On the assumption that you’re someone who likes looking at landscapes, admiring the beauty of nature with your eyes or through photos taken by someone else, then Iceland is never going to disappoint you. Unless you spend all your time in a fish-canning warehouse. I wouldn’t advise that sort of vacation for your first time visiting this spectacularly beautiful country, though; get out, take a look at the vast panoramas, feel immensely small, have your breath taken away by the stunning sights or, if you’re travelling to Iceland in the winter, the sub-zero temperatures. Iceland has landscapes you’re going to love, and even if you book a trip while you’re there that doesn’t sound like it will have any at all – a visit to a turf house museum, to choose something completely at random – then you’re still going to be impressed by the views on the way there, if nothing else.
We were visiting Iceland in the summer for the first time, and on our first day there during our 2022 Sky Princess cruise we’d docked at Akureyri then embarked on a half-day excursion. Celebrating the lifting of the fog that had hounded us across the Norwegian Sea, I got all giddy and did something I don’t do very often, and took some photos while on the bus. You might be able to see why I’m not keen on doing this: reflections! But, sometimes it’s more important to capture a true sense of the journey rather than simply filtering the account to the perfectly-photographed and arguably less-real impressions.
Our excursion started with a visit to the Laufás Turf House Museum, managed by the Akureyri Museum. The bus parked up and we all gathered to listen to a couple of young, local guides dressed in traditional Icelandic clothing associated with the period of the house we’d be looking at. At least, I hope that’s why they were wearing what they were wearing.
Records indicate the presence of a church at Laufás in the eleventh century, and a fire therein the following century, and the place features in a couple of Icelandic Sagas. The former manor house on the site became a vicarage in the nineteenth century, and our initial impression from looking at it was that we were looking at five separate houses, perhaps for the family and workers of the location. In fact, what we were really seeing was five gables of essentially a single dwelling. Stepping inside brought sudden understanding as we found ourselves in a labyrinth of interconnected rooms, corridors, and staircases, making the whole place somewhat TARDIS-like. Our time inside the Laufás Turf House was one of joy and wonder and frequent questioning whether we’d been in this room yet or up those stairs yet.
After spending time clambering around rooms and ducking through doors and dodging past other passengers from the cruise ship exploring the museum building, we headed back out into the bright sunshine of this part of Iceland. Our next bit of exploration would be inside the church adjacent to the house.
Laufás Church was built in 1865 and is notable for its curved ceiling inside the roof space and the carvings on its pulpit which date from 1698. I’m going to assume that the pulpit came from another church and that this isn’t yet another example of religious folk messing with the timelines, but those religious folk do like to mess with the timelines. Remember back when Jesus was called Annabel? No, nobody does now.
Back out in the Icelandic sunshine once again we spent the remainder of our time at Laufás Turf House Museum enjoying the warmth of the day and the contrasts between the bright blue of the sky and the vibrant green of the grass, the distant views to snow-topped mountains, and the old farm equipment left around to appeal to rust fetishists who are a very important travel demographic often overlooked by the tourism industry.
In the next part of this cruise travelogue series we’ll hit the second stop on this day’s excursion with a visit to Goðafoss and Geitafoss Waterfalls.