Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2015, Qupperneq 39

39The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 10 — 2015 TRAVEL
Distance from Reykjavík
650 km
house for them to sleep.’ And that’s ex-
actly what they did.”
The experiment worked. As we sit
eating a dinner of local trout, lamb and
skyr and looking out over the misty
fjord, we wish we were staying here for
a week, not just a night—Berunes feels
like a home away from home.
The crystal maze
The following morning, we bid farewell
to Þórir and rejoin Route One to con-
tinue up the coast. It’s a dramatic road,
with clouds rolling down the mountains
on one side and the blue sea crashing
against the rocky shore on the other.
Raindrops roll off the windscreen and
visibility is low, but this coastline is
breathtaking in any weather.
The next town is Stöðvarfjörður,
huddled against the mountainside under
the heavy rain. Populated by about 200
people, Stöðvarfjörður is famous as the
site of Petra’s Stone Collection—a muse-
um of minerals and crystals collected by
the late Ljósberg Petra María Sveinsdót-
tir. Petra used to roam the surrounding
hills looking for crystals, minerals and
colourful rocks, bringing them back to
arrange in her garden. Over the years,
her hobby snowballed into a collection
numbering in the thousands, attracting
a flow of visitors in the process.
In the rain, the colours really come
to life. The vast array of deep green and
bright red jaspers, bulbous white chal-
cedonies and glittering quartz geodes is
an intoxicating spectacle. Petra’s house
has become a part of the museum, and
also holds a shop for
visitors to pick out a
crystal as a memento
of this one-off place.
Being here
A more recent fixture in Stöðvarfjörður is
the HERE Creative Space, an ambitious
redevelopment of a disused fish factory.
By far the biggest building in the town,
the factory is daubed in colourful mu-
rals, catching the eye even from across
the fjord. Still under reconstruction, it’s
already open, hosting the homely Pólar
Festival, an artist residency, and a pro-
gramme of art and music shows, as well
as wood, metal and ceramics workshops
and a craft shop to sell what they make.
Rather than being pulled down or left
to rot, the various spaces of the factory
are today a hive of activity. As well as
revitalising the town with much-needed
jobs, this hugely impressive project may
well provide an alternative roadmap to
prosperity for Iceland’s post-industrial
towns by its projected 2017 completion
date.
As we head back towards Egilsstaðir,
I’m struck not only by east Iceland’s
wilderness, but also by the resourceful-
ness and imagination of its people. From
Petra’s Stone Collection, to the steady
progress of Berunes, to the unbridled
ambition of the HERE project, these
rocky fjords have proven over the years
to be a surprising cradle of adaptive,
creative enterprise. As well as photos,
souvenirs and postcards, perhaps that
spirit is the most valuable thing of all for
passing visitors to take back home.
BOOK YOUR FLIGHT OR
DAY TOUR AT AIRICELAND.IS
ÍSAFJÖRÐUR
ICELAND’S WESTFJORDS
ARE ONLY 40 MINUTES AWAY
Let’s fly
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Flights provided by AirIceland:
www.airiceland.is
“Compared to the
flat-topped plateaus of
the west, the old east
seems to be slump-
ing seawards under
its own weight... the
horizontal lines of the
sedimentary rock turn
into breathtaking di-
agonals as the moun-
tains collapse slowly
into the ocean.”
Car provided by Hertz:
www.hertz.is
Accommodation provided by Berunes:
www.berunes.is.
4g wi-fi provided by Vodafone:
www.vodafone.is.