Rif
After a night spent sleeping in bunk beds at the Freezer Hostel in Rif, we drove around the neighboring village to look at their plethora of street art and murals.
This mural was our uncontested favorite with its central figure of a giant blue whale sporting the head of a black, Hercules beetle. Around the massive whale, which takes up the majority of the storage building wall it’s painted on, are tiny, presumably human spectators gazing up at the beast. Seeing this grandiose mural existing casually behind an assortment of farm equipment and flower pots, right next to the sea, is a perfect example of how art can be found in the most unexpected places while traveling through Iceland.
Settlement Center
As we left the Snæfellsnes peninsula and headed back towards Reykjavík, we made a pitstop at The Settlement Center in Borgarnes. Here we enjoyed a “wellness buffet” of assorted vegetarian salads, tomato soup, and of course, bread and butter.
After lunch we viewed the center’s two exhibits- The Settlement Exhibition and The Egil Saga Exhibition. Egil’s Saga, widely believed to be written by the prolific Snorri Sturluson of Iceland, depicts the tale of Egil Skalla-Grimsson, one of the first settlers of Borgarnes, through an impressive assortment of hand-carved, wooden figurines and tableaus like these Icelandic sheep on a mossy rock formation.