Stykkishólmur: the town and the ferry

Stykkishólmur is the one place on Snæfellsnes that works as a base rather than a photo stop. Twelve hundred people, a harbour full of old timber houses, and a small basalt island at the end of the pier that you can walk up in five minutes for the whole of Breiðafjörður laid out in front of you.

Most day tours from Reykjavík give the peninsula eleven hours and the town twenty minutes. If you have your own car, give it a night.

Súgandisey

The island at the harbour mouth, joined to the town by a causeway you can drive or walk. A path zigzags up the basalt to a small orange lighthouse at the top. From there you see the fjord, the islands scattered across it, and the mountains of the Westfjords on the far side on a clear day.

It takes five minutes to climb and almost nobody on a coach tour does it, because twenty minutes in town gets spent on coffee. It is the single best thing in Stykkishólmur and it is free.

The Library of Water

At the top of the town, in the old library building above the harbour. Roni Horn filled twenty-four glass columns with water taken from twenty-four Icelandic glaciers, standing in a room with a rubber floor and windows on three sides.

Be clear about what it is: an art installation, not a library, and not a museum of glaciers. People arrive expecting exhibits and leave puzzled. Arrive expecting a quiet room with light moving through water and it is worth half an hour. The floor has Icelandic weather words set into it, which is the part we like.

Breiðafjörður, and the ferry nobody plans for

The fjord in front of the town is full of islands — the local count is that they are uncountable, which is the sort of thing Icelanders say and mean literally, since nobody agrees on what counts as an island. Boat trips run out among them in summer, and the seabird cliffs are busy from May.

The ferry is the practical point. Baldur sails from Stykkishólmur across the fjord to Brjánslækur on the southern shore of the Westfjords, calling at Flatey. Driving the same distance means going all the way back round the head of the fjord — roughly five hours against under three on the boat, and the boat is the more interesting journey. If the Westfjords are on your itinerary and you have a car, look at the sailing times before you plan the route round.

Flatey itself, the one inhabited island on the crossing, is a village of timber houses with no cars and one hotel. You can break the journey there for a few hours or a night in summer.

Getting there without a car

Every Snæfellsnes day tour from Reykjavík passes near, but only some stop in the town. Those that name it: the Snæfellsnes Peninsula & Stykkishólmur small group tour from €141, twelve hours, and the Chinese-guided Snæfellsnes and Stykkishólmur day tour from €129.

The general peninsula tours are cheaper and go to Kirkjufell instead. BusTravel’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula Tour is from €127 for eleven hours, Nordur Travel’s small group version from €130, and Arctic Adventures’ Snæfellsnes and Kirkjufell small group from €137. Any of them is a long day: eleven hours for about five hours of actual peninsula.

Our honest take

If you are doing Snæfellsnes in a day from Reykjavík, do not pick your tour on whether it stops in Stykkishólmur. Twenty minutes in the town is not the point of the peninsula — Kirkjufell, the lava at Búðir and the coast at Arnarstapi are. Take 150532 at €127 and be content.

If you have a car and two days, sleep here. Climb Súgandisey in the evening when the light is low and the coaches have gone, and take the morning ferry if the Westfjords are next. That crossing is the reason the town exists, and it is still the best way to arrive anywhere in Iceland.