We got on the bus for any early transfer to Mývatn. It was an interesting journey across some varied terrain and scenery. Mývatn is the name of the largest inland lake in Iceland. It covers an area of 14½ square miles at a height of almost a thousand feet above sea level. After booking the holiday I was worried to discover that the literal translation of Mývatn is "Midge Lake", but apparently the two major swarms are in June and August. I experienced just a few bugs whilst I was there in July.
We arrived at the hotel Reynihlíð in the village of Reykjahlíð at the eastern end of the lake at about 10AM. Fortunately our room was ready for us so we were able to dump our stuff there.
The hotel Reynihlíð
We set off to walk around the local area. The main employer is the diatomite factory. Diatomite is the skeletal remains of single celled micro-organisms that live in the lake. It's used as an organic filter in the brewing and pharmaceutical industries. The factory sucks in the material from the bottom of the lake and uses geothermal energy to dry it. Having got to the factory we decided that it looked very much like any other factory so we went on to look at some steaming earth that we could see in the distance.
I wasn't so keen on the way the earth sounded hollow when walked on!
We returned to the hotel by the early afternoon for a rest. Later on we decided to take a look at the church that our room looked over.
The view from our hotel window of the graveyard of the church. The square of rubble is the remains of the church built on top of the remains of the church that miraculously survived the 1724 lava flows. Iceland seems to have a habit of disregarding history when building things
A simple, but nice, village church
The altar, as seen from the balcony
The evening meal was included in the price of the hotel so I enjoyed asparagus soup followed by a salmon steak with fresh, local vegetables.