Things to do
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Library of Water
Roni Horn's installation in the old library building on the bluff, opened in 2007, where twenty four glass columns hold meltwater collected from glaciers across Iceland. The rubber floor is set with weather words in Icelandic and English. It is a quiet room with the harbour filling the windows, and it rewards sitting rather than circling.
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Bjarnarhöfn Shark Museum
A working farm under Bjarnarhafnarfjall where one family has cured Greenland shark into hákarl for generations, curing it in the ground and then hanging it in an open drying shed. The museum holds fishing gear, whale bone and a set of shark jaws, and the visit ends with a tasting. It is roughly a twenty minute drive west of the town.
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Waterfront
Breiðafjörður
The shallow bay between Snæfellsnes and the Westfjords, scattered with islands and skerries that Icelandic tradition holds to be uncountable, and protected by its own act of law since 1995. Boat trips run from the town harbour past basalt cliffs and nesting seabirds, dredging scallops on the way. The tidal currents here are among the strongest in the country.
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Flatey
The only island in Breiðafjörður still lived on through the winter, about two kilometres long and reached by the Baldur ferry from the town pier. The village of painted timber houses has no cars, a church and a library building of 1864, and it gave its name to Flateyjarbók, the largest of the medieval Icelandic manuscripts. The summer timetable allows a few hours ashore between sailings.
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Helgafell
A low grassy hill south of the town, held sacred by the settler Þórólfur Mostrarskegg in Eyrbyggja saga and the site of an Augustinian monastery from 1184. Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir of Laxdæla saga is buried at the farm below. Custom says three wishes are granted to anyone who climbs from her grave to the chapel ruin without speaking or looking back.
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Hotel Egilsen
A timber house of 1867 on Aðalgata, a minute from the harbour, run as a small hotel of ten rooms with wool blankets, books and no lift. Floors slope and sound carries, which is the price of sleeping in the oldest part of the town. Breakfast is included and parking is on the street.
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Norwegian House
Built in 1832 by the merchant and shipowner Árni Thorlacius from timber shipped in from Norway, and reckoned the first two storey house raised in Iceland. It is now the regional museum of Snæfellsnes, with the upper floors furnished as the family kept them. Allow an hour, and note the short winter opening.
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Stykkishólmskirkja
The white modernist church on the rise above the town, a curved concrete shell with a free standing bell tower that is read locally as a whale's ribs and as a ship's prow. The interior is a single lit space with a wall of glass behind the altar. It is used for summer concerts as often as for services.
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Súgandisey
A basalt island closing the north side of the harbour, joined to the town by a stone causeway and climbed by a stairway cut into the cliff. The small orange lighthouse on the flat top gives the standing view over Breiðafjörður and its islands. The walk takes under half an hour and is the first thing to do on arrival.