Things to do
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Arnarstapi to Hellnar Coastal Path
A marked track of about two and a half kilometres each way, running level across the Hellnahraun lava between the two villages, with sea cliffs, arches and nesting fulmars the whole distance. The coast it crosses is a protected natural monument. There is no shelter and the wind comes straight off the Atlantic, so it is walked in whatever the day gives.
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Bárður Snæfellsás Statue
A huge figure of stacked stone above the harbour, raised by the sculptor Ragnar Kjartansson to Bárður Snæfellsás, the half human, half troll guardian of the peninsula in Bárðar saga Snæfellsáss. It stands on the path between the car park and the cliffs, so nobody walking the shore misses it. Children are usually found inside it.
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Búðakirkja
A small black timber church standing alone on the Búðahraun lava field, tarred rather than painted, with a low turf walled churchyard around it. A church has stood here since 1703 and the present building dates from 1848, restored in the 1980s. It is kept locked outside services, and the reason to stop is the setting rather than the interior.
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Djúpalónssandur
A cove of black pebbles below the lava at the western end of the park, once a fishing station for sixty boats out of neighbouring Dritvík. Four lifting stones used to grade crews still lie on the sand, from Amlóði at twenty three kilos to Fullsterkur at a hundred and fifty four. The rusted plates of a British trawler wrecked in 1948 are left where they lie as a memorial.
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Gatklettur
A basalt arch standing in the surf below the village, framing the sea and the cliffs behind it, and the most photographed point on a shoreline of columnar rock, ravines and blowholes. A railed path runs along the cliff edge above it from the harbour car park. The whole stretch takes twenty minutes and the ground beyond the rail is undercut.
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Hellnar
The other end of the coastal path, a scatter of houses that was once the busiest fishing station on Snæfellsnes and now holds a handful of buildings, a church and a café above the landing. The sea cave of Baðstofa is reached down the slipway and changes colour with the light. Parking is limited and the road in is single track.
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Hotel Búðir
A long low house on the Búðahraun lava beside the black church, with the beach on one side and the glacier filling the window on the other, and nothing else within several kilometres. The dining room is the best on the peninsula and works as the reason to book. Rooms are small for the standing and the sea facing ones go first.
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Lóndrangar
Two basalt plugs standing 75 and 61 metres out of the shore platform, the eroded remains of a crater, with the taller first climbed in 1735 and the smaller not until 1938. A viewing platform sits a short walk from the car park on Route 574 and a longer path runs on to Malarrif. Farmland below is left uncut for the elves.
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Malarrif Lighthouse
A white concrete tower on the southern point of the peninsula, first lit in 1917 and rebuilt in its present form in 1946, with the national park visitor centre standing beside it. A marked coastal path runs east from here to Lóndrangar and the cliff of Þúfubjarg. It is the one place on this coast with rangers, water and an indoor exhibition.
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Rauðfeldsgjá
A narrow cleft splitting the face of Botnsfjall east of the village, invisible until the path reaches it and then opening as a slot barely wider than a person. Bárðar saga has Bárður throw his nephew Rauðfeldur into it. Going in means wading the stream over loose rock, so the entrance is as far as most walkers sensibly get.
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Viewpoint
Snæfellsjökull
The glacier capped volcano at the end of the peninsula, 1,446 metres high and visible across Faxaflói from Reykjavík on a clear day, and the entrance to the underworld in Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It last erupted about eighteen centuries ago and the ice cap is thinning fast. The summit is reached with a guide, by snowcat or on foot, and never alone.
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Snæfellsjökull National Park
Established in 2001 and the first Icelandic national park to run all the way to the sea, covering the glacier, the lava fields around it and the whole western tip of the peninsula. Route 574 loops through it and every marked site along the way is inside the boundary. The visitor centre is at Malarrif and the rangers there hold the weather and road picture.
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Vatnshellir
A lava tube about eight thousand years old beside Route 574, entered through a hatch in a collapsed roof and descending some thirty five metres on a spiral stair to two levels of tunnel. There is no lighting, so entry is only with a guide, who issues helmets and lamps. Tours run to a timetable and the cave stays a few degrees above freezing.
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Ytri-Tunga
A farm on the south coast whose beach is one of the few reliable places in Iceland to see harbour seals hauled out on the rocks, with the best chances through the summer around low water. The sand here is pale rather than black, which is unusual on this coast. Watching is from the shore and the colony is easily disturbed.