As I promised last Friday on my Iceland waterfalls photos post, today I will publish some never-seen-before shots from my winter trip there. Thus, Vik Iceland beach and surroundings are this week’s Travel Tuesday features.
Also read: Iceland Couchsurfing and hitchhiking
Vik Iceland beach and town location
While I usually travel on a shoestring and recently discovered the joys of travel without a plan, I took 3 tours while in Iceland and they were well worth the money. Not only was Go Travel Iceland the agency that offered the cheapest tours around, but also they are the most thorough. I remember our tour guide, owner Gumi, taking us to rugged off-beaten-path places in his van that not even other 4×4 tours would go into! The passion for Iceland was reflected on Gumi’s face at every stop we made, and he truly made my trip to Iceland incredibly memorable (in addition to my Couchsurfing hosts of course!). Hope you enjoy the Vik photos we took during our South Coast tour!
The town of Vik
The full name of the southernmost village in Iceland is Vík í Mýrdal (Wikipedia). It is home to only about 300 inhabitants and in constant threat of natural disasters. Not only does it have the Mýrdalsjökull glacier right above it, but also the Katla volcano happens to sit right below the glacier! It is said that the only safe place, if Katla were to erupt, is the town’s church.
On our way to Vik! I made our tour guide stop =P
The town of Vik from our van window (the “safe” church afar)
Glacier from the road: On our way to Vik beach
Vik Iceland beach: Solidified lava and black sand
While I have posted photos of the amazing formations of Vik’s volcanic beach before, I got a couple more to show you!
Entering the famous Vik black sand beach. I couldn’t believe my eyes
Marcello and I climbing the amazing lava formations
Solidified lava! This particular wall gave me a weird sense of vertigo when I photographed it
Me! =)
This was the last stop of our South Coast tour. Needless to say, it was sad when we had to leave. So after hours of beautiful landscapes, and a beaming orange sunset, the town of Vik said farewell. Fortunately, we had a local electronica concert, some happy Couchsurfers, and delicious Icelandic food waiting for us in Reykjavik.
Farewell, Vik!
Hope you enjoyed these Vik Iceland beach photos! I’ll post more of our other stops, including one of NatGeo’s Top 10 Most Beautiful Beaches in the world, next week.