The summer sun is extremely hard and flush and a very cold wind blows. In summer, there are only 45 minutes of darkness (after midnight) and one imagine, how hard the winter will be there, with just that lapse of time with daylight.
